Science

• Lunar New Year begins with the new moon on Feb. 17, 2026. • The holiday originated in China and now spans the globe. • Celebrations include family reunions, feasts, and tradition

• Illustration of dark craters near the moon’s south poleScience Photo Library / Alamy Illustration of dark craters near the moon’s south pole Science Photo Library / Alamy Scienti

• Just how small can a QR code be? • Small enough that it can only be recognized with an electron microscope. • A research team at TU Wien, working together with the data storage t

• For 40 years, scientists have been monitoring the Neotropical otter (Lontra longicaudis) along the southern coast of Brazil. • A study published in Estuarine Management and Techn

• Seal pups exhibit turn-taking in vocal exchanges, mirroring human conversational patterns. • Their calls converge over time, becoming more similar when pups interact closely. • R

• There is much debate about the role of social media in young people’s lives. • But what do adolescents themselves think about it? • In any case, they feel they are not being list

• Fairy wrens are everywhere. • Go anywhere in Australia and there will be at least one local fairy wren. • They’re not endangered. • In fact, it would be hard to imagine an animal

• Smart fluid: nematic liquid crystal microcolloids enable temperature-driven reconfiguration. • Researchers overcame long-standing limitation in self-assembly of micrometer-sized

• TongGeometry, an AI system, autonomously generates olympiad-level geometry problems for high-level competition. • It also solves these problems, matching human expert accuracy an

• Technology is making the ride-hail industry more accessible than ever, according to new research published in the Strategic Management Journal. • The study, conducted by academic

• Oak Ridge scientists uncover unexpected atomic arrangement in engineered tantalum‑tungsten‑selenium crystal. • Discovery suggests new pathways for spintronic devices and quantum

• What’s the key to growing resilient crops that can survive tough conditions? • Researchers at the University of Missouri are getting to the root of it-literally. • Researchers in

• When an electron travels through a polar crystalline solid, its negative charge attracts the positively charged atomic cores, causing the surrounding crystal lattice to deform. •

• A mystery novel, a history book, and a fantasy epic may have little in common in plot or style. • But count the words inside them and a strange regularity appears: many new words

• No one will supplant American and Chinese dominance in the space launch arena anytime soon, but several longtime US allies now see sovereign access to space as a national securit

• Adjusting the size and chemistry of nanocrystals within an ultrathin surface can speed up light-driven chemical reactions, according to a University of Michigan Engineering study

• Canine cancer patients receiving a new form of immunotherapy lived longer or shorter depending on the composition of their microbiome, the community of organisms living in their

• Astrophysicists from the University of Waterloo have observed a new jellyfish galaxy, the most distant one of its kind ever captured. • Jellyfish galaxies are named for the long,

• Humans have climbed to the top of the food chain by skillfully hunting, trapping, and fishing for other animals at scales that far exceed other predators, altering how the animal

• Fungi are often seen as mystical, yet remain largely overlooked in mainstream science. • The Manzanita butter clump is a rare yellow mushroom discovered only along North America'

• A global study has revealed the conditions under which non-native plants thrive in the world’s many dryland regions and the factors that limit their spread. • Using data from 98

• Extreme heat can have a devastating effect on seagrass, but new research from Edith Cowan University (ECU) could shape how these vitally important marine ecosystems are managed a

• Survival of the fittest. • Nature red in tooth and claw. • The common view of natural selection is based solely on the individual: A trait allows an organism to out-compete its r

• Tokamaks show asymmetric particle loss, with inner divertor receiving far more plasma than outer. • Excess inner divertor hits cause increased erosion, limiting reactor lifespan.

• RIKEN demonstrates low‑noise, high‑gain Josephson traveling‑wave parametric amplifier (JTWPA) for quantum computing. • JTWPA delivers microwave photonic circuit with unprecedente

• Playing a complex guitar solo ought to be impossible. • To elicit the desired torrent of notes, the fingers of one hand must move nimbly around the fretboard, while the other han

• Giant viruses, like mimivirus, carry genes for translation machinery, enabling them to hijack host protein synthesis. • Researchers isolated ribosomes from infected amoebae, reve

• A team from the University of Freiburg led by neurobiologist and behavioral biologist Prof. • Andrew Straw studied the flight behavior of honey bees. • Using a drone, the researc

• Dark energy is one of those cosmological features that we are still learning about. • While we can’t see it directly, we can most famously observe its effects on the universe-pri

• Deep inside the Greenland ice sheet are giant swirling plume-like structures. • These have puzzled scientists for over a decade, but UiB researchers now believe they have cracked

• Scientists have produced the first global map and analysis of small mare ridges (SMRs) on the moon, a characteristic geological feature of tectonic activity. • Published in The P

• The United Arab Emirates announced on Tuesday that it would extend its Mars probe mission, now in its fifth year, for an additional three, underlining the oil-rich state’s space

• China cut PM2.5 levels by roughly 30% over the past decade, improving overall air quality. • Strict vehicle emissions standards and a rapid shift to electric cars curb urban smog

• 14th‑century merchant ship sank off Singapore, now called the Temasek Wreck. • Archaeologists unearthed a 3.5‑tonne cargo of Chinese ceramics from 2016‑2019. • Finds confirm Sing

• In a recent study, University of Alaska Fairbanks paleontologist Matthew Wooller and his colleagues radiocarbon-dated what they thought were pieces of two mammoth vertebrae, only

• Triceratops and similar horned dinosaurs had unusually large nasal cavities compared to most animals. • Researchers, including those from the University of Tokyo, used CT scans o

• Researchers have shed new light on the features that enable tree-dwelling mammals to move effectively through their environments, providing insights into the evolution of the dis

• New research from the University of Copenhagen suggests that volcanic eruptions during the Ice Age may have triggered sudden climate change by disrupting the Atlantic Meridional

• When psychologist Darby Saxbe began studying how parenthood shapes the brain, she made a seismic discovery that upended a long-held assumption: that only mothers undergo major bi

• An international team featuring faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York has drilled the longest ever sediment core from under an ice sheet, providing a rec

• Email Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Whatsapp X You have full access to this article via your institution. • Download the Nature Podcast 13 February 2026 In this episode: 00:26

• Email Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Whatsapp X Chemist Dorothy Hodgkin mapped the structures of molecules using X-ray crystallography. • Credit: Mondadori/Getty TraversalMaria

• Email Bluesky Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Whatsapp X You have full access to this article via your institution. • HelloNaturereaders, would you like to get this Briefing in your inb

• What types of photos make people reach for their wallets? • New Stanford University-led research suggests that brain activity can help forecast which wildlife images will inspire

• Using the Very Large Telescope (VLT), astronomers have discovered a compact binary system consisting of two white dwarfs in the center of a nearby globular cluster designated NGC

• German physicists measured proton width with unprecedented precision using hydrogen atom transition. • Max Planck Institute researchers leveraged unexplored energy-level transiti

• Microplastics detected in droppings of freshwater birds across Europe • Study led by University of Glasgow, published in Environmental Research • Findings confirm widespread pres

• When light passes through materials, it typically changes direction and bends in predictable ways. • This change in direction, known as refraction, is caused by a change in the s

• Toxic metals found in bananas after Brazil mining disaster Toxic metals from a decade-old mining disaster may be quietly accumulating in bananasâ and could pose risks for young c

• Each year, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the reason that more than a million people die from infections that no longer respond to existing antibiotics, making AMR one of the

• Teacher retention remains a significant concern in Australia, with stress, burnout, and job dissatisfaction being major contributors to educators leaving the profession.

• For years, big tech companies have placed the burden of managing screen time squarely on individuals and parents, operating on the assumption that capturing human attention is fa

• Somewhere along the way to adulthood, time to play fades away. • We tend to trade silliness and imagination for seriousness and busyness.

• Ancient DNA solves 12,000-year-old mystery of rare genetic growth disorder A 12,000-year-old Ice Age burial has revealed the earliest genetic diagnosis of a rare growth disorder.

• Every living organism has its own genetic ‘blueprint’: the source code for how it grows, functions and reproduces. • This blueprint is known as a genome. • When scientists sequen

• James Cook University (JCU) research argues Australians urgently need better education about heat to prepare for longer, hotter and more dangerous heat waves driven by climate ch

• When you look out across a snowy winter landscape, it might seem like nature is fast asleep. • Yet, under the surface, tiny organisms are hard at work, consuming the previous yea

• Ultra-fast pulsar found near the Milky Wayâ s supermassive black hole Scientists at Columbia University working with Breakthrough Listen, a research initiative focused on searchi

• As sea level rise pushes saltwater farther into the Florida Keys, it is not only roads and neighborhoods that are at risk; it is also the record of the region’s earliest human hi

• One of the study’s participants asleep during the experimentMia Lux One of the study’s participants asleep during the experiment Mia Lux Your brain could be gently coaxed into wo