Curiosity, with context.

Additional open research

We also review articles from Biogeosciences and The Cryosphere, published by Copernicus Publications, and the PLOS journals covering digital health, climate, water, sustainability, global public health and complex systems. Each admitted journal article must identify its authors and a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license on its original page. Journal names alone do not establish permission. Only matching article figures without third-party restrictions are eligible, with author credit and a license link.

Copernicus license and copyright policy

What “Source checked” means

Before a story enters the daily feed, the collector checks its approved source and HTTPS domain, accessible original article, matching headline and canonical link, original publication date and displayed excerpt. Modified dates do not make an old story new. News remains in the current feed for 96 hours from original publication. A separate “Earlier discoveries” section below current news includes checked stories up to 30 days old. Older reports keep their original dates and do not become new when collected again. The same source, reuse, image and integrity checks apply to both sections.

We screen out political coverage, partisan framing, opinion and unrelated material. Visible correction, retraction and expression-of-concern notices hold an article for review. Company announcements, institutional reports and research papers retain their own labels. Daily collection is scheduled for 5 a.m. America/Chicago.

We do not generate scientific claims or invent quotations. Displayed passages retain the source’s wording. Selected omissions are marked; some long paragraphs are divided for readability. An original-article link remains available.

A source-backed summary for every story

Each newly admitted article receives an automatic source brief during collection. The brief selects relevant sentences from the checked original body, preserving the publisher’s exact wording, uncertainty and qualifications. When only a checked source description is available, it uses that excerpt. Every selected sentence is attributed and links to the original passage. Existing approved stories can receive the same brief from their previously checked excerpts, keeping the original check timestamp.

The brief highlights the reported finding and a further detail or explicitly stated qualification when available. A separately labeled reading guide explains how to approach the report type. A qualification is not inferred merely because an article mentions a technology or a study design; the brief does not claim to list every limitation. Where a source supplies too little detail, the original-article link remains essential.

These are curated, extractive summaries, not newly reported facts or AI-written paraphrases. They do not establish independent verification or guarantee advertising approval. Separately reviewed Discoveries Daily interpretations appear below the brief when supporting evidence is available.

Discoveries Daily editorial context

Separately labeled explanations help readers interpret selected findings and their limits. Story-specific notes are reviewed against the original report. Each explanation and limitation includes supporting source passages and links to their location in the original. These are Discoveries Daily interpretations, not quotations or endorsements by the publisher.

During collection, every supporting passage must still match the newly fetched article body, with the same verified headline, original link and publication date. A missing or changed supporting passage removes the associated story-specific context. A temporary source outage can retain the last checked note with its existing timestamp, just as it can retain the unexpired story.

For some new papers, narrow research-reading rules explain an explicitly stated design and limitation, such as the difference between a research protocol and completed results, or between an observational association and a causal conclusion. These appear as a “Research lens.” We do not infer an unreported sample size, effect, clinical benefit or experiment from keywords alone. When the required source evidence is absent, the story remains available without added context. Not every article receives editorial context.

Exact passage matching verifies support text is present; it is not an automated proof that an interpretation is correct, independent scientific validation or a guarantee of AdSense approval. The original source and its qualifications remain essential. Corrections or rights notices can require context to be withdrawn.

Permission before republication

A source being reputable, publicly accessible or available through RSS does not by itself establish permission to republish its text or images. The collector requires a reviewed reuse rule for the publisher, an article-specific restriction check, and attribution. Unknown or restricted material is held rather than treated as approved.

• NASA: factual agency reporting is considered under the NASA editorial-use guidelines. Third-party, partner and restricted material is excluded. NASA’s name and marks are not used to imply endorsement.
• NIST: public-information excerpts are considered under NIST’s reuse policy, with article-specific copyright restrictions excluded.
• PLOS journals: the original paper must have an article-specific CC BY 4.0 notice and author information. Author attribution, the original paper and license are linked, and excerpting is identified. See PLOS’s copyright policy.
• Pensoft Blog: dated science stories need the blog’s current CC BY 4.0 notice, named author and no contrary article restriction. Images need an associated article figure and credit; third-party exceptions and uncertain or restricted media are excluded.
• NOAA Fisheries: only government-authored stories and associated photographs explicitly credited to NOAA Fisheries qualify under its reuse policy. Partner material, mixed or uncertain ownership credits, diagrams and logos are excluded.
• MIT News: text is syndicated under its republication policy, with the original headline, full sub-headline, byline, linked citation and required permission notice. MIT’s noncommercial downloadable-image license is not used to authorize photographs on this site.
• EPFL: only stories carrying their own CC BY-SA 4.0 statement and author credit qualify. Each image also needs its own CC BY-SA notice. Excerpted passages and permitted images retain that same license; attribution and notices are preserved. See EPFL’s reuse explanation.
• ETH Zurich: unaltered source paragraphs are selected and credited under the ETH News terms, with a link to the news overview. Images qualify only when ETH Zurich is identified in their credit, and remain attached to that story.
• CSIRO: only official media releases qualify under the news-reporting permission. A CSIRO-owned image from the same release may be shown with its copyright notice. Partner images are excluded unless separately licensed.
• ESO, ESA/Hubble, ESA/Webb and NOIRLab: public outreach news is considered under their respective CC BY 4.0 policies: ESO, ESA/Hubble, ESA/Webb and NOIRLab. NOIRLab collection is currently paused because its hosted feed could not be validated. Full image credits are retained; papers, code, logos, restricted material and imagery requiring additional personality-rights review are excluded.

Other previously collected feeds are paused until an appropriate reuse basis has been documented. This is a conservative publishing rule, not a claim that those publishers forbid every possible use. We do not automatically rely on fair use or a copied word-count threshold as permission. A new or changed source requires a fresh review.

Photos first, with their own checks

Our card-image order is: a suitable visually reviewed photograph from the article with a documented reuse basis; a relevant real photo from our reviewed open-license or government library; then a clearly labeled AI-generated illustration. People are excluded from the card imagery. A public government website is not blanket permission: third-party credits, restrictions and applicable agency terms still need checking.

Representative photos are labeled “Illustrative photo.” They illustrate the topic and are not necessarily the reported study, site, specimen, mission or equipment. AI images are labeled “AI-generated illustration”; they are concepts, not photographs, observations or research results. Neither type is evidence for an article’s claims. A subject without a suitable reviewed visual remains a text card.

Each library photo has an item-level source, credit and license or reuse-policy record. Credits and terms accompany the visual. Downloaded photos are resized and encoded as WebP, and card display may crop them. CC BY-SA adaptations retain their original share-alike license; linked notices and credits apply to the image separately from our site code and other content. NASA imagery follows NASA’s media guidelines; NASA/JPL imagery also follows JPL’s image-use policy. No agency or creator endorsement is implied.

Text permission never automatically clears a third-party photograph. Source images retain separate checks for context, credit, permitted host, file type and reuse basis. Restricted credits, uncertain ownership and recognizable-person imagery requiring further review are omitted. Permitted source graphs remain available under “View original source figure” inside the reader; they are not used as card covers.

Daily collection automatically selects from the reviewed visual library using the article’s subject, and keeps real photos ahead of AI alternatives. Unreviewed source photos do not bypass visual review. New image searches, license decisions and AI generation are curated additions to the library, not unattended generation for every story. The collector does not mirror complete articles or bypass access restrictions.

What these checks cannot guarantee

“Source checked” is not independent scientific replication, a peer-review certification, a legal opinion or a guarantee that a finding is true. Research can be preliminary, disputed, corrected or withdrawn. An accessible source can still be mistaken. Automatic screening may miss context, restrictions or notices; the recorded permission basis remains subject to its actual terms.

Original sources are rechecked during daily collection. Confirmed withdrawal, a missing original, mismatched evidence or a detected notice holds a story. A transient outage may retain a previously checked, unexpired story with its existing check timestamp; it does not silently receive a new verification.

Saved articles stay in the visitor’s browser. Older saves whose reuse basis has not been reviewed remain as source links; their copied passages and images are not displayed by the current reader.

Report a correction or rights concern

Discoveries Daily is operated by Leif Shires — Tennessee, United States. During beta testing, email yourjunkmailsucks@gmail.com for corrections and rights concerns. See contact and reporting guidance. Provide the Discoveries Daily story or original-source URL and the specific concern. Publication and credit never imply the publisher or researcher endorses Discoveries Daily or Premium.