Science

When engineers lined canals across the dry American Southwest with concrete, they solved one problem while creating another. The hard surfaces helped stop precious water from disappearing into the soil, but they also stripped away the irregular edges, vegetation and sheltered spaces that aquatic life had used in the old earthen channels. Fish eventually returned,…

Prakhar Purohit. Image Credit: Young Scientists Lab Prakhar Purohit, a student from North Carolina, has earned recognition for a science project with a unique yet simple-sounding idea of ‘making tiny batteries from dirty water.’ His project, titled ‘Tiny Batteries from Dirty Water,’ was selected as the 2026 North Carolina State Merit Winner in the 3M…

A 13-year-old inventor has turned a family emergency into a device designed to help older people who may be alone when they fall. Kevin Tang developed FallGuard after his grandmother suffered a fall at home that resulted in permanent brain damage. The problem became harder to ignore when Tang learned that a friend’s grandfather had…

PC: US Department of Energy Solar farms are expanding across landscapes, but scientists still have questions about what happens to birds that live and move around these large arrays. Now, scientists and researchers at Argonne National Laboratory have developed an artificial intelligence-powered camera system that can continuously watch birds around solar panels and identify what…

Harshith Nelabhotla. Image Credit: Youth Scientists Lab Harshith Nelabhotla, an Ohio student, has earned recognition for developing a ‘Real-Time ASL Word Recognition System,’ a project that brings artificial intelligence to American Sign Language (ASL). His work has been named the ‘2026 Ohio State Merit Winner’ in the 3M Young Scientist Challenge, placing his idea among…

​Representative Image of a male Burmese python moving through South Florida wetlands in search of females (AI-generated image Wildlife researchers in the Everglades are using one Burmese python to help find another. Scientists at the University of Florida are fitting captured snakes with small radio transmitters and releasing them back into the wild, then following…

Jung was a celebrated psychologist Two people can wake up from the exact same vivid, strange dream and treat it in completely different ways. One dismisses it within minutes, filing it away as random mental noise generated by an unremarkable night’s sleep, forgotten entirely by breakfast and never thought about again. The other sits with…

High Street Dam Removal in the Taunton River Watershed Demolition crews in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, have completed the removal of the High Street Dam, taking down a 12.5-foot-high and 80-foot-wide concrete barrier that had blocked the Town River for more than a century. The removal has reopened 10 miles (16 kilometres) of continuous river channel and…

Representative Image of a bumblebee solving a task with a ball in an experimental arena (AI-generated image) More than a century ago, psychologist Wolfgang Köhler conducted experiments that changed how scientists thought about animal intelligence. In one of his best-known demonstrations, chimpanzees were faced with food placed out of reach and objects they could potentially…

Image: Left/ESA/Right/Nasa One thing that characterises science in its early stages is the fact that it all starts with the desire to find out more about something that is yet unknown to people. As Edwin Hubble put it in one of his famous quotes, “Equipped with his five senses, man explores the universe around him…

Image(s): Young Science Lab/Canva Ishanvi Sakharpe is a Virginia student using science and technology to address a problem affecting one of the ocean’s most recognisable animals. Her project, Dolphin Guard, was created with the aim of helping protect dolphins from dangerous human activity in marine environments. The young innovator’s work has now earned recognition through…

PC: By Taishonambu/Wikipedia Oysters can carry a type of bacteria that can cause serious and sometimes deadly infections in people, yet the shellfish can carry the microbe without showing the same kind of illness. The organism is Vibrio vulnificus, an estuarine bacterium that can become closely associated with American oyster tissues. Researchers have found that…