scienceWednesday, June 17, 2026
The biggest science news today is the abrupt dismantling of a major ocean monitoring network by the NSF, raising alarms about U.S. commitment to marine research. Meanwhile, a photo of humpback whales mating reveals same-sex behavior for the first time, and a study offers a new explanation for Mars's missing atmosphere. A few papers also advance materials science and quantum computing.
The NSF is pulling funding for the Ocean Observatories Initiative with no warning, dismantling a deep-sea sensor network that researchers call a 'telescope for the ocean.' It's a huge blow to marine science and signals a broader retreat from ocean research.
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Photographers captured the first documented humpback whale mating, and both whales were male. It's the first evidence of homosexual behavior in the species, challenging assumptions about whale social dynamics.
New research suggests Mars's ancient atmosphere and water weren't lost to space but got locked in the crust through chemical reactions with rocks. That reframes a long-standing mystery and could change how we look for past life.
Venus flytraps snap shut by rapidly softening their outer cell walls, not by moving water as previously thought. It's a neat discovery about a classic plant mechanism.
Oak Ridge connected a 20-qubit IQM quantum computer directly to Frontier, the world's top supercomputer. It's a practical step toward hybrid quantum-classical computing and IQM's first U.S. deployment.
Perovskite Materials and Devices Homepubs.rsc.org
Last European glassfishpalaeo-electronica.org
Long COVID risk by pre-infection symptoms and functional status: A retrospective cohort study of data from the All of Us Research Programjournals.plos.org
Old electronics could become a new gold and copper mine after university licenses recovery techwww.thecooldown.com
Could AI tell you where you left your keys?news.mit.edu
Reef relief: Scientists map 165,000km² of climate resilient coraloceanographicmagazine.comDateline geophysics lights up Californian rare earths huntwww.smh.com.au
Dateline Resources has identified three high-priority heavy rare earth element (HREE) targets at its Music Valley project in California, following analysis of airborne magnetic and radiometric survey data. The geophysical interpretation revealed structurally complex zones with po
This paper presents a tensor network compression method (using matrix product states/tensor trains) for extreme-scale scientific data, using fluid dynamics as a testbed. The method is demonstrated for one-dimensional compression, showing lossless compression for random Fourier se
This report introduces LOGOS (Language Of Generative Objects in Science), a scientific generative language model that unifies diverse tasks across the natural sciences within a single autoregressive framework. LOGOS encodes scientific objects and their spatial interactions as tok
AI’s environmental costs threaten water, land and climatenews.un.org
AI's growing environmental footprint extends beyond carbon emissions to include massive water and land consumption. Data centres powering AI could consume 945 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030 — nearly triple the combined electricity use of Pakistan, Bangladesh, and
Ask HN: What has been bothering you lately?news.ycombinator.com
The author reflects on the current state of "Scientific AI," noting that while LLMs accelerate digital process development—debugging, stitching together pipelines, and improving code for scientific tools—there is a lingering doubt about whether this truly advances science or just
Why eldest siblings are brainierecon.st
A new study suggests that the reason first-born children tend to outperform younger siblings in educational achievement and income may be related to germs rather than personality traits. While stereotypes portray eldest children as responsible and younger ones as rebellious, larg
Neural Cellular Automata: From Cells to Pixelscells2pixels.github.io
This article discusses Neural Cellular Automata (NCA), a computational model that operates on a coarse lattice of cells, using mesh vertices as an example. It explains how sampling points inside triangle primitives correspond to NCA cells, with local coordinates expressing positi
He’s studied procrastination for 40 years. Here’s what he’s learned.www.washingtonpost.com
Joseph Ferrari, a psychologist who has studied procrastination for 40 years, explores the psychology behind why people delay tasks. His research began during his PhD when he noticed a gap in experimental psychology literature on the topic. He has since examined procrastination ac
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