Science

Fourteen-year-old Sharvi Mahajan has developed NeuroDrive Alert (Picture: Young Scientist Lab) Sharvi Mahajan, a 14-year-old Indian-American student from California, has been named among the 10 finalists of the 2026 3M Young Scientist Challenge. Mahajan has developed a system to predict driver fatigue before it leads to accidents.Sharvi, an eighth-grade student at Bernardo Heights Middle School,…

Image Credit: Getty Images Lithium is of utmost importance for modern technology. It is powering the smartphones and the huge fleet of electric vehicles. As the world is shifting towards clean energy, the demand for lithium is also increasing quickly, which is placing a huge pressure on land-based mining. However, researchers at Texas A&M University…

Left/Southern Ocean/Right/Southern Ocean on map/Image: AI Generated As the world searches for ways to remove carbon dioxide already accumulating in the atmosphere, ocean iron fertilisation (OIF) has emerged as one of the most debated climate intervention strategies. The idea is deceptively simple: adding tiny amounts of iron to iron-poor parts of the ocean stimulates the…

Communities dig water-harvesting pits to restore degraded land and improve soil moisture in the Sahel. For decades, the Sahel has symbolised environmental decline. Stretching nearly 5,900 kilometres across Africa from Senegal on the Atlantic coast to Sudan on the Red Sea, this semi-arid belt has endured recurring droughts, advancing desertification and repeated crop failures since…

Ecosystems work with each other no matter how far or disconnected they are. Animals and birds have impacts on each other’s lives and deaths. According to a new study, invasive rats on tropical islands are creating winners and losers among tiny underwater animals near the bottom of the food chain that inhabit surrounding coral reefs….

Image(s): Left/MSU/Right/Canva For decades, scientists have searched for cleaner alternatives to fossil fuels, looking everywhere from algae and bacteria to agricultural waste. In 2008, one of the most unexpected discoveries came from deep inside the South American rainforest. Researchers identified a microscopic fungus living quietly within the tissues of a tree that produced a mixture…

Lakshmi Agrawal (Image Credit: Society for Science) An 18-year-old student from Bellevue, Washington, has turned an agricultural waste product into a promising solution for one of the Pacific Northwest’s most pressing environmental challenges. According to the Society for Science, Lakshmi Agrawal won the $75,000 Regeneron Young Scientist Award at the 2026 Regeneron International Science and…

In 1823, British explorers Hugh Clapperton, Dixon Denham and Walter Oudney were some of the first Europeans to document the lake and the surrounding kingdoms. He was struck at the sight of one of Africa’s largest inland lakes. But two centuries later, about 905 of the lake’s surface area has shrunk, leaving only a sliver…

In the autumn of 1898, visitors at Madison Square Garden witnessed something that looked impossible. A small metal boat moved across a pool without a visible person guiding it. It changed direction, responded to commands, and appeared to act with a mind of its own. The demonstration came from Nikola Tesla, an inventor already known…

Most animals leave behind waste that quickly disappears into the landscape. But along Europe’s sandy tidal flats, one marine worm has adopted a remarkably different approach. Instead of scattering its droppings across the beach, it carefully stacks them into tall, coiled towers that seem to defy gravity. These delicate spirals have fascinated naturalists since the…