As another busy holiday season wraps up, pause to spare a thought for your brain. (Lorena Spurio/The New York Times) By CHRISTINA CARON and DANA G. SMITH As 2025 comes to a close, and another busy holiday season wraps up, pause to spare a thought for your brain. Does it need some TLC? These tips can help you take care of — and improve — your mental and cognitive health now and throughout 2026. Here is some of the best advice we learned from experts in 2025 about showing ourse

A photo provided by Bryan O’Malley shows a collage of foraminifera, a kind of single-celled organism, found in a potential mining zone and arranged by O’Malley, a lead researcher. An ocean-mining company has funded some of the most comprehensive scientific studies to date, and peer-reviewed results have begun to emerge. (Bryan O’Malley via The New York Times) By Sachi Kitajima Mulkey Industrial mining of the seabed could reduce the abundance and diversity of tiny animals livi

Ray Hester with his wife, Sandy Hester, at home in Versailles, Ky., in June 2025. On its own, LATE dementia is less severe than Alzheimer’s, but in combination, it makes Alzheimer’s symptoms worse, scientists say. (Morgan Hornsby/The New York Times) By Pam Belluck A recently recognized form of dementia is changing the understanding of cognitive decline, improving the ability to diagnose patients and underscoring the need for a wider array of treatments. Patients are increasin

The bicycle and pedestrian bridge known as Byggebroen in Copenhagen, Denmark on June 13, 2021. Denmark, a country of six million, has universal health care, so Danes can get treated more easily for diseases than Americans and often seek medical help earlier. (Charlotte de la Fuente/The New York Times) By AMELIA NIERENBERG and MAYA TEKELI The United States, a nation of 343 million people with a complex and overburdened health care system, is poised to adopt the childhood vacci

In an undated image provided by Chris Gunn/NASA, inspecting the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope’s Wide Field Instrument upon delivery to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. In 2026, there will be journeys to the moon and Mars, new visions of the cosmos and a solar eclipse that might be worth traveling for. (Chris Gunn/NASA via The New York Times) By KATRINA MILLER and MICHAEL ROSTON The thing about space is that you have to be patient. The universe does not

A measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine is prepared at Seminole Hospital District in Seminole, Texas, Feb. 24, 2025. The Trump administration is expected to announce in the 2026 that American children should be immunized according to a different schedule with fewer vaccines — on used by the much smaller, largely homogenous country of Denmark. (Desiree Rios/The New York Times) By APOORVA MANDAVILLI Over the last year, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his appointees hav

The National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., August 2016. Russell Vought, the White House budget director, called the laboratory a source of “climate alarmism” that will be taken apart. (Caine Delacy/The New York Times) By LISA FRIEDMAN, BRAD PLUMER and JACK HEALY The Trump administration said it will be dismantling the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, one of the world’s leading Earth science research institutions. The center, founded i

A person with diabetes uses a glucose monitoring system in Berkeley, Calif., Aug. 23, 2025. People with prediabetes who get their blood sugar under control may cut their risk of death from heart disease or heart failure by half, according to new research. (Rachel Bujalski/The New York Times) By NINA AGRAWAL People with prediabetes who get their blood sugar under control may cut their risk of death from heart disease or heart failure by half, according to new research. Prediab

In an undated image provided by Denis Finnin/AMNH, Mark Norell. Norell, a globe-trotting paleontologist whose research focused on the evolutionary links between dinosaurs and birds, and whose expeditions yielded rare discoveries like the nearly intact embryo of a birdlike oviraptor, died on Sept. 9, 2025, in Manhattan. He was 68. (Denis Finnin/AMNH via The New York Times) By RICHARD SANDOMIR Mark Norell, a globe-trotting paleontologist whose research focused on the evolutiona

A measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine is prepared at Seminole Hospital District in Seminole, Texas, Feb. 24, 2025. In South Carolina, parents struggle to deal with infections that have brought quarantines and remote learning as health workers are bracing for an increase in cases. (Desiree Rios/The New York Times) By EDUARDO MEDINA and NICK MADIGAN Late-night emails sent to parents informing them that someone in their child’s classroom has been infected with measles. Pediatric