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Stories from Sara Hashemi

Estrogen may cause certain colon cells, shown in green in this microscope image, to release a hormone called peptide YY. This, in turn, causes a different type of colon cell, colored magenta, to pump out the chemical messenger serotonin, which activates pain-sensing nerve fibers.

Women Are More Likely to Have Irritable Bowel Syndrome. This Newfound Gut Pain Pathway Might Explain Why

The hormone estrogen—which female animals typically have more of than males—triggers a molecular cascade in the gut that leads to pain signals, a study in mice suggests

Michaela "Michi" Benthaus in the center with her five crewmates

This Aerospace Engineer Just Became the First Wheelchair User to Travel to Space

A brief commercial flight with space tourism company Blue Origin made Michaela “Michi” Benthaus’ childhood dream come true

Nanoflowers, which look white, can help healthy cells, colored yellow, deliver mitochondria, colored red, to nearby cells. 

A New Way to Boost the Powerhouses of the Cell Might Combat Aging and Degenerative Diseases, Lab Study Suggests

Creating mini mitochondria factories helped recharge damaged cells in a dish, providing proof-of-concept work that could pave the way to new regenerative medicine therapies

Six infrared images of Titan created with data from NASA's Cassini spacecraft

Saturn’s Moon Titan May Not Have an Underground Ocean After All

A new analysis of data from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft may upend Titan’s status as an ocean world. But it might still have pockets of water within a slushy ice layer

A female green hermit hummingbird

These Male Hummingbirds Evolved Straighter, Sharper Bills So They Could Better Joust for Mates

While female green hermit hummingbirds have curved bills, males’ straighter mouthparts are built for stabbing one another, a new study suggests

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, which is investigating a group of asteroids that share Jupiter's orbit around the sun, snapped this image on September 16 as 3I/ATLAS approached Mars. 

Interstellar Comet 3I/ATLAS Is About to Make Its Closest Approach to Earth. Here’s How to View It With Binoculars or a Telescope

On December 19, avid skywatchers can catch a glimpse of the mysterious visitor through powerful binoculars or a telescope when it’s around 170 million miles from our home planet

Illustration of a T lymphocyte white blood cell, depicted in blue, attacking a cancer cell, shown in red

Scientists Engineered Cancer-Fighting Cells Inside Patients’ Bodies—and Two Early Trials Show Promise

Two recent studies show the novel therapy works in people with multiple myeloma, but researchers are trying to minimize side effects

Orcas and dolphins might hang out together off the coast of British Columbia to hunt for food as a team, new research suggests.

Watch These Orcas Follow Dolphins to Snag a Salmon Feast. It Might Be the First Evidence of These Species Working Together

Off the coast of British Columbia, killer whales are tailing dolphins, and both seem to be rewarded with fishy meals. But not everyone is convinced it’s teamwork—and the behavior may hint at other ocean stressors

Supernova remnant Cassiopeia A, which sits within the Milky Way

Astrophysicists Found an Abundance of Odd Elements Essential for Life in the Leftovers of an Exploded Star

The surprisingly high amounts of chlorine and potassium in a supernova remnant could help solve the mystery of where these crucial elements come from

The Geminid meteor shower in 2017

The Year’s Best and Brightest Meteor Shower Peaks This Weekend. Here’s How to Watch the Radiant Geminids

A waning crescent moon should make for a fairly dark sky, allowing viewers to see up to 150 shooting stars per hour

The study inventoried thousands of mollusks, worms, crustaceans and other small marine creatures. 

Deep-Sea Mining Test in the Pacific Drastically Reduced Biodiversity and Animal Populations

The Metals Company wants to be the first firm to commercially mine the seafloor. The study it funded suggests that mining vehicles harm creatures in the machines’ paths

The Black Death may have killed more than half of Europe's population within just a few years.

A Volcanic Eruption in 1345 May Have Triggered a Chain of Events That Brought the Black Death to Europe

Ash from the explosion may have led to crop failure and famine in southern Europe, leading some Italian cities to import grain—which possibly carried fleas infected with the bubonic plague

An image simulating the contamination from satellite trails in observations by ARRAKIHS, a European Space Agency telescope planned to launch in 2030

More Than 500,000 Satellites Are Set to Orbit Earth by 2040. They May End Up Photobombing the Images Captured by Space Telescopes

Fleets of satellites interfere with snapshots taken by Earth-bound observatories. But a new study suggests these orbiters will also contaminate observations by four space telescopes, including Hubble

A savanna in western Maharashtra, India

Ancient Literature Suggests India’s Savannas Are Much Older Than Previously Thought

Plant species mentioned in texts from the past 800 years hint the wooded grasslands of western India have been there since ancient times, pushing back on the narrative that they are remnants of long-gone forests

The World Health Organization conditionally recommends the use of GLP-1 drugs, including tirzepatide, marketed as Mounjaro and Zepbound, for obesity treatment. 

Here’s What the World Health Organization Had to Say About GLP-1s in its First-Ever Guideline on the Drugs

The health agency supports the long-term use of the medications in combination with a healthy diet and exercise, and calls for equitable access to the drugs

The Burtele foot, discovered in 2009

The Human Relative Who Owned This 3.4-Million-Year-Old Foot May Have Belonged to a Species That Lived Alongside Lucy

Newfound fossils in modern-day Ethiopia suggest that the mysterious foot belonged to a recently named species, Australopithecus deyiremeda. The finding could alter the story of human evolution

A male golden pheasant (Chrysolophus pictus) with its vision-obscuring head feathers. 

For Some Male Pheasants, Love Really Is Blind. Their Elaborate Feathers That Impress Females Also Obstruct Their Vision

The adornments on the heads of male Lady Amherst’s and golden pheasants partially block their sight, according to new research, marking the first known sex-based differences in field of vision within bird species

Pigeons can sense magnetic fields via their inner ears, new research suggests.

Pigeons Rely on the Earth’s Magnetic Field to Navigate. Now, Researchers May Have Uncovered How They Do It

The vestibular system, a set of structures in the inner ears that helps with balance, may grant the birds their special ability

An artist's impression of the collision between the early Earth and Theia, which may have formed the moon

A Planet Slammed Into Earth 4.5 Billion Years Ago, Forming the Moon. The Projectile May Have Been Our Neighbor

Little is known about the long-destroyed moon-forming planet, Theia. But it may have been born in the inner solar system—just like Earth—a new study suggests

The new research may help scientists and conservationists better monitor African lion populations. 

Listen to a Lion’s Second Type of Roar, Which Was Just Discovered by Scientists

Researchers uncovered the previously unknown vocalization while creating an algorithm that can identify and monitor lions based on audio recordings

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