A laser-driven “optical pinhole” unlocks distortion-free mid-infrared imaging for night vision and environmental monitoring.

Scientists observing from boats knew little of the underwater behavior of the world’s smallest marine dolphin, the Hector’s dolphin.

Now, a paper has revealed a hidden world—including an array of acrobatics. The research is published in the journal Conservation Letters.

Barrel rolls, dives up to 120m deep, and upside-down feeding near the sea floor were behaviors discovered through tracking devices.

Does alcohol enhance one’s foreign language fluency? Do West African lizards have a preferred pizza topping? And can painting cows with zebra stripes help repel biting flies? These and other unusual research questions were honored tonight in a virtual ceremony to announce the 2025 recipients of the annual Ig Nobel Prizes. Yes, it’s that time of year again, when the serious and the silly converge—for science.

Established in 1991, the Ig Nobels are a good-natured parody of the Nobel Prizes; they honor “achievements that first make people laugh and then make them think.” The unapologetically campy awards ceremony features miniature operas, scientific demos, and the 24/7 lectures whereby experts must explain their work twice: once in 24 seconds and the second in just seven words.

Acceptance speeches are limited to 60 seconds. And as the motto implies, the research being honored might seem ridiculous at first glance, but that doesn’t mean it’s devoid of scientific merit. In the weeks following the ceremony, the winners will also give free public talks, which will be posted on the Improbable Research website.

Researchers have developed an improved technique for making wave-height predictions that mitigate gaps in data coverage and encompass rare, dangerously high waves.

Google releases critical Chrome update patching zero-day CVE-2025–10585, discovered Sept 16, to block active V8 JavaScript engine exploits worldwide.

Zscaler reveals SilentSync remote access trojan hidden in two malicious PyPI Python packages, risking browser data theft and multi-OS compromise.

A new study shows that musically trained individuals have an easier time focusing on the right sounds in noisy environments.

From above, we all look like ants.

Phenolic compounds, especially flavonoids, are well-known and sought after in the pharmaceutical industry because of their antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-carcinogenic properties.

The researchers identified 79 phenolic compounds in three strains of Cannabis grown commercially in South Africa, of which 25 were reported for the first time in Cannabis. Sixteen of these compounds were tentatively identified as flavoalkaloids. Interestingly, the flavoalkaloids were mainly found in the leaves of only one of the strains. The results were published in the Journal of Chromatography A recently.

Dr Magriet Muller, an analytical chemist in the LC-MS laboratory of the Central Analytical Facility (CAF) at Stellenbosch University and first author on the paper, says the analysis of plant phenolics is challenging due to their low concentration and extreme structural diversity.

Most plants contain highly complex mixtures of phenolic compounds, and while flavonoids occur widely in the plant kingdom, the flavoalkaloids are very rare in nature,” she explains.