Postpartum depression in dads is common – we can now spot and treat it
Fathers may get postpartum depression at a similar rate to mothers, but it’s often overlooked. At last, the way we diagnose and treat it is improving, for the good of the whole family
How baby microbiomes in the West differ from those everywhere else
Babies in the West commonly lack a gut microbe that is found in infants in other parts of the world, which may be due to differences in their mothers' diets
Ultramarathons could be bad for your blood
Running 170 kilometres over mountainous terrain caused people's red blood cells to accumulate more age-related damage than those of less ambitious athletes
KDE Plasma 6.6 released
KDE Plasma 6.6 has been released, and brings with a whole slew of new features. You can save any combination of themes as a global theme, and there’s a new feature allowing you to increase or decrease the contrast of frames and outlines.
SvarDOS: an open-source DOS distribution
SvarDOS is an open-source project that is meant to integrate the best out of the currently available DOS tools, drivers and games. DOS development has been abandoned by commercial players a long time ago, mostly during early nineties.
Proper Linux on your wrist: AsteroidOS 2.0 released
It’s been a while since we’ve talked about AsteroidOS, the Linux distribution designed specifically to run on smartwatches, providing a smartwatch interface and applications built with Qt and QML.
A deep dive into Apple’s .car file format
Every modern iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS application uses Asset Catalogs to manage images, colors, icons, and other resources. When you build an app with Xcode, your .xcassets folders are compiled into binary .car files that ship with your application.
dBASE on the Kaypro II
Within the major operating system of its day, on popular hardware of its day, ran the utterly dominant relational database software of its day. PC Magazine, February 1984, said, “Independent industry watchers estimate that dBASE II enjoys 70 percent of the market for microcomputer database managers.” Similar to past subjects HyperCard and Scala Multimedia, Wayne Ratcliff’s dBASE II was an industry unto itself, not just for data-management, but for programmability, a legacy which lives on today as xBase.
Did a cloud-seeding start-up really increase snowfall in part of Utah?
A technology that uses a coiled wire to electrify aerosols has boosted snowfall amid a drought in the western US, according to the company developing it, but the results haven't convinced other scientists
Scientists want to put a super laser on the moon
An ultrastable laser could enable extremely precise timing and navigation on the moon, and the cold, dark craters near the lunar poles would be the ideal location for it
The untold story of our remarkable hands and how they made us human
The evolution of human hands is one of the most important – and overlooked – stories of our origin. Now, new fossil evidence is revealing their pivotal role
Giant viruses may be more alive than we thought
A giant virus encodes part of the protein-making toolkit of cells that gives it greater control over its amoeba host, raising questions about how it evolved and how such beings relate to living organisms
Dream hacking helps people solve complex problems in their sleep
Hearing a sound while working on a complex puzzle, and then hearing it again during sleep, helped lucid dreamers better tackle the problem the next day
The mystery of nuclear 'magic numbers' has finally been resolved
A mathematical equivalent of a microscope with variable resolution has shed light on why some atoms are exceptionally stable, a riddle that has persisted in nuclear physics for decades
Psychedelic reduces depression symptoms after just one dose
The psychedelic DMT has been linked to improved mental health outcomes before, but now, scientists have shown it reduces depression symptoms more than a placebo when given alongside therapeutic support
We’ve glimpsed before the big bang and it’s not what we expected
The big bang wasn’t the start of everything, but it has been impossible to see what came before. Now a new kind of cosmology is lifting the veil on the beginning of time
Humans are the only primates with a chin – now we finally know why
Biologists have debated the reason why Homo sapiens evolved a prominent lower jaw, but this unique feature may actually be a by-product of other traits shaped by natural selection
Backwards heat shows laws of thermodynamics may need a quantum update
We are used to heat flowing from hot objects to cool ones, and never the other way round, but now researchers have found it is possible to pull off this trick in the strange realm of quantum mechanics
Can we ever know the shape of the universe?
The shape of the cosmos depends on a balance of two competing forces: the pull of gravity and the expansion driven by dark energy. Columnist Leah Crane explores what observations tell us about how much universe is out there and whether it’s shaped like a sheet, a saddle or something else entirely
Intermittent fasting probably doesn’t help with weight loss
Intermittent fasting appears to be no better than doing nothing when it comes to helping people who are overweight or have obesity lose weight
Why do I not use “AI” at OSNews?
In my fundraiser pitch published last Monday, one of the things I highlighted as a reason to contribute to OSNews and ensure its continued operation stated that “we do not use any ‘AI’; not during research, not during writing, not for images, nothing.” In the comments to that article, someone asked: Why do I care if you use AI? ↫ A comment posted on OSNews A few days ago, Scott Shambaugh rejected a code change request submitted to popular Python library matplotlib because it was obviously written by an “AI”, and such contributions are not allowed for the issue in question.
Microsoft’s original Windows NT OS/2 design documents
Have you ever wanted to read the original design documents underlying the Windows NT operating system? This binder contains the original design specifications for “NT OS/2,” an operating system designed by Microsoft that developed into Windows NT.
Exploring Linux on a LoongArch mini PC
There’s the two behemoth architectures, x86 and ARM, and we probably all own one or more devices using each. Then there’s the eternally up-and-coming RISC-V, which, so far, seems to be having a lot of trouble outgrowing its experimental, developmental stage.
A brief history of barbed wire fence telephone networks
If you look at the table of contents for my book, Other Networks: A Radical Technology Sourcebook, you’ll see that entries on networks before/outside the internet are arranged first by underlying infrastructure and then chronologically.
Haiku further improves its touchpad support
January was a busy month for Haiku, with their monthly report listing a metric ton of smaller fixes, changes, and improvements. Perusing the list, a few things stand out to me, most notably continued work on improving Haiku’s touchpad support.
Microsoft Store gets another CLI tool
We often lament Microsoft’s terrible stewardship of its Windows operating system, but that doesn’t mean that they never do anything right. In a blog post detailing changes and improvements coming to the Microsoft Store, the company announced something Windows users might actually like? A new command-line interface for the Microsoft Store brings app discovery, installation and update management directly to your terminal.
These 5 diets could add years to your life even if you have bad genes
Five dietary patterns that involve eating lots of plants have been linked with living up to three years longer, even among people who are genetically predisposed to have a shorter life
World’s oldest cold virus found in 18th-century woman's lungs
Finding rhinoviruses, which cause the common cold, in preserved medical specimens and analysing their RNA genome could let us trace the evolution of human illness
Huge hot blobs inside Earth may have made its magnetic field wonky
Simulations suggest that two enormous masses of hot rock have been involved in generating Earth’s magnetic field and giving it an irregular shape
The future for Tyr
The team behind Tyr started 2025 with little to show in our quest to produce a Rust GPU driver for Arm Mali hardware, and by the end of the year, we were able to play SuperTuxKart (a 3D open-source racing game) at the Linux Plumbers Conference (LPC).
Accidental discovery hints at mystery structures within our brain
Scientists may have stumbled across a network of vessels in the brain that helps clear out waste fluid – a discovery that could "represent a paradigm shift in our understanding of all neurodegenerative diseases"
CAR T-cell therapy may slow neurodegenerative conditions like ALS
Immune cells in the brain that go rogue contribute to the death of neurons, so getting rid of them may slow the progression of neurodegenerative conditions like amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
Why self-expansion is the key to long-lasting love and friendship
A growing body of psychological research shows that the best relationships – romantic or otherwise – come with a feeling of personal growth. Columnist David Robson explores the evidence-backed ways to broaden our horizons and connect more deeply with our loves, our friends and ourselves
RNA strand that can almost self-replicate may be key to life's origins
Life may have begun when RNA molecules began to replicate themselves, and now we’ve finally found an RNA molecule that is very close to being able to do this
Weird inside-out planet system may have formed one world at a time
The planets around a nearby star seem to be in the wrong order, hinting that they formed through a different mechanism than the familiar one by which most systems grow
Endurance brain cells may determine how long you can run for
The activity of certain neurons may influence our endurance for exercise, and these could be targeted to help us run faster for longer
Gene editing that spreads within the body could cure more diseases
The idea of self-amplifying gene editing is to get cells to pass on packages of CRISPR machinery to their neighbours, boosting the effect