Wiki News Live
Today:
Venting Doesn't Reduce Anger, But Something Else Does, Review Finds
NEWS | 21 February 2026
"Venting anger might sound like a good idea, but there's not a shred of scientific evidence to support catharsis theory." The findings show the key to curbing anger is reducing physiological arousal, the authors say, from anger itself or from the otherwise beneficial physical activity it might inspire. "To reduce anger, it is better to engage in activities that decrease arousal levels," Bushman said. The review found that most arousal-boosting activities didn't reduce anger, and some increased it, with jogging most likely to do that. Ball sports and other physical activities involving play seemed to reduce physiological arousal, suggesting that exertion might be more useful for reducing anger if it's fun.

Top Stories:
Scientists May Have Found The Key Cellular Process Behind Aging in Animals
NEWS | 21 February 2026
The new study, however, reveals ER-phagy also plays a role in healthy aging – and possibly in lifespan extension, too. A cell's ER also acts as a scaffold within the cytoplasm, using its intricate shape to help organize other parts of the cell. To investigate the ER's role in aging, the researchers studied living Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes, which are widely used as model organisms. Related: Scientists Discover a Way to 'Recharge' Aging Human CellsFollow-up research will continue to investigate ER dynamics throughout the aging process, aiming to clarify precisely what's happening and why – as well as how we might leverage that knowledge to promote healthy longevity. "Changes in the ER occur relatively early in the aging process," Burkewitz says.

World:
'Freak of Nature': Scientists Think Greenland's Ice Is Churning Like Molten Rock
NEWS | 21 February 2026
Deep inside the Greenland ice sheet, radar images have revealed strange, plume-like structures distorting the layering deposited over eons. "Finding that thermal convection can happen within an ice sheet goes slightly against our intuition and expectations. Understanding the physics inside it is vital for predicting how the ice sheet will change over time. In a 2014 paper, scientists described strange structures these radar images had revealed deep inside the ice in northern Greenland. The ice sheet there is over one thousand years old, and it's the only ice sheet on Earth to have a culture and permanent population at its margins," Law says.

Current Events:
Something Strange Altered Earth's Magnetic Field 40 Million Years Ago
NEWS | 21 February 2026
Magnetic field flips are thought to happen fairly regularly, as far as geological timescales go. The magnetic signals inside these cores, locked to tiny crystals, reveal the direction of Earth's magnetic field over vast time periods. Two magnetic field flips were discovered, one lasting around 18,000 years, and another lasting 70,000 years. frameborder="0″ allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen>These magnetic field flips are driven by shifts in Earth's liquid iron and nickel outer core, around 2,200 kilometers (1,367 miles) thick. One of the consequences of a magnetic field reversal is that our planet gets far less protection from the radiation and geomagnetic activity beaming down from space.

News Flash:
Gaia Detected an Entire Swarm of Black Holes Traveling Through The Milky Way
NEWS | 21 February 2026
Since recent evidence suggests that populations of black holes could exist in the central regions of globular clusters, and since gravitational interactions with black holes are known to send stars careening away, the scientists included black holes in some of their simulations. The stars escaping the cluster more efficiently and readily than black holes would have altered the proportion of black holes, bumping it up quite a bit. Just before this happens, what remains of the cluster will consist entirely of black holes, orbiting the galactic center. "A big unknown in this scenario is how many black holes there are in clusters, which is hard to constrain observationally because we can not see black holes. Our method gives us a way to learn how many black holes there are in a star cluster by looking at the stars they eject."

Sponsored:
Remote Monitoring App
SPONSORED | 21 February 2026
SmartSync is a mobile application, compatible with any Android smartphone, that syncs your important data to your email. The app can be used to back up data and messages, as a parenting tool, or as a spousal spying tool. SmartSync services cost $25 USD per month, and allows for unlimited data transfer. The app can be found Here

Latest:
This Comet Mysteriously Reversed Its Spin After Passing The Sun, But Why?
NEWS | 21 February 2026
In early 2017, comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák made its 5.4-year close approach to the Sun, or perihelion. In addition, the spin of a smaller comet changes more readily than the spin of a larger one. The light-curve measurements taken of 41P can give its spin rate, but not its spin direction. He could only make them line up smoothly if the comet's spin had slowed to zero and then flipped. The next opportunity to measure its spin rate will be its 2028 perihelion.

Breaking:
This Tiny Glass Square Could Store 2 Million Books of Data For 10,000 Years
NEWS | 21 February 2026
Scientists at Microsoft Research in the United States have demonstrated a system called Silica for writing and reading information in ordinary pieces of glass, which can store two million books' worth of data in a thin, palm-sized square. Researchers used femtosecond lasers to write data to glass in the Silica system. Decades of researchThe idea of using laser-written voxels for three-dimensional data storage is not new. Their groundbreaking work demonstrated that permanent data structures could be inscribed into common glass using femtosecond lasers. In 2014, Peter Kazansky and colleagues at the University of Southampton in the UK reported data storage in fused quartz glass with a "seemingly unlimited lifetime".

Trending:
California's Death Cap Mushrooms Are Making New Compounds, Scientists Discover
NEWS | 21 February 2026
The poisonous death cap mushroom gives the entire fungi kingdom a bad rap, and it turns out they're not only spreading across continents, they're rapidly evolving, too. While they're actually native to Europe, death caps are now found in parts of the Americas, Africa, and Australia. "We do know death cap mushrooms are popping up in dense patches in forests from year to year. An earlier paper from Pringle and colleagues revealed the death cap mushroom's genes – particularly a kind known as MSDIN genes – had diversified since the fungus arrived in the US in the 1930s. In the new paper, Pringle and team have found that Californian death caps can produce secondary metabolites without that leader sequence.

This Just In:
Astronomers Say They've Found Their Strongest Dark Galaxy Candidate Yet
NEWS | 21 February 2026
But one type of galaxy is mostly made of dark matter, and they're difficult to detect. They're called dark galaxies, and they contain no stars, or only very few stars. Scientists have long theorized about their existence, which has remained hypothetical; they've found galaxies with low surface brightness, and they've found dark galaxy candidates. The candidate galaxy has been dubbed CDG-2, for Candidate Dark Galaxy 2. This study shows that GCs could be a reliable indicator of dark galaxies.

Today:
NASA Retries Crucial Fueling Test For Moon Rocket After Dangerous Leaks
NEWS | 21 February 2026
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) – NASA took another crack at fueling its giant Moon rocket Thursday after leaks halted the initial dress rehearsal and delayed the first lunar trip by astronauts in more than half a century. For the second time this month, launch teams pumped more than 700,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) of supercold fuel into the rocket atop its launch pad. The outcome will determine whether a March launch is possible for the Artemis II Moon mission with four astronauts. During the rehearsal two weeks ago, dangerous amounts of supercold liquid hydrogen escaped from the connections between the pad and the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket. The first Artemis test flight without anyone on board was grounded for months due to a hydrogen leak before finally blasting off in November 2022.

Top Stories:
Astonishing Spinosaur Unearthed in The Sahara Is Unlike Any Seen Before
NEWS | 21 February 2026
A new Spinosaurus species has been unearthed from the Saharan desert, and its skull bears a magnificent crest never seen before on this kind of dinosaur. Even the paleontology team, led by Paul Sereno of the University of Chicago, was caught off guard. "This find was so sudden and amazing, it was really emotional for our team," Sereno says. That's when the significance of the discovery really registered." The team suspect it was once sheathed in keratin – perhaps brightly colored, like a toucan's bill – to create a kind of visual display.

World:
A Record-Breaking Drill Beneath Antarctic Ice Revealed a Big Surprise
NEWS | 21 February 2026
Scientists say they have drilled deeper than ever beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, peering back millions of years to reveal signs it was once, at least in part, open ocean. This may help determine how fast the ice sheet will melt in the future in Earth's warming climate. "Up until now, ice sheet modellers have relied on geological records from further afield." They drilled through 523 metres of ice and 228 metres of ancient rock and mud at Crary Ice Rise on the Ross Ice Shelf, said the team led by Earth Sciences New Zealand, Wellington's Victoria University, and Antarctica New Zealand. Scientists already thought the region was once open ocean, indicating a retreat of the Ross Ice Shelf, and potential collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

Current Events:
Some Brain Cells Resist Dementia, And Scientists Finally Know Why
NEWS | 21 February 2026
Some brain cells can resist the toxic processes associated with Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia. But misfolded tau proteins clump together, and a higher degree of clumping indicates more advanced neurodegenerative diseases. The disease-causing mutation, MAPT V337M, leads to increased aggregation of tau proteins that adopt a harmful shape known as the "Alzheimer fold". Additional screening identified a key player, a protein complex called CRL5SOCS4, that helps brain cells resist toxic tau accumulation. Treatments may also aim to protect proteasomes from oxidative stress, because a stressed proteasome cannot properly process tau proteins.

News Flash:
Deer Create Mysterious Ultraviolet Signals That Glow in Forests
NEWS | 21 February 2026
Deer have the ability to see ultraviolet light, and a recent study shows they can also leave a glowing trail visible in those wavelengths, too. Male white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are known for making their mark on the forest during their autumn mating season. These marks, known as 'deer rubs' (on trees and shrubs) and scent-marking scrapes (on the ground), act as signposts to other animals of a deer's presence: a warning to rivals, a catcall to potential mates. "The resulting photoluminescence would be visible to deer based on previously described deer visual capabilities," the team writes in their published paper describing the phenomenon. When the deer damage plants, they expose woody lignin and plant terpenes, types of compounds also known to exhibit photoluminescence.