According to our latest annual Refinery Capacity Report, U.S. operable atmospheric distillation capacity, the primary measure of refinery capacity, totaled 18.4 million barrels per calendar day (b/cd) on January 1, 2025-essentially flat compared with last year.

Citizen scientists using the Kilonova Seekers platform spotted a stellar flash 2,500 times brighter than before, allowing astronomers to identify the exploding cataclysmic variable GOTO0650 within hours. Swift community follow-up captured X-ray, UV, and amateur telescope data, revealing the star’s rare “period-bouncer” stage.

Scientists have achieved an unprecedented look into how the human immune system attacks a transplanted pig kidney, using spatial molecular imaging to map immune activity down to the cellular level. They discovered early signs of rejection within 10 days and pinpointed key immune players—like macrophages—driving the response. Even more exciting: when targeted therapies were applied, the immune assault weakened. As U.S. clinical trials of pig kidney transplants begin, this breakthrough offers hope for overcoming the immune barrier that has long stood in the way of xenotransplantation.

Scientists have discovered a stealthy mechanism that cytomegalovirus (CMV)—the leading infectious cause of birth defects in the U.S.—uses to infiltrate blood vessel cells while evading immune detection. The virus forms a hidden protein complex that acts like a molecular “backdoor,” allowing it to bypass the immune system’s defenses. This newly identified pathway may explain why vaccine efforts have failed for decades and opens the door to targeted therapies that could finally prevent CMV-linked birth defects in newborns and protect vulnerable patients.

Scientists have uncovered a surprising sugar-related mechanism inside brain cells that could transform how we fight Alzheimer’s and other dementias. It turns out neurons don’t just store sugar for fuel—they reroute it to power antioxidant defenses, but only if an enzyme called GlyP is active. When this sugar-clearing system is blocked, toxic tau protein builds up and accelerates brain degeneration.

An AI system called iSeg is reshaping radiation oncology by automatically outlining lung tumors in 3D as they shift with each breath. Trained on scans from nine hospitals, the tool matched expert clinicians, flagged cancer zones some missed, and could speed up treatment planning while reducing deadly oversights.

Leprosy’s tale stretches from 5,000-year-old skeletons in Eurasia to a startling 4,000-year-old case in Chile, revealing that the rare strain Mycobacterium lepromatosis haunted the Americas millennia before Europeans arrived. Armed with cutting-edge ancient-DNA sleuthing, scientists have pieced together remarkably well-preserved genomes that challenge the idea of leprosy as purely a colonial import and hint that the disease may have homegrown American roots awaiting confirmation by future finds.

In a stellar nursery 460 light-years away, astronomers sharpened old ALMA data and spotted crisp rings and spirals swirling around 27 infant stars—evidence that planets start taking shape just a few hundred thousand years after their suns ignite, far earlier than anyone expected.

Researchers at UT Arlington have discovered a key enzyme, IDO1, that when blocked, helps immune cells regain their ability to properly process cholesterol—something that breaks down during inflammation. This breakthrough could offer a powerful new way to fight heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and more. By "turning off" this enzyme, the team restored cholesterol absorption in macrophages, potentially stopping disease at the source. Even more promising, they found a second enzyme, NOS, that makes things worse—raising hopes that targeting both could pave the way for transformative treatments for millions suffering from inflammation-driven conditions.

A research team has achieved the holy grail of quantum computing: an exponential speedup that’s unconditional. By using clever error correction and IBM’s powerful 127-qubit processors, they tackled a variation of Simon’s problem, showing quantum machines are now breaking free from classical limitations, for real.

Smoke from wildfires and structural fires doesn t just irritate lungs it actually changes your immune system. Harvard scientists found that even healthy people exposed to smoke showed signs of immune system activation, genetic changes tied to allergies, and even toxic metals inside their immune cells.

Wildfires are becoming more intense and dangerous, but a new Stanford-led study offers hope: prescribed burns—intentionally set, controlled fires—can significantly lessen their impact. By analyzing satellite data and smoke emissions, researchers found that areas treated with prescribed burns saw wildfire severity drop by 16% and smoke pollution fall by 14%. Even more striking, the smoke from prescribed burns was just a fraction of what wildfires would have produced in the same areas.

Footprints found in the ancient lakebeds of White Sands may prove that humans lived in North America 23,000 years ago — much earlier than previously believed. A new study using radiocarbon-dated mud bolsters earlier findings, making it the third line of evidence pointing to this revised timeline.

India’s complex ancestry—intertwined with Iranian farmers, Steppe herders, and local hunter-gatherers—has now been decoded through genomic data from 2,762 people. The study uncovers surprising levels of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA, and how ancient migrations and community traditions have shaped today’s genetic diversity and disease risks.

Deleting a gene called PTEN in certain brain cells disrupts the brain’s fear circuitry and triggers anxiety-like behavior in mice — key traits seen in autism. Researchers mapped how this genetic tweak throws off the brain's delicate balance of excitation and inhibition in the amygdala, offering deep insights into how one gene can drive specific ASD symptoms.

Researchers are using an advanced brain imaging method called MEG to understand why Parkinson’s drug levodopa doesn’t work equally well for everyone. By mapping patients’ brain signals before and after taking the drug, they discovered that it sometimes activates the wrong brain regions, dampening its helpful effects. This breakthrough could pave the way for personalized treatment strategies, ensuring patients receive medications that target the right areas of their brain more effectively.

USC researchers have found a promising new brain scan marker that could better detect Alzheimer’s risk — but only for some. The tau-based benchmark works in Hispanic and White populations when paired with another Alzheimer’s protein, amyloid, but falls short for Black participants, revealing critical gaps in current diagnostics.

Using the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists spotted thin and thick disks in galaxies as far back as 10 billion years ago—something never seen before. These observations reveal that galaxies first formed thick, chaotic disks, and only later developed the calm, thin disks seen in modern spirals like the Milky Way.

Scientists have uncovered a surprising new way that urea—an essential building block for life—could have formed on the early Earth. Instead of requiring high temperatures or complex catalysts, this process occurs naturally on the surface of tiny water droplets like those in sea spray or fog. At this boundary between air and water, a unique chemical environment allows carbon dioxide and ammonia to combine and spontaneously produce urea, without any added energy. The finding offers a compelling clue in the mystery of life’s origins and hints that nature may have used simple, everyday phenomena to spark complex biological chemistry.