ScienceDaily

A new cooking method could make French fries crispier in less time while significantly limiting how much oil they absorb. Researchers propose combining microwave heating, which keeps oil out, with conventional frying, which provides the crunch consumers expect.

Sleeping well during a heatwave starts with stopping the home from overheating. Close blinds against strong sunlight, ventilate when the air outside becomes cooler, and avoid using heat-producing appliances during the hottest hours. Moving to a cooler room, choosing light bedding and using fans or ice packs safely can also make hot nights more manageable.

A liquid brushed onto cavities in seconds may spare many young children from pain, infection, and surgery. A major U.S. trial found that silver diamine fluoride stopped decay in more than half of treated baby teeth. The treatment requires no drilling, shots, or sedation, although it does permanently darken the decayed area.

Signals traveling from the gut to the brain may help turn meals into lasting memories. Rats showed stronger memory activity after consuming nutritious foods, but not after drinking sweet liquids with little or no nutritional value. Blocking the vagus nerve erased this effect and made it harder for the animals to remember where food had been located. Over time, diets high in fat and sugar also wea…

Deep beneath submarine volcanoes, Earth may be running a natural “gold kitchen.” By analyzing volcanic glass from the Kermadec island arc north of New Zealand, researchers found that water-rich mantle repeatedly melts beneath subduction zones, gradually concentrating gold in rising magma. The process works because intense melting breaks down sulfur-rich minerals that normally trap gold, releasing…

Europa’s hidden ocean has made the icy moon one of the solar system’s most promising places to search for habitable conditions. Scientists have hoped that water from this deep ocean might rise through cracks and form shallow reservoirs that future spacecraft could more easily study. New simulations suggest that journey is unlikely because turbulent water would rapidly lose heat, form ice crystals…

Bumblebees naturally have short lives, but extreme heat and human activity are making survival harder. Pesticides can poison bees or destroy the flowers they depend on, while habitat loss leaves them with fewer safe places to live and feed. Protecting native plants and using fewer chemicals could help these vital pollinators recover.

A grocery-store audit found that many foods marketed for toddlers may be far less healthy than parents expect. Of nearly 2,800 products examined in Texas, 81% were ultra-processed, and almost half failed at least one World Health Organization nutrient standard, often because they contained too much sugar, sodium, fat, or too many calories.

Deep beneath Japan’s mostly submerged Kikai caldera, scientists have discovered a vast magma reservoir that appears to be filling again. The volcano produced the largest eruption of the Holocene 7,300 years ago, and seismic surveys now show that fresh magma has likely entered the same underground system responsible for that catastrophe.

Rice University chemists have found a new way to make neodymium, a rare-earth metal, interact with oxygen. Using a specially designed molecular structure described as a “basket,” the team positioned the atoms so they could form a bond once thought unlikely. The breakthrough produced highly reactive compounds that could eventually give chemists alternatives to iron-based molecules used in biologic…

A weakening Atlantic current could supercharge California’s atmospheric rivers while leaving Greenland with fewer snow-producing storms. The changes could raise flood risks, strain infrastructure, and reshape water supplies far beyond the Atlantic.

A new analysis has precisely dated paintings in France’s Font-de-Gaume cave for the first time. Scientists discovered charcoal inside black pigments once thought to contain only minerals, allowing them to use radiocarbon dating. The results show that a bison was painted about 13,000 years ago, while sections of a mask-like figure were added during several widely separated periods.

Researchers found that insulin-producing cells depend on a team of helper proteins to keep insulin production on track. When one key partner was missing, damaged proteins built up and the cells made less insulin. Strengthening this system could offer a new way to protect the pancreas as diabetes progresses.

NASA’s Psyche spacecraft aced its Mars flyby, using the planet’s gravity to speed toward its 2029 encounter with a metal-rich asteroid. The spacecraft tested its cameras, magnetometer, and particle-detecting instruments, capturing unusual views of Mars and measuring its magnetic environment. It also detected neutrons from the planet and spotted the tiny moons Phobos and Deimos.

NASA’s Swift Observatory observed a supermassive black hole ripping apart a star more than 30,000 light-years from the center of a distant galaxy. The extraordinary flare briefly outshone its entire host galaxy in ultraviolet light and revealed a black hole about a million times the Sun’s mass.