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The most popular blog posts about science & space on Hacker News. 356 posts.
TL;DR I claim that modern science is synonymous with open source software. This post explains why, why it matters, and what you can (and should) do next. Why do you care about (open source) software? - Everyone I spend a lot of my time working on software. I have been asked why software matters more times than I can…
A largely overlooked space between cells in women’s brains may hold the key to understanding memory loss tied to estrogen decline after menopause, reports a new preclinical Northwestern Medicine study.
See how OpenAI, PerturbAI, and Scripps Research used distributed AI agents to uncover promising research leads in data from millions of brain cells.
Gland, Switzerland, 9 April 2026 (IUCN) – The emperor penguin and Antarctic fur seal are now both Endangered, according to The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™. Climate change in Antarctica is leading to changes in sea-ice that are projected to cause the emperor penguin population to halve by the 2080s, while…
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2026 was awarded jointly to Karl Deisseroth, Peter Hegemann and Georg Nagel "for their discoveries concerning light-gated ion channels and optogenetics"
Nobody in the comments is real
Humans are the only primates with a population-wide hand preference. A new Oxford-led study, 'Bipedalism and brain expansion explain human handedness', published in PLOS Biology, traces it back to bipedalism and brain expansion.
Thanks for this. These are the sorts of clearheaded questions that must be asked if discussions of advanced and/or extraterrestrial technologies are to move beyond pleasant speculation and “get real.”
Initial results from scanning through Excel files belonging to 600 published scientific papers.
Once completed the tunnel located in the Fehmarn Belt will hold the record as the longest immersed tunnel in the world.
A mouse study finds changes to DNA packaging form a molecular memory of trauma, making the brain vulnerable to future stress.
Open AI models used for a wide range of scientific applications, including accelerating the design of therapeutic molecules.
The planet next door may be rough, but it has a lot of atmosphere
The University of Granada participates in research linking a bacterium of the Roseburia genus with improved physical condition. This finding could lead to a probiotic for human consumption that helps maintain strength and fitness during aging. The study has been published in the prestigious scientific journal Gut
Several Egyptian gods are depicted with animal heads. Horus has a falcon head, Anubis has a jackal head, Thoth has an ibis head (except when he’s a baboon), and Set has…uhh, what is that, exactly? …
A major technological advance in DNA writing enables researchers to construct and create in the language of biology
The three brains in our body
Every spring, as sure as the seasons, and for generations unknown, screwworms began their annual march northward from their overwintering sanctuaries in Mexico and South Texas.
Hiking with Wallace, my 6" f/2.8 corrected dobsonian.
KNOXVILLE, TN (September 29, 2026) – GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GVH) today welcomed the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC) issuance of a construction permit to the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for a BWRX-300 small modular reactor at its Clinch River site in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.The permit is the…
Nicholas Polson has, by my count using his SSRN page, already written 258 working papers in 2026 alone. He’s already written (or at least published to SSRN), six papers today, August 26, 2026.
Study finds that healthy but sedentary individuals show early decline in cellular energy production.
arXiv, and the scientific community at large, are facing a watershed moment. Scholarly publishing is currently changing at a rapid pace, and we are seeing a…
Biohub, DOE, NIH, and partners will generate open, standardized data to train AI models that predict how cells respond to interventions.
[This is a guest post by Francesco Maggi. This blog post was initially written in a different file format and converted using AI. — T.] Large language models (LLMs) and the research systems b…
See how an MIT researcher uses GPT-5.6 Sol with Codex to autonomously run quantum computing experiments, analyze results, and calibrate qubits.
Scientists at Columbia University and Imperial College London have found that the largest canyon system in the solar system is still active and shaping Mars today, billions of years after it first formed.
Benchmarks & Tips for Big Data, Hadoop, AWS, Google Cloud, PostgreSQL, Spark, Python & More...
Launch of an experiment to use AI-Scientists to accelerate research of a "solved" disease.
