Science & Earth

An MIT study found that astronauts' brains tend to move backward, upward and rotate after time in microgravity, with some positional changes still detectable up to six months after return; a head‑down bed‑rest analog produced similar but not identical shifts.

A PNAS study using MRI data found that the brain tends to shift upward and backward and rotate after spaceflight, with larger changes after longer missions; most movement recovered over about six months though some differences persisted.

Researchers identified Paradoxophidion richardoweni from 31 vertebrae collected at Hordle Cliff in 1981 and archived at London's Natural History Museum; the fossils are about 37 million years old and show a mix of features not matching any single known snake lineage.

Helio announced it is positioning to lead the emerging space-based solar power market and highlighted a microwave power‑beaming architecture and its work with agencies including NASA and the European Space Agency.

A Nature Microbiology study linked excess alcohol-producing gut bacteria — including Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae — to auto-brewery syndrome, and reports one patient whose symptoms waned after repeated oral fecal-transplant capsules over 16 months.

A December 2025 study reported that offshore wind farms in Chinese waters were associated with increased benthic fish biomass and other physical, chemical, and biological changes to coastal waters.

Researchers estimate that of 93 mountain locations with current winter-sports infrastructure, roughly 52 would be reliably suitable by the 2050s and the number could fall to about 30 by the 2080s; the IOC is exploring a permanent pool of hosts and earlier event dates.

Portugal became the 60th signatory to the Artemis Accords, which set principles for peaceful, transparent civil exploration of the Moon, Mars and other celestial bodies.

A satellite image captured rippling ribbons of ice on Lake Michigan beside a snow-covered Chicago during a Jan. 19–24, 2025 cold snap linked to a sudden polar vortex expansion; about 20% of the lake was iced over when the photo was taken, GLERL reported.

A University of Texas study reports that ENSO (El Niño–La Niña) has been the main driver of extreme changes in total water storage worldwide over the past 20 years, often synchronizing wet and dry conditions across distant regions. Researchers used gravity data from NASA's GRACE and GRACE-FO satellites and probabilistic models to reconstruct gaps in the 2002–2024 record.

3I/ATLAS is reported as the third recorded interstellar object and is said to be leaving the Solar System after spending roughly 8,000 years in the Oort cloud. A livestream of the comet was scheduled for January 16 at 21:00 UTC.

Researchers using automated microscopy reported microplastics and nanoplastics in urban air at levels far higher than earlier visual methods indicated.

NASA announced that a Crew-11 member experienced a medical situation aboard the International Space Station on Jan. 7 and is reported stable, and Administrator Jared Isaacman ordered the crew's early return by SpaceX Dragon Endeavour within days.

The U.S. House appropriations minibus states it does not support the existing NASA‑ESA Mars Sample Return program; the bill now goes to the Senate for consideration.

Will Smith joined a 2022 National Geographic expedition that collected a scale sample from a 16–17-foot green anaconda; analyses announced in 2024 identified the northern green anaconda (Eunectes akayama) as a distinct species.

Mission controllers received full acquisition of signal from NASA's Pandora satellite on Jan. 11 after liftoff from Vandenberg; Pandora will observe at least 20 known exoplanets to study their atmospheres using visible and near-infrared measurements.

Pandora launched from Vandenberg into a polar Sun-synchronous twilight orbit and will observe 20 preselected exoplanet systems to help separate stellar signals from planetary atmospheres and support James Webb Telescope observations.

Two bones held for more than 70 years as woolly mammoth remains at the University of Alaska Museum of the North were radiocarbon-dated and identified by isotope analysis and mitochondrial DNA as belonging to a minke whale and a North Pacific right whale.

NASA's IXPE observed the white dwarf system EX Hydrae for nearly one week to measure X-ray polarization and examine the system's accretion geometry.

Researchers reviewed more than 1,700 studies and identified 59 primate species with documented same-sex sexual behaviors, and found links between these behaviors and environmental and life-history traits.

A review published in Nature Ecology & Evolution found documented same-sex sexual behavior in 59 nonhuman primate species, with repeated occurrences in 23 species. The authors report the behavior appears linked to social roles—easing tension, reducing conflict and building bonds—and to a mix of genetic and environmental or social stressors.

NASA awarded three-year contracts to seven companies to develop technologies for the Habitable Worlds Observatory, a planned space telescope designed to study exoplanet atmospheres; the agency aims for a late 2030s or early 2040s launch.

NASA says Crew 11 will return to Earth this week after a 'serious medical condition' affecting one astronaut; the agency says the crew member is stable and splashdown is scheduled for early Thursday.

NASA is asking U.S. industry, academia and other government agencies to rank consolidated technology shortfalls through Feb. 20, 2026, and has condensed 187 earlier shortfalls into 32 broader categories for stakeholder feedback.

Researchers at the EAST tokamak report achieving a "density-free regime" that produced plasma densities about 65% above the Greenwald limit. The result, described in Science Advances, used controlled start-up conditions and plasma-wall self-organization.

Meteorologists report much less winter snow across parts of the Himalayas compared with 1980–2020 averages, and researchers say snow persistence and winter precipitation have fallen in recent years.

A GPS-collar study of 87 subadult mountain lions in California found that roads and development limit young adults' movements, increasing population isolation and reducing genetic diversity.

Two men died in an avalanche near Longs Pass in the Cascade Mountains; two others survived and were evacuated, and the bodies were recovered the following day.

The Supreme Court will consider whether lawsuits by Louisiana parishes over coastal erosion belong in federal or state court; the article says oil companies invoke wartime contracts and the federal officer removal statute, and eight justices will hear the matter.

Astronomers reported that Cloud-9 is a starless hydrogen cloud about 14 million light-years away and the first confirmed RELHIC, and Hubble observations indicate it is embedded in roughly 5 billion solar masses of dark matter.