A pair of concerned researchers, one a mathematician at the University of Norway, the other a climatologist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, has developed a computer model that shows linkages between forest degradation in the Amazon River basin and monsoon circulation. ⌘ Read more
A pair of concerned researchers, one a mathematician at the University of Norway, the other a climatologist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, has developed a computer model that shows linkages between forest degradation in the Amazon River basin and monsoon circulation. ⌘ Read more
Astronomers from the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad, India and elsewhere, have inspected a star-forming complex known as S193, using multiwavelength observational data. Results of the study, published Sept. 21 on the pre-print server arXiv, shed more light on the properties of this complex. ⌘ Read more
Indian rescue teams searched on Thursday for 102 people missing after a devastating flash flood triggered by a high-altitude glacial lake burst killed at least 10, officials said. ⌘ Read more
Bumble bees have a remarkably successful method for fighting off Asian hornets, new research shows. ⌘ Read more
A new paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution provides, for the first time, a comprehensive set of genomic resources for pangolins (sometimes known as scaly anteaters) that researchers believe will be integral for protecting these threatened mammals. ⌘ Read more
SpaceX is targeting its 50th Space Coast launch of the year with another Starlink mission from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. ⌘ Read more
Researchers from the Center for Injury Research and Prevention (CIRP) at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) and the Stuart Weitzman School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania have found that teenagers living in lower-income areas of the Columbus, Ohio metro area are up to four times less likely to complete driver training and obtain their driver's license before age 18. ⌘ Read more
Swedish media say the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences may have announced the winners of this year's Nobel Prize in chemistry prematurely. ⌘ Read more
As chronic wasting disease (CWD) ravaged deer populations across the country in recent years, studies have primarily focused on how CWD can jump from farmed herds to wild deer, with little attention given to how transmission may occur from wild deer to those living on farms. ⌘ Read more
A recent study by University of Helsinki researchers has found that bird communities inside and outside protected areas are beginning to resemble each other as a result of climate change. In both areas, southern species increased in abundance, while northern species decreased. ⌘ Read more
An Indonesian city with a population of hundreds of thousands has shut schools for three days because of haze caused by large peatland fires, its mayor said Tuesday. ⌘ Read more
Japan has seen its hottest September since records began 125 years ago, the weather agency said, in a year expected to be the warmest in human history. ⌘ Read more
Nobels season is resuming on Tuesday with the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm awarding the prize in physics. ⌘ Read more
In the quest to build better for the future, some are looking for answers in the long-ago past. ⌘ Read more
The Grand Canyon's valleys and millions of years of rock layers spanning Earth's history have earned it a designation as one of the Seven Natural Wonders of the World. But, according to a new UNLV study, its marvels extend to vast cave systems that lie beneath the surface, which just might hold clues to better understand the future of climate change—by studying nature's past. ⌘ Read more
A plan to use helicopter-mounted sharpshooters to kill nearly 2,000 invasive mule deer roaming the mountains of Santa Catalina Island has ignited a storm of protest among residents of the popular resort destination and prompted calls for state wildlife officials to block the hunt. ⌘ Read more
How often do you think about the Roman empire? This question, posed to men by their partners on social media app TikTok, has led to a storm of viral videos. Women are amused to discover the answer is often "every day," or at least "several times a week." ⌘ Read more
Diamonds are often prized for their flawless shine, but Chong Zu, an assistant professor of physics in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis, sees a deeper value in these natural crystals. As reported in Physical Review Letters, Zu and his team have taken a major step forward in a quest to turn diamonds into a quantum simulator. ⌘ Read more
When scientists started pouring over data to assess Canada's fire season this year, they struggled to find the right superlatives. ⌘ Read more
Faith primary schools are admitting fewer children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) than local authority community primaries, according to new research from the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). ⌘ Read more
A substance called antimatter is at the heart of one of the greatest mysteries of the universe. We know that every particle has an antimatter companion that is virtually identical to itself, but with the opposite charge. When a particle and its antiparticle meet, they annihilate each other—disappearing in a burst of light. ⌘ Read more
Not far from the emblematic site where the black waters of the Rio Negro join the brown currents of the Solimoes, two chief tributaries of the Amazon, what once was a lake has given way to a vast stretch of cracked mud. ⌘ Read more
For the first time, scientists have observed antimatter particles—the mysterious twins of the visible matter all around us—falling downwards due to the effect of gravity, Europe's physics lab CERN announced on Wednesday. ⌘ Read more
This week, we're highlighting a study involving toxic chemical contaminants, and just for fun, a second study involving other toxic chemical contaminants. But NASA made a cool time-lapse video using the good old Hubble space telescope, and a group of Italian demographers have a lot to say about the population-level consequences of lying. ⌘ Read more
Recent discoveries in the field of epigenetics, the study of inheritance of traits that occur without changing the DNA sequence, have shown that chronological age in mammals correlates with epigenetic changes that accumulate during the lifetime of an individual. ⌘ Read more
Data show that students who have a strong science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) identity are more likely to take STEM courses and persist to the academic finish line––graduation. Positive STEM identity is multifaceted, but at the core, it is the sense that one "belongs" in STEM and can succeed in STEM. A person with strong STEM identity tends to feel confident of the following: ⌘ Read more
Solid materials are generally known to be rigid and unmoving, but scientists are turning this idea on its head by exploring ways to incorporate moving parts into solids. This can enable the development of exotic new materials such as amphidynamic crystals—crystals which contain both rigid and mobile components—whose properties can be altered by controlling molecular rotation within the ... ⌘ Read more
A team of microbiologists at Montana State University has developed a way to use a cutting enzyme and an RNA repair enzyme to modify the genome of an RNA virus. They describe their technique in Science Advances. ⌘ Read more
While many bacteria become inactive during dry spells, specific groups persist and even thrive. A new study, published in Nature Communications and conducted by the Center for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CeMESS) at the University of Vienna, offers ground-breaking insights into bacterial activity during drought periods, with implications for agriculture and our understanding of climate change impacts. ⌘ Read more
A team of chemists, materials scientists and aeronautical engineers at Beihang University, working with one colleague from Yanshan University and another from the University of Chicago, reports evidence of self-healing in a sample of synthetic diamond at room temperature. ⌘ Read more
A large team of international researchers have used techniques at ANSTO's Australian Synchrotron to understand how key proteins contribute to the virulence of the rabies virus, sometimes called the "zombie virus." ⌘ Read more
Corporate initiatives focused on diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) for vulnerable social groups can change a company in many ways. According to researchers at the University of New Hampshire, how DEI affects a business' bottom line may depend on the presidential administration and the general public's perception at the time. ⌘ Read more
If you've lived in the same geographic location for several years, you've probably noticed the seasons changing. And no, not from spring to summer and fall to winter. ⌘ Read more
In research that could jumpstart interest into an enigmatic class of materials known as quasicrystals, MIT scientists and colleagues have discovered a relatively simple, flexible way to create new atomically thin versions that can be tuned for important phenomena. In work reported in Nature they describe doing just that to make the materials exhibit superconductivity and more. ⌘ Read more
A team of Penn State scientists is working to solve one of the world's greatest unsolved mysteries: how life originated on Earth—and how it might have evolved on other planets. ⌘ Read more
In 2009, a mysterious fungus emerged seemingly from out of thin air, targeting the most vulnerable among us. It sounds like Hollywood, but the fungus in question poses a very real threat. Scientists are scrambling to figure out what makes the life-threatening fungus Candida auris tick—and why even the best infection control protocols in hospitals and other care settings often fail to get rid of it. ⌘ Read more
Periodontal disease is one of the most common canine diseases, affecting at least 80% of dogs aged three and over. Periodontal disease begins as gingivitis, where gums become red and inflamed, and may bleed. Untreated, the disease can progress to periodontitis, where the alveolar bone is progressively damaged so that teeth may loosen or fall out. In turn, periodontitis is a risk factor for other diseases ... ⌘ Read more
In the questioning words of the 1955 Pete Seeger song: "Where have all the flowers gone? Long time passing." Well, it seems Miami is where they've all gone and it's not taking them so long, after all. ⌘ Read more
Research into the experiences of seasonal workers has uncovered an alarming decline in the well-being of Timorese migrants when they return home after stints in the Australian Seasonal Workers Program. ⌘ Read more
Illinois is the latest state to find invasive spotted lanternflies, an winged insect that's spreading across the eastern U.S. and is subject to squish-on-sight requests in New York and elsewhere. ⌘ Read more
A team of environmental scientists from France, Tasmania, Canada, the U.S. and Australia has found evidence suggesting that emperor penguins may be more adaptable to a changing climate than previously thought. In their study, reported in the journal Science Advances, the group analyzed satellite imagery revealing that emperor penguins are capable of living in a variety of habitats. ⌘ Read more
By analyzing the data from the WALLABY pre-pilot survey, astronomers from the University of Western Australia and elsewhere, have inspected 78 candidate ultra-diffuse galaxies in the Eridanus supergroup. The study was detailed in a paper published September 21 on the pre-print server arXiv. ⌘ Read more
US aviation regulators said Wednesday that Blue Origin must complete "21 corrective actions" before it can resume launches, closing a probe into an uncrewed crash last year that set back Jeff Bezos's space company. ⌘ Read more
Avocados, mangos, bananas and passion fruit—a wealth of exotic produce is growing under the shadow of Sicily's Mount Etna, as the Italian island's farmers adapt to global warming. ⌘ Read more
A Swiss Academy of Sciences panel is reporting a dramatic acceleration of glacier melt in the Alpine country, which has lost 10% of its ice volume in just two years after high summer heat and low snow volumes in winter. ⌘ Read more
From Sunday, workers at the main United States base in Antarctica will no longer be able to walk into a bar and order a beer, after the federal agency that oversees the research program decided to stop serving alcohol. ⌘ Read more
Humanity stands on the verge of two major revolutions: the boom in 2-dimensional supermaterials like graphene with incredible properties and the introduction of quantum computers with processing power that vastly outstrips that of standard computers. ⌘ Read more
An international consortium of astronomers, including staff from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, has successfully unraveled the intricate formation mechanisms of the elusive intermediate-mass black holes. They could represent the link between their smaller relatives, the stellar black holes, and the supermassive giants that populate the centers of galaxies. ⌘ Read more
An international research team has taken a decisive step toward a new generation of atomic clocks. At the European XFEL X-ray laser, the researchers have created a much more precise pulse generator based on the element scandium, which enables an accuracy of one second in 300 billion years—that is about a thousand times more precise than the current standard atomic clock based on ... ⌘ Read more
Scientists at St Andrews are leading a significant breakthrough in a decades-long challenge to develop compact laser technology. ⌘ Read more
Polar bears are a familiar sight to many through the media as we see evocative images of singular bears floating on isolated ice rafts as they face the harsh realities of climate change shrinking sea ice in the Arctic. Their range is significantly impacted by the presence of perennial sea ice—that which survives at least one summer melt season. Simulations suggest polar ice cover is pred ... ⌘ Read more
Less than a year after it was announced, a $20 billion bet to wean Indonesia off coal is mired in controversies over financing and the construction of new plants to power industry. ⌘ Read more
Melted remains of an old car tire. Heavily burned trees. A charred stump of an abandoned utility pole. ⌘ Read more
Thermometers can do a lot of things: Measure the temperature at the center of your perfectly braised chicken or tell you whether to keep your child home from school due to illness. But because of their size, traditional thermometers' uses are still limited. ⌘ Read more
Whether you are familiar with the term "Magnus effect" or not, you have certainly seen it in action. It is when a spinning ball—for instance in football, cricket or baseball—bends away from its expected trajectory, often to the surprise of the opposing team. The principle also has engineering uses, for example to propel certain types of ships or aircraft using a "Flettner rotor." ⌘ Read more
Lava worlds, massive exoplanets home to sparkling skies and roiling volcanic seas called magma oceans, are distinctly unlike the planets in our solar system. ⌘ Read more
After two seasons of record-breaking lows, Antarctica's sea ice remains in dramatic decline, tracking well below any winter maximum levels observed since satellite monitoring began during the late 1970s. ⌘ Read more
The sea ice around Antarctica likely had a record low surface area when it was at its maximum size this winter, a preliminary US analysis of satellite data showed Monday. ⌘ Read more
Rich and developing nations alike must sharply improve their net-zero targets, the International Energy Agency said Tuesday, warning that a clean energy surge was the main reason the world's climate goals are still within reach. ⌘ Read more
A new paper published in Science of The Total Environment by Environmental Working Group scientists proposes an intriguing concept: Humans can serve as a valuable resource for understanding the impact on other animal species of the toxic "forever chemicals" known as PFAS. ⌘ Read more
A molecular switch, or molecule that changes in response to varying environmental stimuli, has successfully modified the acidity of a zeolite catalyst to improve the yield of paraxylene from methanol in heterogeneous catalysis, or a reaction where the catalyst, or molecule that facilitates a chemical reaction, and the reactants are in different phases, such as liquid and solid. ⌘ Read more
Union membership in Canada has been declining over the past four decades. In 2022, the percentage of employees who are union members fell to 29 percent from 38 percent in 1981. This decline has been partly attributed to the stagnant or outdated image of unions, which makes it difficult for some workers to relate to these organizations. ⌘ Read more
A new study of the evolution of birds shows that as their skeletons become more complex, they also decrease in diversity, with fewer species as they become more specialized in their niches. The findings, published in Nature Communications, show a correlation between skeleton complexity and bird diversity for the first time, and help biologists better understand why biodiversity varies across the birds. ⌘ Read more
A team of scientists, led by Dr. David Hsieh from the California Institute of Technology, have observed evidence of stable Hubbard excitons in a photo-doped antiferromagnetic Mott insulator. The findings of their study are published in Nature Physics. ⌘ Read more
Kathleen Maxwell has lived in Phoenix for more than 20 years, but this summer was the first time she felt fear, as daily high temperatures soared to 110 degrees or hotter and kept it up for a record-shattering 31 consecutive days. ⌘ Read more
It's hard to keep a language in the family. Many people who migrate to different countries find that their language of origin has become a heritage language, passed on to future generations with varying degrees of success. These languages come under pressure from the dominant language in a country as well as the lack of opportunities to practice and fluent speakers to practice with. ⌘ Read more
Most species of the famously large Rafflesia flower, which has long captured the imagination with its enormous speckled red petals, are now at risk of extinction, new research warned Wednesday. ⌘ Read more
Los Alamos was the perfect spot for the U.S. government's top-secret Manhattan Project. ⌘ Read more
What does it mean to be human? ⌘ Read more
Scientists said on Tuesday they have found the "missing ingredient" for pink diamonds, some of the world's most expensive stones due their rarity and beauty, and the discovery could help find more. ⌘ Read more
This week, we reported on spider silk synthesis without spiders, and how policymakers are pursuing a wish-based approach to a global economy under climate change—what the kids call "manifesting" a green-growth future. Plus, black holes could be hungrier than previously believed. ⌘ Read more
A research team, led by Professor Jong-Beom Baek and his team in the School of Energy and Chemical Engineering at UNIST have achieved a significant breakthrough in battery technology. They have developed an innovative method that enables the safe synthesis of fluorinated carbon materials (FCMs) using polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and graphite. ⌘ Read more
If you take a universe worth of hydrogen and helium, and let it stew for about 13 billion years, you get us. We are the descendants of the primeval elements. We are the cast-off dust of the first stars, and many generations of stars after that. So our search for the first stars of the cosmos is a search for our own history. While we haven't captured the light of those first stars, some of their direct children may be in our own galaxy. ⌘ Read more
In the realm of air quality forecasting, the precision of predictions largely hinges on the accuracy of emission inventory data. Traditional methods, which often update only once a year or less, face challenges in keeping pace with the dynamic nature of air pollutant emissions. This issue is particularly significant in China, where rapid changes in atmospheric pollutants demand a more agile approach. ⌘ Read more
NASA's Parker Solar Probe has racked up an impressive list of superlatives in its first five years of operations: It's the closest spacecraft to the sun, the fastest human-made object and the first mission to ever "touch the sun." ⌘ Read more
A lopsided majority of Brazil's Supreme Court ruled Thursday against an effort to restrict native peoples' rights to protected reservations on their ancestral lands, in a win for Indigenous activists and climate campaigners. ⌘ Read more
It was supposed to be a good-news story out of the damaged Amazon rainforest: a project that replanted hundreds of thousands of trees in an illegally deforested nature reserve in Brazil. ⌘ Read more
Volunteer firefighters are scorching Australia's forest undergrowth, reducing fuel for what is expected to be the fiercest fire season since the monster "Black Summer" blazes. ⌘ Read more
Primate species with better color vision are not more likely to have red skin or fur coloration, as previously thought. ⌘ Read more
Did you know the Northern lights or Aurora Borealis are created when the mythical Finnish "firefox" runs so quickly across the snow that its tail causes sparks to fly into the night sky? ⌘ Read more
The western edge of Chicago—including the North and South Lawndale, East Garfield Park, Archer Heights and Brighton Park neighborhoods—experiences up to 32% higher concentrations of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) air pollution compared to the rest of the city, a new Northwestern University study has found. ⌘ Read more
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers has observed the galaxy cluster PLCK G165.7+67.0. The observational campaign resulted in the detection of a new Type I supernova. The finding is reported in a paper published September 13 on the pre-print server arXiv. ⌘ Read more
Ahead of World Rivers Day (24 September), new research by the University of Oxford reveals that sewage discharge into rivers has a greater impact on water quality, and the animals and plants that live in rivers, than surrounding land use. The findings have been published in the journals Global Change Biology and Ecological Solutions and Evidence. ⌘ Read more
Astronomers using simulated data have produced a glimpse of the sky as it would appear in gravitational waves, cosmic ripples in space-time generated by orbiting objects. The image shows how space-based gravitational wave observatories expected to launch in the next decade will enhance our understanding of our galactic home. ⌘ Read more
The four astronauts headed to the moon next year on the Artemis II mission suited up and took a practice run to the launch pad in the new crew transport vehicles at Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday. ⌘ Read more
The Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth, plunges nearly 11,000 meters at its lowest point on the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Life persists in the deep and cold darkness, and "wherever there's life, you can bet there are regulators at work," said marine virologist Min Wang, Ph.D, at the Ocean University of China, in Qingdao. "Viruses, in this case." ⌘ Read more
A new Northwestern University-led study is changing the way astrophysicists understand the eating habits of supermassive black holes. ⌘ Read more
The Galapagos National Park said Tuesday that it had detected its first cases of avian flu on the remote islands, home to unique bird species that helped inspire the theory of evolution. ⌘ Read more
The battle against climate change is increasingly being fought in the courtroom, as national governments, specific laws and individual companies are targeted for their roles in the crisis. ⌘ Read more
A new paper titled "Long-read sequencing reveals rapid evolution of immunity and cancer-related genes in bats" in Genome Biology and Evolution shows that rapid evolution in bats may account for the animals' extraordinary ability to both host and survive infections as well as avoid cancer. ⌘ Read more
Over the past two decades, coral reefs have declined at unprecedented rates. This is in part because of extreme weather events, which cause wide-spread coral bleaching, a process during which corals lose their color because of stressors, including changes in water temperature, light, or nutrient availability. One of the worst mass bleaching events occurred in 2016 and 2017 on the Great Barrier Reef, causing ... ⌘ Read more
While many species are undergoing drastic declines in their numbers and geographic ranges, other species seem to be thriving. Researchers investigating the great-tailed grackle, a bird that has been establishing new populations across North America in the past few decades, reveal that behavior might play a key role in their success. They found that the population on the range's edge is more persistent and has more variab ... ⌘ Read more
The number of workers taking antidepressants rises significantly when a company is going through financial turmoil, Ph.D. research by Daniel Kárpáti shows. Job loss is an important reason for soaring prescription rates, but employees who don't lose their jobs are also more likely to suffer from depression. To curb the psychological and economic costs of recessions, Kárpáti argues for more proactive mental healt ... ⌘ Read more
A scientist who has dedicated his life to studying seabirds has revealed how climate change has led to mass mortality events, altered breeding times and how the population is now being devastated by bird flu, in one of the world's longest running studies of its kind. ⌘ Read more
A new Griffith-led study shows that, contrary to popular belief, organic suspended particulate matter on the Great Barrier Reef doesn't come from land derived river run-off. ⌘ Read more
Australian leaders with diverse backgrounds have expressed a sense of resignation and despair about the lack of women from First Nations and Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) backgrounds in leadership roles. ⌘ Read more
The thing about a supernova is that you never know when it might occur. Supernovae are triggered either by a collision with another star or when the interior of a massive star becomes depleted of nuclear fuel and begins a rapid collapse. Neither of these show any major optical changes before the explosion, so we are left to scan the sky in the hopes of catching one in its early stages. But that could soon change. ⌘ Read more
It's difficult to determine the shape of our galaxy. So difficult that only in the last century did we learn that the Milky Way is just one galaxy among billions. So it's not surprising that despite all our modern telescopes and spacecraft we are still mapping the shape of our galaxy. And one of the more interesting discoveries is that the Milky Way is warped. One explanation for this is that our galaxy has undergone collision ... ⌘ Read more
Wouldn't it be an elegant solution to use the substance that is most damaging to the climate and threatens the future as a raw material for economic goods and everyday items? In fact, carbon dioxide (CO2), an unavoidable byproduct of civilization, is already being used in the laboratory to produce lower olefins, alcohols and fuels in combination with hydrogen and other chemical reactants, all of which can be o ... ⌘ Read more
A 4.8-magnitude earthquake rattled parts of Tuscany early Monday, geologists and firefighters said. There were no immediate reports of damage or injuries. ⌘ Read more