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Ancient Greek mystery cult priestesses may have chemically tweaked fungus to induce psychedelic hallucinations - By - Tom Metcalfe - published - 1 March 26 - Ancient followers of the Eleusinian Mysteries may have used a highly toxic fungus to create psychedelic hallucinations during their rituals, a new chemical analysis suggests.

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'Spiderwebs' spotted on Mars as NASA's moon program gets a major shakeup, tigers set to return to Kazakhstan, and why 'monogenic' diseases might not be so simple after all. By - Ben Turner - published - 28 February 26 - Science news this week - Feb. 28, 2026: Our weekly roundup of the latest science in the news, as well as a few fascinating articles to keep you entertained over the weekend.

1 day ago

Acing this new AI exam - which its creators say is the toughest in the world - might point to the first signs of AGI - By - Tristan Greene - published - 27 February 26 - Humanity's Last Exam is a PhD-level benchmark designed to test the limits of AI reasoning. Although Google's Gemini 3 scored a staggering 48.4%, experts stress that this does not indicate the arrival of artificial general intelligence (AGI).

2 days ago

The sun just experienced its first 'spotless days' in 4 years - but we're not in the clear yet - By - Harry Baker - published - 27 February 26 - Earlier this week, the number of visible sunspots on our home star fell to zero for the first time in 1,335 days. This normally indicates a period of greatly reduced solar activity, but it's still too soon to relax, experts say.

2 days ago

Inherited diseases don't work like we thought they did - By - Stephanie Pappas - published - 27 February 26 - "Monogenic" diseases, triggered by mutations in just one gene, may actually be more complex than scientists thought.

2 days ago

Humans and Neanderthals interbred - but it was mostly male Neanderthals and female humans who coupled up, study finds - By - Kristina Killgrove - published - 26 February 26 - A preference for pairings between male Neanderthals and female Homo sapiens may answer the question of why there are "Neanderthal deserts" in human chromosomes.

3 days ago

Chinese astronauts describe moment a crack was discovered on Shenzhou-20 spacecraft - By - Patrick Pester - published - 25 February 26 - Taikonauts from the ill-fated Shenzhou-20 mission have described what happened when they discovered cracks on their spacecraft as they prepared to depart China's Tiangong space station last year.

3 days ago

March could be the best month for the northern lights for nearly a decade - if the sun stays active

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NASA telescope spots first alien 'astrosphere' around a sun-like star: Space photo of the week

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Do you weigh more when an elevator goes up or when it comes down?

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Science history: Stephen Hawking writes a tiny paper - and turns our understanding of black holes inside out - March 1, 1974

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Scientists made AI agents ruder - and they performed better at complex reasoning tasks

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