Feb 10, 2026 3:48 PM
This week, science discoveries include a new type of levitating "time crystal," an octopus-inspired "smart skin," and a mysterious structure on Venus.
Above: The surface of Venus, produced using SAR imagery by NASA's Magellan mission (Credit: NASA/JPL)This week in stories we're covering at The Debrief... a new type of levitating "time crystal" has been discovered, and it appears to defy one of Newton's laws. Elsewhere, this octopus-inspired "smart skin" can achieve the remarkable... but can it encode information too? Finally, a massive structure has been discovered beneath the surface of Venus, and in our reporting, we take a look at how the discovery was made and what it could potentially mean.
Meanwhile, for all those avid readers out there, here's a roundup of all the latest stories we're covering right now at The Debrief:
- NASA Images Reveal Odd “Slithering” Impressions Across the Lunar Surface—This is Their Surprising Source A bizarre-looking series of features on the Moon, captured in NASA imagery, appears to resemble the pathway of an enormous serpent slithering across the lunar surface.
- Physicists Are Seeking a Mysterious Unseen Force That Science Can’t Explain—And These Detectors Could Finally Reveal It Physicists are building detectors so sensitive that they may succeed in unraveling one of the greatest mysteries in modern physics: the true nature of dark matter.
- 12,000-Year-Old Discovery in an Oregon Cave Reveals First Evidence of a “Complex” Ancient American Technology A 12,000-year-old discovery offers a rare glimpse into the emergence of complex technologies used by America’s early inhabitants.
- Quantum Scale Breakthrough: Scientists Measure Ultra-Short Events Lasting Just Attoseconds Scientists have demonstrated a new method for measuring how long ultrashort events, such as quantum tunneling, last at the quantum scale of time.
- Thousands of Alien Plant Species Could Soon Take Root in the Arctic A recent study published in NeoBiota indicates that thousands of non-native plant species could now find suitable conditions in the Arctic.
- Ring’s Super Bowl Ad Revealed How Comfortable—and Uncomfortable—We’ve Become With AI Surveillance For some, Ring’s Super Bowl ad for Search Party raises concerns over AI surveillance, privacy, and how tech is reshaping daily life.
- James Webb Space Telescope Spots Early-Universe Galaxy Collisions, Complicating Our Understanding of the Ancient Cosmos Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have discovered galaxies colliding in the early universe, revealing that cosmic structures are far more complicated than astronomers once believed.
- “This is Really Unusual”: Astronomers Spot a Black Hole Unleashing a Jet More Powerful Than the “Death Star” A supermassive black hole is on track to produce the longest recorded emission of energy left over from a shredded star.
- James Webb Space Telescope Spots an Unexpected Abundance of Organic Molecules in a Distant Galactic Nucleus New James Webb Space Telescope observations suggest that organic molecules are much more common outside our galaxy than previously believed.
- Controversy Ensues Over Claims That a Group of Trees in Italy “Predicted” an Eclipse—These Scientists Are Skeptical A controversy has ensued over whether a group of spruce trees in Northern Italy predicted a partial solar eclipse, prompting skepticism among scientists.
- Sleep Aid or Sleep Killer? Scientists Discover How Pink Noise Machines May Alter REM Sleep According to new experiments, sleep machines that use pink noise could adversely affect deep sleep and REM sleep instead of helping it.
- U.S. Political Polarization Didn’t Rise Gradually—It Spiked After 2008, Study Finds Polarization in the U.S. didn’t rise gradually. A new machine-learning study shows it surged after 2008- but why?
- Modern CT Scans Are Helping Scientists Unwrap the Lives of Ancient Egyptians Recent advances in medical imaging are providing new insights into the daily lives of ancient Egyptians.
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