Our circumstances here on the wondrous, life-supporting Earth can give us a false understanding of what the Universe is really like. But our blue-skied, temperate planet is the extreme exception when it comes to other worlds. There's nothing remotely like Earth in our Solar System, and exoplanet studies reinforce that idea. While some exoplanets have hints of habitability, most exoplanets are extremely inhospitable.

Ultra-Short Period (USP) planets are one example of these hostile worlds. USPs follow orbits shorter than one Earth day long, meaning they're very close to their stars. They're so close that their surfaces are molten, and they've likely lost whatever atmospheres they had to their star's intense output. These planets are also imperiled: they can be torn apart by their stars' massive gravitational force, or even spiral into their stars and be totally destroyed.

Ever been late because you misread a clock? Sometimes, the “clocks” geologists use to date events can also be misread. Unravelling Earth’s 4.5-billion-year history with rocks is tricky business. < <Case in point: the discovery of an ancient meteorite impact crater was recently reported in the remote Pilbara region of Western Australia. The original study, by a different group, made headlines with the claim the crater formed 3.5 billion years ago. If true, it would be Earth’s oldest by far.

As it turns out, we’d also been investigating the same site. Our results are published in Science Advances today. While we agree that this is the site of an ancient meteorit

Microsoft has made another adjustment to the restrictions that it plans to place on Windows 10 customers who use Microsoft 365 apps (previously called Office 365), gradually incentivizing them to move to Windows 11.

You’re probably aware that Microsoft is discontinuing support for Windows 10 users this October, has it has said repeatedly for years. But it is also turning off support for Microsoft 365 apps like Word and Excel, too, on the same day: Oct. 14, 2025. Apps like Word will still work, and to ensure a smooth transition Microsoft will still support Microsoft 365 apps with security updates for three years, until 2028.

What’s new? Microsoft has clarified that “security updates” do not include “feature updates” that include new features.

“Devices running Microsoft 365 Apps on Windows 10 will receive feature updates until Version 2608 is released on the following dates: August 2026 for Current Channel (including all versions for individuals and families),” Microsoft says.

Since 1970, 73% of global wildlife has been lost, while the world’s population has doubled to 8 billion. Research shows this isn’t a coincidence but that population growth is causing a catastrophic decline in biodiversity.

Yet a turning point in human history is underway. According to UN projections, the number of people in 85 countries will be shrinking by 2050, mostly in Europe and Asia. By 2100, the human population is on course for global decline. Some say this will be good for the environment.

In 2010, Japan became the first Asian country to begin depopulating. South Korea, China and Taiwan are following close behind. In 2014, Italy was the first in southern Europe, followed by Spain, Portugal and others. We call Japan and Italy “depopulation vanguard countries” on account of their role as forerunners for understanding possible consequences in their regions.

Biodiversity continued to decrease in most of the areas we studied, irrespective of population increase or decrease. Only where the population remains steady is biodiversity more stable. However, the population of these areas is ageing and will decline soon, bringing them in line with the areas already seeing biodiversity loss.

While most farmland remains under cultivation, some falls into disuse or abandonment, some is sold for urban development or transformed into intensively farmed landscapes. This prevents widespread natural succession of plant growth or afforestation (planting of new trees) that would enrich biodiversity.

Astronomers have detected a giant exoplanet—between three and ten times the size of Jupiter—hiding in the swirling disk of gas and dust surrounding a young star.

Earlier observations of this star, called MP Mus, suggested that it was all alone without any planets in orbit around it, surrounded by a featureless cloud of gas and dust.

However, a second look at MP Mus, using a combination of results from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the European Space Agency's Gaia mission, suggest that the star is not alone after all.

The international team of astronomers, led by the University of Cambridge, detected a large gas giant in the star's protoplanetary disk: the pancake-like cloud of gases, dust and ice where the process of planet formation begins. This is the first time that Gaia has detected an exoplanet within a protoplanetary disk. The results, reported in the journal Nature Astronomy, suggest that similar methods could be useful in the hunt for young planets around other stars.

Ever since Microsoft announced Windows 11 almost four years ago, there has been significant controversy on a fairly regular basis about stringent hardware requirements that need to be met in order to legitimately run the operating system. A major concern revolved around the fact that Windows 11 mandates TPM 2.0, something that is not present in older processors, rendering otherwise perfectly fine PCs obsolete.

When an average person purchased a Windows 10 PC years ago, they did not ask the retailer if the hardware also included TPM. The customer may care about Windows Hello in their potential purchase, they don't care about how it's more secure through TPM 2.0. This technology, while useful, doesn't matter to your regular home user. Most people don't utilize or even know about BitLocker encryption, in fact, they'd probably be more concerned about the performance hit that could result from disk encryption.

The common Windows 11 user assumes that the operating system's security is built-in, and as long as they have a secure password that allows them to login to their PC and use it, they should be fine.

A newly mapped 7 km (4.3 miles) segment of the Concord Fault, now identified as the Madigan Avenue strand, has been confirmed as actively creeping beneath residential neighborhoods in Concord and Walnut Creek, California.

The Concord Fault is a major branch of the Pacific–North America plate boundary system in Northern California, linking the Bartlett Springs–Green Valley Faults in the north with the Greenville and Calaveras Faults to the south. Like many faults in the Bay Area, it releases some of its long-term motion through slow, steady creep rather than sudden earthquakes.

The newly defined trace, located 170–500 m (558–1 640 feet) west of previously mapped fault lines, represents a major shift in how seismic hazard is understood in the area.

Just a week had remained before scientists in South Africa were to begin clinical trials of an HIV vaccine, and hopes were high for another step toward limiting one of history's deadliest pandemics. Then the email arrived.

Stop all work, it said. The United States under the Trump administration was withdrawing all its funding.

The news devastated the researchers, who live and work in a region where more people live with HIV than anywhere else in the world. Their research project, called BRILLIANT, was meant to be the latest to draw on the region's genetic diversity and deep expertise in the hope of benefiting people everywhere.

The first thing that you'll notice about kākāpō — a type of large, flightless parrot found only in New Zealand — is how rotund they are.

They have endearingly round heads and bodies, owl-like faces and sturdy legs, and they are the biggest of all modern parrots; males measure up to 25 inches (64 centimeters) long and can weigh nearly 9 pounds (4 kilograms). Kākāpō are also one of the longest-lived birds in the world, estimated to reach 90 years.

The name "kākāpō" means "night parrot" in the Māori language, a reference to the birds' nocturnal habits. Though kākāpō cannot fly, they can walk for long distances and are agile climbers, clambering and leaping from trees using their shortened wings for balance.

Elon Musk has stepped away from Doge with very little “efficiency” to show for it. While it may have been more of a showpiece than real policy, this brutal and short experiment in Silicon Valley governance reveals a long-simmering battle between digital utopians and the institutional infrastructures critical to functioning democracies.

Doge’s website dubiously claims $190bn in savings. The receipts show that they are less about efficiency than they are aimed at effective dissolution, a fate met by USAID, the federal agency responsible for distributing foreign assistance.

Don’t be fooled. These brash new reductions are not just your garden-variety small-government crusades or culture-war skirmishes. This administration’s war on institutions derives from the newfound power of Silicon Valley ideology – a techno-determinism that views each institution’s function as potential raw material for capture by private digital platforms.

• Car hire companies are deploying new AI-powered scanning systems to detect even minor vehicle damage, sparking customer outrage over unexpected charges.
• Hertz, a prominent car rental firm, is using UVeye's automated technology at several US airports, which compares high-resolution images taken at pickup and return to identify new damage.
• Customers report receiving substantial bills for tiny imperfections, such as small dents or scuffs, often just minutes after returning their vehicles.
• Specific cases include Kelly Rogers being charged for a 'dent' she thought was a shadow, and another customer facing a $440 bill for a one-inch scuff.
• Despite customer complaints and plans to expand the system to over 100 US airports, Hertz maintains the technology ensures customers are not charged for pre-existing damage.