A new study has succeeded in mapping, on a global scale, the fungal network that supports plant life and helps regulate our planet's climate. Beneath the Earth's surface lies an extraordinary underground fungal network of almost unimaginable scale. An international team of researchers has, for the first time, produced a global map of this vast mycorrhizal network--the system of fungal filaments that forms mutually beneficial partnerships with plants across the planet. They estimate that the network stretches for roughly 110 quadrillion kilometers in total, nearly 1 billion times the distance between the Earth and the sun. The findings were published in Science. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AM fungi) form underground networks that support plant life and help regulate the Earth's climate.

The sun's violent death could look like this A white dwarf and an unusual exoplanet hint that'stellar death is not the end.' More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy . The sun still has a long life ahead of it, say five billion years or so.

I am on holiday later this month, so I'm pleased to find there's a really wide range of intriguing new science fiction to take with me. I'm particularly keen to get cracking on a tale by Sheila Armstrong about strange ancient things found in a bog, but I'm also excited to read a new book by one of my favourite authors, Paul Tremblay (even if it does sound very disturbing). And I'm looking forward to the high-concept thrillers and classic space-set sci-fi on offer, too - not forgetting the first new novel released in 30 years. This sounds a little -like and ideal summer reading for those of us who enjoy a good high-concept thriller. It's set in a near future where you can outsource your emotional pain thanks to a biotech company, Eudaimonia.

For 40 years, we thought Earth was home to six million insect species. Turns out, it could be three times that. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Insect species make up the largest percentage of Earth's known species. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week.

More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Discovered in 2013, the Pink Planet orbits a sun-like star located 57 light-years from Earth. At roughly 25 times the mass of Jupiter, it sits near the fuzzy boundary between giant planets and brown dwarfs. So, astronomers refer to it as a "planetary-mass companion," meaning that it's a planet-sized object orbiting a star. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week.

OpenAI Launches Full-Scale Effort to Patch Open-Source Bugs as It Takes on Anthropic's Mythos Amid concerns about AI models' cybersecurity capabilities, OpenAI revealed an improved version of GPT-5.5-Cyber and its "Patch the Planet" initiative to fix open-source software bugs. As fears about AI hacking capabilities grow, OpenAI on Monday made a slew of cybersecurity-focused announcements, including an improved version of its limited-access security-specialized model GPT-5.5-Cyber, As advances across the AI industry leave critical open-source projects at increasing risk of falling behind, though, the company also said on Monday that it is launching an effort known as Patch the Planet, founded with the prominent research-focused security firm Trail of Bits and in collaboration with vulnerability management firms HackerOne and Calif. The project has already begun its work offering free security consulting services to open source maintainers to not only help them find and patch vulnerabilities, but also support them in strengthening their code bases and incorporating AI security tools into their development process. The idea is to give individualized support to as many open-source projects as possible to improve both their current security and long-term resilience in a way that will actually be sustainable.

We present a systematic theoretical framework that interprets masked diffusion models (MDMs) as solutions to energy minimization problems in discrete optimal transport. Specifically, we prove that three distinct energy formulationskinetic, conditional kinetic, and geodesic energyare mathematically equivalent under the structure of MDMs, and that MDMs minimize all three when the mask schedule satisfies a closed-form optimality condition. This unification not only clarifies the theoretical foundations of MDMs, but also motivates practical improvements in sampling. By parameterizing interpolation schedules via Beta distributions, we reduce the schedule design space to a tractable 2D search, enabling efficient post-training tuning without model modification. Experiments on synthetic and real-world benchmarks demonstrate that our energy-inspired schedules outperform hand-crafted baselines, particularly in low-step sampling settings.

A new map explores the vast underground world supporting all life on Earth. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. The length of fungi networks is almost a billion times the distance between Earth and the sun. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy .

AS A sci-fi fan, you learn not to dwell on the films that could have been. Whether it's Alejandro Jodorowsky's unmade Dune, Guillermo del Toro's cancelled take on At the Mountains of Madness, or the versions of Return of the Jedi that Davids Lynch and Cronenberg could have made, it's best not to torture yourself over cinematic what-ifs. That's why I had given up hope of there being a new instalment of the most underrated sci-fi film franchise of the 21st century so far. Though well received by critics and audiences alike, none of the four films have won Oscars or seem to have made much of an impact on pop culture. But then, earlier this month, we got confirmation that a fifth movie was on the way.

Trump's hidden five-tap code in handshake with Xi... and the tell-tale'bullfrog smile' that betrayed the president How Kylie Kelce REALLY feels about Taylor Swift after her foul-mouthed wedding rant: Insiders reveal stark'differences' between the sisters-in-law... and truth about'feud' What REALLY goes on in some Equinox steam rooms: Gym insiders reveal eye-popping indecency... secret towel signals used by experimental married men... and clubs with most'aggressive' locker rooms Xi greets Trump with ominous warning about risk of war between US and China: 'Beware the Thucydides Trap' Inside Eric Swalwell's marriage implosion: Disgraced Democrat nowhere in sight at family home as his furious wife appears without her ring and delivers ultimate insult Home Depot and Lowe's use sneaky cameras in theft crackdown - but honest customers are the real victims Buster Murdaugh's explosive reaction as his father's murder conviction is overturned: Insiders reveal all about his secret new life... and jailhouse calls with Alex Inside Carrie Underwood's'grounded' and'traditional' home life on her 400-acre Tennessee farm Grotesque new Michael Jackson allegations raise questions about his accusers so taboo they're almost impossible to ask... but we must: MAUREEN CALLAHAN Kylie Jenner and Timothee Chalamet's mortifying relationship secrets exposed: Her'jealousy'... his pleas for'space'... and why he's now finally'on board' with a proposal Beautiful young mom appeared to have it all. Now her two toddlers are dead after falling into a pool while on COCAINE... and her own parents allegedly made very troubling comments about her Walmart axes 1,000 workers as white-collar jobs bloodbath reaches America's biggest private employer Grief author Kouri Richins gives 40-minute rant about love and calls husband's poisoning murder a'tragedy' as she learns fate in Moscow Mule slaying... and sends deranged message to her sons This miracle drug rapidly reversed my balding. It wrecked my sex life... but a microdosing hack gave me my libido and my hair back MORE: FBI files reveal reports of'four-foot tall' beings emerging from UFOs Scientists have announced a groundbreaking discovery lurking beyond our solar system that rewrites humanity's understanding of the cosmos. A new study led by Princeton University in New Jersey identified more than 10,000 new possible planets trillions of miles from Earth. That included at least 11 worlds described by scientists as'super-Earths.'