Rice University chemists replicated Thomas Edison's seminal experiment and found a surprising byproduct.

Ars Technica

Did Edison accidentally make graphene in 1879? - Ars Technica

ORLANDO When four astronauts begin a historic trip around the moon as soon as Feb. 6, they'll climb aboard NASA's 16.5-foot-wide Orion spacecraft with the understanding that it has a known flaw one t… [+4136 chars]

When four astronauts begin a historic trip around the moon as soon as Feb. 6, they'll climb aboard NASA's 16.5-foot-wide Orion spacecraft with the understanding that it has a known flaw.

KSL.com

NASA is about to send people to the moon — in a spacecraft not everyone thinks is safe to fly - KSL.com

As we get older, chemical marks on our DNA slowly shift. Now, a study reveals this 'drift' in gut stem cells is fueled by inflammation and disrupted cell signaling, and it may help explain why our ri… [+3395 chars]

As we get older, chemical marks on our DNA slowly shift.

ScienceAlert

A Hidden Warning Sign Discovered in The Gut May Increase Cancer Risk - ScienceAlert

Russian researchers are testing a new plasma propulsion system that may accelerate future missions to Mars, reducing travel time from months to just one or two. The engine, developed by Rosatoms Troi… [+4357 chars]

Russia is quietly testing a new space engine that could change everything about how we reach Mars. Early results suggest a leap in speed and tech no one saw coming, and it’s not coming from NASA or SpaceX.

Indiandefencereview.com

Russian Scientists Build Plasma Engine That Could Reach Mars in 30 Days, Leaving Spacex's Starship Looking Obsolete - Indian Defence Review

Clues buried in Moon dust are helping scientists revisit one of the oldest questions: where did Earths water come from? For years, a dominant theory proposed that water-rich meteorites delivered vast… [+3102 chars]

What if the key to Earth’s oceans had been hidden on the Moon all along? A surprising lunar discovery is turning old theories upside down.

The Daily Galaxy --Great Discoveries Channel

NASA Scientist Looked Into 50-Year-Old Moon Dirt, Here’s What He Found - The Daily Galaxy

A triangular artifact crafted from elephant bone was used by archaic human relatives to sharpen hand axes around 480,000 years ago in what is now the U.K., a new analysis reveals.
The item — which m… [+4387 chars]

The "very rare" find provides an extraordinary glimpse into the ingenuity of early human relatives who lived around half a million years ago.

Live Science

480,000-year-old ax sharpener is the oldest known elephant bone tool ever discovered in Europe - Live Science

It's Saturday! This week, in an eminently practical analysis of the Boltzmann brain conjecture, physicists put constraints on the idea that memories could arise from random fluctuations in entropy ra… [+5515 chars]

It's Saturday! This week, in an eminently practical analysis of the Boltzmann brain conjecture, physicists put constraints on the idea that memories could arise from random fluctuations in entropy rather than reflecting the actual past of the universe—news yo…

Phys.Org

Saturday Citations: A weird, extinct life form; cholesterol hacking; interspecies prosociality of whales - Phys.org

ESA astronaut Sawosz Uznaski-Winiewski has released breathtaking timelapse footage of Earth and the Moon, captured during his stay aboard the International Space Station as part of the Ignis mission.… [+2173 chars]

A Polish astronaut spent 20 days aboard the ISS and captured stunning timelapse footage of Earth and the Moon.

This Polish Astronaut Filmed the Earth and Moon from Space, It's the Most Beautiful Thing You’ll See Today - The Daily Galaxy

A composite image chronicling the path of January's full moon above the Paris skyline. (Image credit: Martin GIRAUD | @tinmar_g (Instagram))
Photographer Martin Giraud
 captured a breathtaking view… [+3069 chars]

The Wolf Moon is named for the hungry predators that sometimes can be heard howling in the winter month.

Space.com

January's full Wolf Moon leaps past the Eiffel Tower in stunning photo of Paris skyline - Space

Our personalities as humans are shaped through interaction, reflected through basic survival and reproductive instincts, without any pre-assigned roles or desired computational outcomes. Now, researc… [+6196 chars]

When large language models (LLMs) are allowed to interact without any preset goals, scientists found distinct personalities emerged by themselves.

AI can develop 'personality' spontaneously with minimal prompting, research shows. What does that mean for how we use it? - Live Science

NASAs Perseverance rover has officially crossed the 42.2-kilometer mark on Mars, surpassing the equivalent of a marathon. This achievement, announced just ahead of the rovers five-year anniversary, b… [+4036 chars]

NASA's Perseverance rover just passed the marathon mark on Mars, with new tests showing it's ready for many more miles ahead.

NASA’s Perseverance Just Major Milestone, and It’s Not Done Yet - The Daily Galaxy

A single Joshua trees ability to reproduce relies on several precise actions all happening at exactly the right time. First, the Joshua trees branches flower. Then, the yucca moth (the one and only p… [+4984 chars]

Joshua trees normally start flowering in February. This year, the bloom started in late October.

SFGate

Joshua trees are flowering in the Calif. desert. That’s bad news. - SFGATE

Before my morning jog at sunrise, I was delighted to receive the following email from a school teacher in Brazil:
Dear Professor Loeb,
I am Denise Pires, a teacher from Brazil. My 3rd-grade student… [+4895 chars]

Before my morning jog at sunrise, I was delighted to receive the following email from a school teacher in Brazil:

Medium

A Children’s Art Book Inspired by 3I/ATLAS - Avi Loeb – Medium

Close one eye, and focus straight ahead, without moving your eyes. You'll notice a fleshy blur in your peripheral vision — your nose. It's there every waking moment, yet you're hardly ever aware of i… [+3256 chars]

Our nose is right in front of us. So why don't we normally notice it?

Why don't you usually see your nose? - Live Science

A new study published in Communications Earth &amp; Environment is challenging long-held beliefs about the formation of Central Asias mountain ranges. According to researchers from the University of … [+6202 chars]

New research reveals that Central Asia’s rugged terrain was molded by the vanished Tethys Ocean, millions of years before the Himalayas even rose.

Lost Ocean That Vanished 100 Million Years Ago May Have Built Asia - Indian Defence Review

NASA and its partners will discuss the upcoming crew rotation to the International Space Station during a pair of news conferences on Friday, Jan. 30, from the agencys Johnson Space Center in Houston… [+6017 chars]

Next, the crew of NASA’s SpaceX Crew-12 mission will participate in a virtual news conference from NASA Johnson crew quarters at 1 p.m., also on the agency’s

NASA

NASA Sets Briefings for SpaceX Crew-12 Mission to Space Station - NASA (.gov)

A tremendously large cloud that blocked the light from a distant star has been found to consist of swirling winds of vaporized metal. Even more curious, the cloud appears to be strangely bound to a m… [+4356 chars]

"Stars like the sun don’t just stop shining for no reason."

A mystery object is holding this 120 million-mile-wide cloud of vaporized metal together - Space

A false-color brightness map of 3I/ATLAS, taken on January 22, 2026 in a 170 second exposure by the WFC3 UVIS (F350LP) camera of the Hubble Space Telescope (left panel). The map was processed through… [+4325 chars]

Good news. The rare cosmic alignment between the interstellar visitor 3I/ATLAS, the Earth and the Sun, was captured by the Hubble Space…

Hubble Images of 3I/ATLAS During Its Rare Alignment with the Sun-Earth Axis on January 22, 2026 - Avi Loeb – Medium

Footprints dating back 800,000 years have been uncovered on a beach in Norfolk, England, offering one of the oldest direct records of early human presence in northern Europe. Discovered at Happisburg… [+3769 chars]

A stretch of British beach has revealed something extraordinary: the oldest human footprints ever found outside Africa.

Archaeologists Found a 800,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Under UK Sand, And They're Perfectly Preserved - The Daily Galaxy

It's a well-known fact that supermassive black holes
 (SMBH) play a vital role in the evolution of galaxies.
Their powerful gravity and the way it accelerates matter in its vicinity causes so much … [+4840 chars]

Combining observations from several powerful telescopes, astronomers have detected a gargantuan, 'wobbling' black hole outburst that's as wide as an entire galaxy.