Science & Earth

A new modeling study by researchers including Austin Green suggests salt-rich patches of Europa's near-surface ice can become denser and weaker, detach, and sink through an approximately 30-kilometer ice shell, carrying oxidants and other chemicals toward the hidden ocean. NASA's Europa Clipper is scheduled to arrive at Jupiter in 2030 and will conduct close flybys to study Europa's ice shell and ocean in greater detail.

Johns Hopkins researchers used seismograph records to trace the breakup of China’s Shenzhou-15 module over Southern California in April 2024, and published their results in Science on Jan. 22. They report that seismic networks can record shockwaves from reentering debris and may help locate where fragments fall.

Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the EPA will recommit to eliminating mammalian animal testing by 2035 and to prioritizing New Approach Methods; the agency reported recent reductions in lab animals and use of alternatives in certain chemical evaluations.

Dozens of people at Varkala Beach in Kerala worked for hours to free a whale shark that had washed ashore in early December, and two rescue boats later towed the animal back to open water.

Gladys West, a Virginia-born mathematician credited with work that helped form the basis of modern GPS, has died at 95, Dinwiddie County officials announced; she spent decades at the Naval Proving Ground contributing to satellite data analysis, ocean sensing and planetary studies.

Blue Origin's New Shepard mission NS-38 carried six people above the Kármán Line on Jan. 22 after a late crew change, and the capsule and rocket returned safely to West Texas.

The UK government has proposed labels for new wood-burning stoves and firewood that describe pollution and health impacts, and would tighten smoke emission limits from five grams per hour to one gram per hour.

Park Ridge city leaders revisited a proposal to prohibit single-use plastic grocery bags at stores 7,500 square feet or larger, a measure under discussion since last summer. The council is expected to decide next month or in March and has asked staff to present ordinance text.

NASA released the Artemis II Official Flight Kit, which contains more than 2,300 items including historic artifacts such as a Wright Flyer fabric swatch, an Apollo-era flag and a Ranger 7 photo negative.

NASA's updated open-source AI, ExoMiner++, was trained on Kepler and TESS observations and flagged about 7,000 TESS signals as exoplanet candidates; the software is available on GitHub.

Governors declared emergencies as a winter storm is expected to bring heavy snow, freezing rain and subzero wind chills across a wide area; crews are treating roads with salt and brine while residents have been stocking up on supplies.

A Nature/PBS film follows male elephants in Kenya’s Amboseli, documenting individual personalities, variation in tusks and close social bonds while noting pressure from human development.

Archaeologists working in Fano, Italy, say they have unearthed a 2,000-year-old basilica identified from Vitruvius’s descriptions during redevelopment work at Piazza Andrea Costa. Officials described the find as historically significant and said investigations at the site will continue.

A study in ACS Central Science reports that frozen hydrogen cyanide (HCN) surfaces can promote reactions with water that produce polymers, amino acids, and nucleobases, and HCN is found across the Solar System.

Suni Williams retired from NASA after a 27-year career, having logged 608 days in space and completed nine spacewalks totaling 62 hours and 6 minutes.

Researchers report tan handprint stencils on cave walls in Sulawesi, Indonesia, that were dated to at least 67,800 years old by mineral crusts formed on top of the paintings; the study was published in Nature.

Demis Hassabis, known for AlphaFold 2 and his role leading Google's AI efforts, founded Isomorphic Labs to use AI to design drugs; the company has raised large funding rounds but has not yet advanced a drug into clinical trials.

For the first time since December 2000, no part of California is classified as dry on the U.S. Drought Monitor, after a season of strong storms and atmospheric rivers that replenished soils and reservoirs.

The James Webb Space Telescope's NIRCam has produced a higher-resolution image of the Helix Nebula that highlights dense cometary knots and color variations tied to temperature and chemistry.

A U.N. report warns that many rivers, lakes and aquifers are being depleted beyond recovery and notes around 3 billion people and more than half of global food production are concentrated where water resources are declining.

A 72-page UN report, prepared with Canada, describes a new era of 'water bankruptcy,' saying many freshwater systems are irreversibly depleted and that 2.2 billion people lack safely managed drinking water; the report was published ahead of a January 26 planning meeting for the 2026 UN Water Conference.

Suni Williams retired effective Dec. 27 after 27 years with NASA, and she returned from an extended 286‑day stay aboard the International Space Station following technical problems with a test Starliner capsule.

Rescuers removed part of the fishing gear from an entangled North Atlantic right whale off Cape Cod Bay; the whale left with rope still wrapped around its tail and follow-up sightings will guide further assessment.

A Current Biology study reports that Veronika, a 13-year-old cow, selected and adjusted sticks and brushes to scratch herself and met three scientific criteria for tool use.

Johns Hopkins researcher Mikala Egeblad received the 2025 Ernst W. Bertner Memorial Award for her work on how tumor microenvironments influence cancer progression. She joined Johns Hopkins in 2023 as Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Tumor Microenvironment.

A study published in Nature proposes that the Great Pyramid could have been built using internal pulley-like systems driven by sliding counterweights, and the authors say this model can account for a rapid construction pace and several interior features.

Researchers report a hand stencil in a Sulawesi cave has been dated to at least 67,800 years ago, making it the oldest directly dated rock art; the find is presented as early evidence of modern humans on islands between Asia and Australia.

The Ice Memory Sanctuary at Concordia Station has received its first ice cores and will store glacier samples from around the world to preserve climate records as glaciers decline.

The article says the U.S. spent about $250 billion on Alzheimer’s care in 2025 while research funding was roughly $4 billion, and it notes recent FDA approvals of three amyloid-targeting drugs with modest trial benefits. It proposes an Operation Warp Speed–style Alzheimer's acceleration fund, roughly $5–10 billion, to hasten preventive and disease‑modifying therapies.

A pet Braunvieh cow in Austria was observed selecting and using a broom to scratch different body parts; researchers tested the behavior and found she chose which end to use according to the area and reported the findings in Current Biology.