The 'Seven Sisters' just found thousands of long-lost siblings
12 November 2025 - Astronomers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have discovered that the famous Pleiades star cluster, the 'Seven Sisters' often spotted on winter nights, is just the bright tip of a much larger stellar family. By combining data from NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) and the European Space Agency's Gaia space telescope, the team uncovered thousands of hidden siblings spread across the sky, a sprawling structure they call the Greater Pleiades Complex. The discovery shows the Pleiades is 20 times larger than previously thought. (more)

The Seven Sisters star cluster is 20 times larger than we thought
12 November 2025 - For as long as humans have looked up, the Pleiades, also known as the Seven Sisters, have stood out - a compact cluster of blue-white stars that seems small to the eye but hides a vast galactic family. Astronomers have traced that family outward, uncovering thousands of long-lost siblings and redefining what we know of the Pleiades. (more)

Renewables overtake coal as world's biggest source of electricity
7 November 2025 - Renewable energy overtook coal as the world's leading source of electricity in the first half of this year - a historic first, according to new data from the global energy think tank Ember. (more)

From St. Basil's to Bondi: the brilliant 'beaver' supermoon - in pictures
6 November 2025 - The largest supermoon of the year, the so-called 'beaver' moon is the biggest and brightest of 2025, just 357,000 km from Earth. (more)

See stunning photos of November's full 'Beaver Moon' -- the biggest supermoon of 2025
6 November 2025 - The November full moon put on a magnificent show for stargazers on Nov. 5, as the largest and brightest supermoon of 2025 flooded the sky with reflected sunlight mere hours before it reached its closest point to Earth in its 27-day orbit. ...Photographers around the world captured a treasure trove of magnificent lunar portraits as the disk of Earth's natural satellite climbed over the eastern horizon last night, rising close to ancient monuments and modern skyscrapers along with breathtaking natural landscapes. (more)

The Nobel Prize in medicine goes to 3 scientists for key immune system discoveries
2 November 2025 - Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in medicine Monday [6 October] for discoveries about how the immune system knows to attack germs and not our own bodies. ...Experts called the findings critical to understanding autoimmune diseases such as Type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, and lupus. (more)

How to spot November's supermoon, the closest of the year
1 November 2025 - The moon will look slightly bigger and brighter Wednesday night during the closest supermoon of the year. (more)

Physicists detect rare 'second-generation' black holes that prove Einstein right . . . again
31 October 2025 - Physicists have analyzed two enormous black hole mergers that happened one month apart and have come up with tantalizing evidence that rare 'second-generation' black holes were involved. Scientists have found two pairs of merging black holes, and they think the larger one in each merger is a rare 'second-generation' veteran of a previous collision. (more)

US: Largest wildlife conservation easement in South Carolina announced, praised
30 October 2025 - The South Carolina Forestry Commission has announced the largest conservation easement in the state's history. ...The project, a collaboration with Resource Management Service and the Open Space Institute, aims to safeguard habitats and species along the Black, Pee Dee, and Santee rivers. (more)

US: Gov. McMaster, organizations celebrate largest conservation easement in South Carolina history
29 October 2025 - On Wednesday, various conservation organizations announced the largest conservation easement in state history. Officials said this will protect more than 62,000 acres of forestland across Georgetown, Marion, and Williamsburg counties. (more)

Music could help ease pain from surgery or illness. Scientists are listening
18 October 2025 - Over the past two decades, live performances and recorded music have flowed into hospitals and doctors' offices as research grows on how songs can help ease pain. (more)

JWST may have found the Universe's first stars powered by dark matter
14 October 2025 - Astronomers may have spotted the first evidence of 'supermassive dark stars' - ancient giants powered by dark matter instead of fusion. Their discovery could illuminate how the universe's first black holes and galaxies came to be. (more)

Wooden slats or rollers didn't transport Easter Island's Moai - the statues walked
10 October 2025 - People around the world are fascinated by how ancient civilizations managed to move massive weights for their iconic monuments without the modern technologies at our disposal today. One of them are the Rapa Nui people and how they transported their enormous moai statues (some weighing more than 80 tons) across the island. Now, using physics, 3D modeling, and hands-on experimentation, researchers have solidified what locals and legends have long said: the statues actually walked. (more)

Three scientists at US universities win Nobel Prize in physics for advancing quantum technology
7 October 2025 - Three scientists won the Nobel Prize in physics Tuesday for research on the strange behavior of subatomic particles called quantum tunneling that enabled the ultra-sensitive measurements achieved by MRI machines and laid the groundwork for better cellphones and faster computers. (more)

The first supermoon of the year is approaching. Here's what to know
5 October 2025 - The moon will appear slightly larger and brighter Monday night during what's known as a supermoon. October's supermoon is the first of three this year. It happens when a full moon is closer to Earth in its orbit. That makes the moon look up to 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the faintest moon of the year, according to NASA. ...Everyone in the world can see a supermoon without special equipment if clear skies permit. (more)

From rooftops to honey jars, Athens is abuzz with urban beekeeping
3 October 2025 - Dozens of Athenians have embraced urban beekeeping to support local ecosystems, reconnect with nature, and enjoy honey flavored by each neighborhood's local plants and flowers. (more)

A recipe for avoiding 15 million deaths a year and climate disaster is fixing food, scientists say
2 October 2025 - About 15 million deaths could be avoided each year and agricultural emissions could drop by 15 percent if people worldwide shift to healthier, predominantly plant-based diets, according to the EAT-Lancet Commission, which brought together scientists worldwide to review the latest data on food's role in human health, climate change, biodiversity, and people's working and living conditions. (more)

France: Paris is using the Seine to keep 800 buildings cool this summer, and locals love it
2 October 2025 - Paris has quietly pulled off an eco-innovation that benefits both visitors and residents alike. By channeling naturally cold water from the Seine through an underground network of pipes, the city now cools more than 800 buildings, from historic landmarks like the Musee d'Orsay and the Palais Garnier to modern office towers and cultural centers. (more)

US: California's first solar-covered canal is now fully online
2 October 2025 - A novel solar power project just went online in California's Central Valley, with panels that span across canals in the vast agricultural region. The 1.6-megawatt installation, called Project Nexus, was fully completed late inn August. The $20 million state-funded pilot has turned stretches of the Turlock Irrigation District's canals into hubs of clean electricity generation in a remote area where cotton, tomatoes, almonds, and hundreds of other crops are grown. (more)

Tribal artisans keeping India's crafts alive
30 September 2025 - Shweta Menon left her IT career to start Truly Tribal, a platform that revives India's traditional crafts, while ensuring fair earnings for artisans. Today, it supports over 500 artisans across 16 states, helping tribal art forms thrive with dignity and pride. (more)

Mexican entrepreneurs create vegan leather out of pricklypear cactus, helping save 1 billion animals a year
28 September 2025 - In 2019, Mexican entrepreneurs -- and longtime friends -- Adrian Lopez Velarde and Marte Cazarez Duarte threw their hats in the vegan leather trade by becoming the first people to make leather from nopales, or prickly pear cactus. In the last six years, Desserto has partnered with Adidas, Otterbox, Michael Kors, Fossil, BMW, and more to make plant-based outfits, shoes, bags, phone cases, watch bands, and whole car interiors. (more)

From war zones to city plots, grassroots growers are transforming land and lives
26 September 2025 - Across the world, from Ukraine to Zambia to south London, gardens are springing up and blossoming in some of the most unlikely places. They're doing so thanks to a rising wave of land defenders: people reclaiming the right to grow healthy food for themselves and their communities. (more)

US: The boom of backyard beekeeping in Florida
26 September 2025 - In Florida, you can keep bees in your backyard. That's a good thing because honey bees are vital to food and wildlife in the state. Despite threats like disease, habitat loss, and queen quality issues, bee populations are on the rise in Florida. Experts in the state say that's due in part to backyard beekeeping. (more)

Indonesia: This luxury resort in Bali has one request for its guests -- adopt a coral to save the reefs
24 September 2025 - The St. Regis Bali Resort has teamed up with the Nusa Dua Reef Foundation, aiming to give a new life to the coral reefs near its coastline. Together, they're working to restore fragile underwater ecosystems. Also, since 2018, St. Regis Bali Resort has started supplying its guest rooms with water produced in its own in-house bottling plant. This facility can produce and refill up to 10,000 glass water bottles each day. The resort also creatively turned 175 tons of food scraps and nearly 192,000 kilos of garden waste into nutrient-rich compost. (more)