A new study suggests that the compounds introduced to replace CFCs and protect the ozone layer have quietly created a separate, global contamination problem with forever chemicals.
CFC replacements release persistent fluorinated compounds into the atmosphere, which fall with rain.
The substances reach areas with no local industry, from the Arctic to tropical forests.
Current PFAS pollution models are said to underestimate the atmospheric contribution.
Long before our ancestors could make fire from scratch, they were collecting embers from natural blazes and carrying them — a finding that rewrites the history of human fire use.
Evidence shows fire transport predates deliberate fire-making by a significant margin.
Early hominins collected embers from natural blazes and kept them alive while travelling.
The discovery points to planning abilities far older than previously recognised.
Researchers found that children aged 10–14 who spend at least two hours daily on social platforms face a significantly higher risk of mental health problems.
More than two daily hours on social media raises mental health risks for teenagers.
The study focuses on ages 10–14, seen as the most vulnerable window for platform exposure.
The statistical link is robust, but researchers stop short of confirming direct causation.
A new study finds that hippocampal cells keep firing even when patients are fully unconscious under general anesthesia, challenging long-held models of the unconscious brain.
The hippocampus remains active in patients under general anesthesia, the study shows.
The finding challenges the classical model of unconsciousness as uniform brain silence.
The research raises open questions about what the brain processes without awareness.
Researchers argue the sudden acceleration in America's fertility decline maps closely onto the rise of smartphones — and say the evidence goes beyond coincidence.
The sharpest drop in US birth rates coincides with the mass adoption of smartphones.
The study adds a behavioural factor to existing economic and contraceptive explanations.
The findings have implications for demographic policy across all developed nations.
A gravitational anomaly hidden behind the galactic plane is drawing our entire group of galaxies at a speed that dwarfs anything in everyday human experience.
The Milky Way moves at ~600 km/s toward a gravitational anomaly known as the Great Attractor.
The structure lies 250 million light-years away, partly hidden behind our galaxy's own dust.
Astronomers have mapped the area as part of Laniakea, a supercluster of 100,000 galaxies.
New evidence shows the six-tonne megalit at the heart of Stonehenge was deliberately transported from a remote corner of Britain thousands of years ago.
The Altar Stone weighs six tonnes and is estimated to have travelled around 700 km.
New analyses suggest its origin lies in the far north of Britain, likely Scotland.
Its transport remains one of the greatest logistical feats of European prehistory.