Top posts
Every blog post that took off on Hacker News, ranked by the votes of its best submission. 2,418 posts.
Scientists make huge dataset of nearby stars available to public
Members of the public can search a newly released database of 1,600 stars to find signs of undiscovered exoplanets. The dataset, taken over two decades by the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, comes with an open-source software package and an online tutorial.
New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages
Linguistics and genetics combine to suggest a new hybrid hypothesis for the origin of the Indo-European languages
Where does air pollution come from?
A breakdown of the sources of many air pollutants that damage our health and ecosystems.
First observation of a virus attaching to another virus
Pairs of viruses where one needs the other to reproduce are well documented, but no one has ever see one virus directly attached to another. "I can’t...
Treating children for worms yields long-term benefits, says new study
Children who receive a few extra years of deworming treatment eventually have better jobs, higher incomes, says study led by Berkeley economist Edward Miguel.
Sleep research led to a new sleep apnea drug
A University of Toronto professor’s research on the physiology of sleep and breathing has paved the way for a new sleep apnea treatment that recently reported positive results in a phase 3 clinical trial.
Progress toward fusion energy gain as measured against the Lawson criteria
Today we’ve released a pre-publication version of an update to our 2022 paper “Progress toward fusion energy breakeven and gain as measured against the...
Study Reveals Immune Driver of Brain Aging
Scientists have identified a key factor in mental aging and shown that it might be prevented or reversed by fixing a glitch in the immune system's front-line soldiers.
Do success stories cause false beliefs about success?
Does explicitly acknowledging bias make us less likely to make biased decisions? A new study examining how people justify decisions based on biased data finds that this is not necessarily the case.
When muscles work out, they help neurons to grow, a new study shows
Exercise can have benefits at the level of neurons, through chemical and mechanical effects, MIT researchers find. The discovery could inform exercise-related therapies for repairing damaged and deteriorating nerves.
Research team discovers breakthrough with potential to reverse Alzheimer's
Wayne Chen's lab at UCalgary identifies a way to interrupt and prevent progression of devastating condition
Cornell researchers see atoms at record resolution
Cornell researchers have topped their own record for atomic resolution with an electron microscope pixel array detector that incorporates sophisticated 3D reconstruction algorithms.
'Visual clutter' alters information flow in the brain
Too much stuff in the periphery of our vision can make it difficult to identify what we’re seeing. Yale researchers now know how that clutter affects the brain.
Scientists find massive reserves of mercury in permafrost
Researchers have discovered permafrost in the northern hemisphere stores massive amounts of natural mercury, a finding with significant implications for human health and ecosystems worldwide.
SR-71 Blackbird Speed Check Story
There were a lot of things we couldn't do in an SR-71, but we were the fastest guys on the block and loved reminding our fellow aviators of this...
Modification of acetaminophen to reduce liver toxicity and enhance drug efficacy
2025 Science Talent Search Project Showcase: Chloe Yehwon Lee, 17, of Murphy, explored a way to lower the toxic effects of acetaminophen (Tylenol) on the liver for her Regeneron Science Talent Search chemistry project.
Astronomers may have found the first exomoon
Observations made with the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) have revealed evidence for a moon-like object in the CD-35 2722 system. Unlike moons in our Solar System, the newly found object does not orbit a planet, raising questions about what to name it. Instead, it circles a brown…