You’re on the fourth human mission to Mars, and you’ve been tasked with establishing the first self-sustaining food crop on a Martian settlement. You’re nervous because you’re using a new type of fungi called beneficial fungi, which you’re told will help enhance the Martian regolith, enabling it to be used for growing crops.

While growing crops on Mars using fungi might be decades away, this hasn’t stopped an international team of scientists from the United States and Brazil from pushing the limits of enhancing crop production through non-traditional methods.

With their findings published in the journal Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, the researchers discuss how ...

While many American adults are trying to reduce cholesterol levels, certain cancerous tumors have a relentless appetite for the metabolite. Some tumor cells use as much cholesterol as they can access to accelerate their growth beyond the capabilities of normal cells.

Turning tumors’ cholesterol cravings into weakness
Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and their collaborators at the University of Illinois Chicago have published findings in Science Advances regarding a potential method for turning the tables on these tumors by subverting their cholesterol cravings. The researchers revealed new insights into enzymes that help move cholesterol around cells...

2D nanocavity exciton polaritons. (a) Schematic of the coupled TMD-PhC nanocavity. (b) Schematic of the gate-tunable TMD stack. (c) Scanning electron microscope image of the suspended Si₃N₄ nanobeam cavity, with the inset showing the simulated cavity mode profile. The dark area is suspended from the SiO₂ substrate. Scale bar, 500 nm. Credit: Physical Review Letters (2026). DOI: 10...

A record-shattering particle from deep space may have exposed some of the universe’s most extreme black hole engines. A mysterious particle from deep space has scientists buzzing after the most energetic neutrino ever detected slammed through the Mediterranean Sea. Now, researchers think they may have identified the cosmic “culprits” behind it: blazars — supermassive black holes blasting jets of matter straight toward Earth.

Three years ago, scientists detected something extraordinary deep beneath the M...