181
Light without electricity? Glowing algae could make it possible
CU Boulder researchers have developed 3D-printable materials embedded with living bioluminescent algae that can produce sustained light.
Topics /
Science & Space
The most popular blog posts about science & space on Hacker News. 197 posts.
182
Pink noise reduces REM sleep and may harm sleep quality
Potential sleep solutions like “pink noise” & other ambient noises worsened sleep quality, while earplugs protected sleep, in a study on the effects of aircraft noise on sleep.
183
Heavy TV watching associated with smaller brain structures, study finds
Reduced volume was found in areas of the brain connected to memory formation, indicating a potential link between TV watching and higher dementia risk.
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Silent speech with ultrasound
We trained a model to predict speech from ultrasound video of the tongue, no speaking required. It reads open text, generalizes across people, and reaches a 15.6% word error rate on open-vocabulary speech.
186
The True Shape of Io's Steeple Mountain
Popular images of the Jovian moon Io’s famed Steeple Mountain turn out to be misinformed. How the Inquisitive team figured that out, and what Steeple Mountain really looks like!
187
Space Shuttle Endeavour's 20-story vertical display
The California Science Center has begun the complex process of moving components into place for space shuttle Endeavour’s awe-inspiring vertical display.
188
Rubin Observatory's first LSST Camera release: 500k galaxies in the COSMOS field
A new image from NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory offers a spectacularly deep view into a famous region of sky known as the COSMOS field. Located in the constellation Sextans, COSMOS is one of the most observed patches of the Universe — and Rubin’s new image adds a powerful new view of this well-known cosmic landmark.
189
Making espresso with ultrasound
Researchers at UNSW Sydney have harnessed the power of ultrasonic sound waves to make espresso-strength coffee with room temperature water, cutting energy use by up to 75%.
190
SETI Home Flags 100 Signals After Sorting 12B Others
UC Berkeley’s SETI@home, one of the most popular crowd-sourced research projects ever, turned up some 12 billion signals of interest. A lengthy analysis found 100 worth another look.
191
Vitamin D supplements cut heart attack risk by 52%. Why?
A new randomized control trial tested personalized vitamin D supplementation based on blood test results.
192
New 'negative light' technology hides data transfers in plain sight
Researchers have developed a ‘negative luminescence’ system to create an innovative way of sending hidden information.
193
Uncharted island soon to appear on nautical charts
A 93-strong international expedition team has been exploring the northwestern Weddell Sea in the Antarctic on board the Alfred Wegener Institute's icebreaker Polarstern since 8 February 2026. In this key region for global ocean currents, the focus has been on the outflow of ice and water from the Larsen Ice Shelf and…
194
AI for scientific discovery: How researchers use Claude
We analyzed 207,000 research sessions to learn how Claude is used in science, why some tasks get more use than others, and how AI could speed up discovery.
195
A solid-state “atomic channel” for separating rare earth elements
Rare earth elements like lanthanum, neodymium, and dysprosium are used to build the electric motor in your car, the LED lights in your house, and the MRI machine at your doctor’s office.
196
GPT‑Rosalind for life sciences research
OpenAI introduces GPT-Rosalind, a frontier reasoning model built to accelerate drug discovery, genomics analysis, protein reasoning, and scientific research workflows.
197
Autism is genetic – and why this information matters now
Dr Judith Brown is our Head of Autism Knowledge and Expertise. In this blog, she explains why our charity is updating our advice and guidance to state definitively that autism is genetic.