Why do we remember certain moments while forgetting others? Every day, our minds are bombarded with thousands of pieces of information, yet our brains have a limited capacity to consolidate these experiences into lasting memories. This means we need a way to hold on to what is most important and disregard irrelevant details.

Now researchers at the University of York have uncovered the neural mechanism that instructs the brain which daily experiences to save as long-term memories during sleep.

In the study published in the journal PLOS Biology, researchers analyzed brainwave activity while participants were learning new associations between words and pictures. It is already known that after learning, sleep plays a central role in strengthening new learning into long-term memories.

Theta rhythms mark key memories
The researchers discovered that during learning, the brain "tags" certain memories for processing during later sleep. This tagging provides a way for the sleeping brain to strengthen only what is deemed important to remember.

This tagging was linked to a specific brainwave pattern known as a "theta rhythm" present during learning. The strength of these theta rhythms provided an instructional cue to help organize brain activity during sleep.

Those memories with a particularly strong theta rhythm during learning were preferentially strengthened during sleep, ultimately leading to better memory recall, the scientists said.

They say the findings show that the brain prioritizes and strengthens important information by using specific neural signals during learning that guide memory-strengthening processes during sleep. Determining what our brains decide to strengthen during sleep could help us better understand why some individuals are vulnerable to conditions such as depression.

When filtering becomes maladaptive
Lead author Dr. Dan Denis, from the Department of Psychology at the University of York, said, "It has long been known that a good night's sleep is important for processing memories.

"How the brain decides what is important to remember and what can be forgotten is still a mystery. These new findings help to answer that question by uncovering for the first time a signature of neural activity that instructs the brain which experiences to process during sleep and form into long-term memories."

"If we remembered everything that we experienced, our brains would quickly reach system overload. By selectively prioritizing important events in our lives, be they emotionally salient or important for the future, we are able to use our past experiences to help guide our interactions in the world."

The researchers note that while selective memory consolidation is vital for daily functioning, disruptions to this filtering process could play a role in psychiatric conditions.

NASA's next-generation cosmic observatory — the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope — is set to launch this weekend on a potentially decade-long mission to hunt for distant exoplanets, map out the Milky Way and unravel some of the universe's biggest mysteries, such as the true nature of dark matter.

The Roman telescope and its payload are scheduled to lift off aboard a SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket Sunday (Aug. 30) at 7:26 a.m. EDT from Launch

Complex 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida, according to NASA. A few hours later, the telescope will be released from the rocket's second stage and be exposed to the vacuum of space for the first time.

But even if everything goes according to plan, we will still have to wait a while to get a glimpse of Roman's first groundbreaking images.

As of Thursday morning (Aug. 27), the National Weather Service forecasts a 50% chance of thunderstorms at Kennedy Space Center Sunday, so weather could delay the launch. If that happens, a second launch window is available Monday (Aug. 31) at 7:22 a.m. EDT, when there is a reduced risk of thunderstorms.

You can watch the event on a SpaceX livestream and stay up to date with last-minute developments and postlaunch news via a live blog from Live Science's sister site Space.com.
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NASA officials have tentatively predicted that the telescope will start snapping the stars in early 2027. It took JWST about seven months postlaunch to send its first full-color image to Earth.

Finding one Higgs boson was hard enough, but physicists at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are hunting for something even more elusive: pairs of Higgs bosons. At the recent International Conference on High Energy Physics 2026, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations presented new constraints on the double-Higgs production rate, providing insight into how the Higgs boson interacts with itself.

The discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 at the LHC marked the beginning of a new era in particle physics. Since then, researchers at the LHC have investigated and measured how the Higgs boson interacts with other particles, an important mechanism by which these particles get their mass.

However, physicists have yet to observe the Higgs boson interact with itself. Understanding this process would not only test the limits of the Standard Model, our current best working theory for particle physics, but also help shed light on whether the vacuum of our universe is stable.

The main challenge in studies of double-Higgs production is that the process is incredibly rare. The exact production rate has yet to be determined, but based on predictions from the Standard Model, researchers expect that for approximately every 1,500 single Higgs bosons produced in LHC collisions, only one pair of Higgs bosons will be produced.

To look for double-Higgs production, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations search for signs of the twin Higgs bosons decaying into other particles. Both collaborations investigated a particular decay channel in which one of the twin Higgs bosons decays into a bottom quark and antiquark, and the other into a tau particle and its antiparticle. This is one of the best ways to study double-Higgs production...

Q-CTRL has reported the first open-water field demonstration of a quantum gravimetric navigation system capable of operating without global navigation satellite system (GNSS) signals. The company's Ironstone Opal platform was deployed aboard a 29-meter vessel in the Coral Sea, off the eastern coast of Australia, where it maintained bounded position accuracy within 1 nautical mile over an 83-kilometer trajectory. This performance, achieved without access to satellite navigation, represents a more than tenfold improvement over standard navigation-grade inertial backup systems under similar conditions.

Hybrid Quantum-Classical Sensing
The Ironstone Opal system integrates a hybrid sensor architecture, combining cold-atom interferometry with classical accelerometers. Cold-atom gravimeters exploit the quantum interference of ultracold atoms to measure local gravitational acceleration with high precision, while classical accelerometers provide continuous inertial data. In this field trial, the quantum sensor was installed in an unconditioned passenger cabin, operating without active environmental temperature control or heavy motion-stabilization platforms. The system's AI-driven software stabilized the quantum measurements under open-ocean wave conditions, enabling both gimbaled and rigid strapdown deployments to achieve comparable results.

Planets form from disks of gas and dust around young stars, but the gas needed for growth does not last forever. New observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) now offer a new view of how this gas escapes and how the process changes as young planetary systems develop.

The research, led by Naman Bajaj from the University of Arizona and co-authored by SETI Institute scientist Uma Gorti, looked at 72 young, sun–like stars and their protoplanetary disks. This is one of the largest planet-formation studies using JWST. The findings show that different types of winds are more important at different stages in a planetary system's early life.

A race against time
"What is exciting about this study is that we can now see, across a large sample of young systems, how the mechanisms that remove gas from planet-forming disks change with time. Disk dispersal sets a fundamental clock for planet formation: once the gas is gone, the opportunity to build gas-rich planets is essentially over," said Gorti.

Today, our solar system is about 4.5 billion years old and is mostly empty space. In its first few million years, though, the sun was surrounded by a thick protoplanetary disk with about 100 times more gas than dust. Most of that gas eventually vanished.

Figuring out how and when this happens is important because the gas in these disks is the main ingredient for giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn. If the gas goes away too soon, these planets might not have enough time to build up their thick atmospheres.

Roman is ready for liftoff tomorrow at 7:26 a.m. EDT!

The SpaceX Falcon Heavy rocket carrying NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope stands vertical at Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Ready for launch, ready to change how we view the cosmos.

After years of careful planning, testing, and construction, NASARoman is ready for liftoff tomorrow, Aug. 30.

Two mirrors, each small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, are set to change how we understand the cosmos.

The launch window for NASA’s Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is about to open. The telescope’s primary instrument is due to inform practically every area of astrophysics, but also tucked inside the telescope is a specialized coronagraph, an experimental apparatus that will attempt to directly capture starlight reflected off a planet’s surface for the first time. It’s an ambitious project that NASA hopes will pave the way for a space telescope that can one day provide a glimpse of an Earthlike planet orbiting a sunlike star.

That’s a feat far beyond the power of current engineering—hence taking the basic technique for a spin on Roman. “We’ll test them in space for the first time, and we’ll understand what work still is left to go,” says Vanessa Bailey, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and instrument scientist for the coronagraph.

At its core, a coronagraph is just a science-minded sunshade that can block out the light of a bright star and reveal a fainter object otherwise lost in the glare. Such instruments have flown in space before—both the Hubble and James Webb space telescopes carry coronagraphs. But Roman’s is light-years more sophisticated than its predecessors, thanks largely to technology called adaptive optics, which deforms a telescope’s mirror to cancel out these light distortions. It still faces a monumental challenge, though: NASA compares the task of Roman’s coronagraph to photographing a firefly perched next to a floodlight—from across the country.

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is set to launch [soon] aboard a SpaceX rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. When it becomes operational early next year, it will transform our view of the universe.

With a mirror the same size as the one in the Hubble Space Telescope but a field of view more than 100 times larger, NASA's newest tool is designed to survey vast swaths of sky quickly. It will hunt for dark energy's fingerprints and detect perhaps 100,000 exoplanets.

In August 2018, just four months before she died on Dec. 25, I had the great fortune to fly from Sydney to Washington, D.C., to interview the woman this telescope is named after. She was 93 years old, and over the hours we spent talking, she shared her remarkable life story...

Weather Update!

Weather officials with the U.S. Space Force’s Space Launch Delta 45 have predicted a 70% chance of favorable weather conditions for this morning’s launch.

Our teams are GO. NASARoman is ready for launch.

Liftoff! NASARoman begins its flight to space. The Roman telescope’s wide field of view will generate never-before-seen images, revolutionizing our understanding of the universe.

‍✅ Booster Engine Cutoff
✅ Booster Separation
✅ Main Engine Cutoff
✅ Stage Separation
✅ Second Engine Start 1
✅ Fairing Jettison

It's amazing how much happens in the first few minutes of flight. An incredible opening sequence and Roman's journey is only just beginning!

First and second stage separation complete. The first stage’s job is done, while the Falcon Heavy’s second stage and NASARoman continue the journey.

Fairing separation. Free of its protective shell, our Roman telescope has its first taste of space.

✅ Second Engine Cutoff 1 confirmed.

The Falcon's second stage is now in a 16-minute coast phase of flight. There will be a second and final engine burn before deployment of the Roman spacecraft!

Acquisition of signal confirmed for our NASARoman telescope. We have spacecraft separation, and a last look at Roman, now flying on its own. go.nasa.gov/4chzg9c