A research team has pioneered an innovative technique in ultra-high-resolution spectroscopy. Their breakthrough marks the world's first instance of electrically controlling polaritons—hybridized light-matter particles—at room temperature. The research has been published in Physical Review Letters. ⌘ Read more
A research team has pioneered an innovative technique in ultra-high-resolution spectroscopy. Their breakthrough marks the world's first instance of electrically controlling polaritons—hybridized light-matter particles—at room temperature. The research has been published in Physical Review Letters. ⌘ Read more
Whether you saw the moon completely block the sun, were foiled by cloudy weather or weren't along the path of Monday's total solar eclipse, there are still more chances to catch a glimpse. ⌘ Read more
For the 10th consecutive month, Earth in March set a new monthly record for global heat—with both air temperatures and the world's oceans hitting an all-time high for the month, the European Union climate agency Copernicus said. ⌘ Read more
After beholding the midday darkness of a total solar eclipse that raced across the continent, thousands of spectators in New England were stuck seeing only brake lights Monday night as highway traffic backed up for hours. ⌘ Read more
In a study led by Prof. Wei Xu (Interdisciplinary Materials Research Center, School of Materials Science and Engineering, Tongji University) and published in the journal National Science Review, a research team achieved the successful synthesis of a one-dimensional carbon chain on the Au(111) surface, with the longest chain containing approximately 120 carbon atoms, and the polyynic nature of the carbon chain was unambig ... ⌘ Read more
Gossip flows through the offices and lunchrooms of our workplaces, seemingly filling idle time. But perhaps, through these ubiquitous and intriguing conversations, we are influencing our workplace relationships more than we realize. ⌘ Read more
Sure, cooking our food can make it safer to eat and more digestible. But let's be honest. We mainly cook to create something we enjoy—something delicious. ⌘ Read more
Climate change in the media is often represented through evocative images of polar bears on small floating ice rafts and bleached corals—stark white skeletons in the wasteland of a once-thriving marine community. Besides being diverse ecosystems, coral reefs have a vital role in dissipating wave energy to protect coastlines from erosion and natural disasters, as well as being important sources of tourism income ... ⌘ Read more
Eclipse spectators staked out their spots across three countries Sunday, fervently hoping for clear skies despite forecasts calling for clouds along most of the sun-vanishing route. ⌘ Read more
People preparing to watch Monday's total eclipse of the sun need to protect their vision during the event, eye doctors say. ⌘ Read more
As the total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, draws closer, a vibrant community of enthusiastic amateur radio operators, known as "hams," is gearing up for an exciting project with the Ham Radio Science Citizen Investigation (HamSCI) group. Our goal is clear and ambitious: to use the moon's shadow as a natural laboratory to uncover the intricacies of the ionosphere, a layer of Earth's atmosphere crucial for radio co ... ⌘ Read more
A new study by scientists from Japan explores the propagation of quantum information within interacting boson systems like Bose-Einstein condensates (BECs), revealing the potential for accelerated transmission unlike previously thought. ⌘ Read more
Paleontologists have presented a new insight into the initial dental variations across mammaliaforms, providing a fresh perspective on the evolutionary past of these ancient beasts. ⌘ Read more
When you throw dinosaurs into the mix, sometimes you find that a rule simply isn't. ⌘ Read more
UC Merced researchers are shedding light on a little-explored aspect of cross-cultural communication that involves no spoken words but sometimes can cause confusion and anguish for children acting as interpreters for older family members. ⌘ Read more
At the intersection of chemistry and computation, researchers from the University of Glasgow have developed a hybrid digital-chemical probabilistic computational system based on the Belousov-Zhabotinsky (BZ) reaction which can be used for solving combinatorial optimization problems. ⌘ Read more
When Americans mark their presidential election ballots later this year, immigration will be top of mind—it's the nation's number one issue, according to pollster Gallup. And one of the toughest talkers on the topic is former president and presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump. He's built his political career on calls to secure the border and defend America against what he says are immigration's dangers, warning of shrinking wages and stretched benefits pr ... ⌘ Read more
Globally, computation is booming at an unprecedented rate, fueled by the boons of artificial intelligence. With this, the staggering energy demand of the world's computing infrastructure has become a major concern, and the development of computing devices that are far more energy-efficient is a leading challenge for the scientific community. ⌘ Read more
Current levels of interest in learning a foreign language are unprecedented, and there have never been so many ways to learn. The internet has given rise to a wide variety of tools for listening, reading and writing in another language. It has also led to the emergence of platforms where students can improve their speaking skills through virtual conversation exchanges. ⌘ Read more
In 1928, Indian physicist Sir C. V. Raman and his colleague K. S. Krishnan discovered that when light interacts with matter, parts of the scattered light undergo changes in energy due to interaction with molecular vibrations, resulting in what is known as Raman scattering. The discovery laid the foundation for Raman spectroscopy, a technique that takes advantage of these energy changes to create a unique f ... ⌘ Read more
Changing weather patterns induced by climate change are contributing to shifts in the location of terrorist activity, according to new research. ⌘ Read more
An extensive CO2 monitoring network set up around the San Francisco Bay Area by an atmospheric chemist from the University of California, Berkeley, has recorded the first evidence that the adoption of electric vehicles is measurably lowering the area's carbon emissions. The findings have been published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. ⌘ Read more
Early in May 2023, a small team of marine biologists arrived in the Saudi Arabian city of Jeddah. They'd flown into the local airport from Guam, the United States, Portugal, Spain and Japan, and they'd soon rendezvous with colleagues from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), a research university built along the banks of the Red Sea. ⌘ Read more
A study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science investigated the factors influencing orgasm rates for women across sexual orientations. The researchers report that partner gender plays a significant role in how women approach sex. and their likelihood of reaching orgasm. ⌘ Read more
Plans are underway by to airlift a stranded killer whale calf out of a remote tidal lagoon off northern Vancouver Island in an effort to reunite the young orca with its extended family, Canadian authorities said Wednesday. ⌘ Read more
Taiwan was struck Wednesday by its most powerful earthquake in a quarter of a century. At least nine people were killed and hundreds injured, buildings and highways damaged and dozens of workers at quarries stranded. ⌘ Read more
Recent research led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst evaluates how well machine learning can identify different insect species by their sound, from malaria-carrying mosquitoes and grain-hungry weevils to crop-pollinating bees and sap-sucking cicadas. ⌘ Read more
Most Americans report having personally experienced the effects of extreme weather, according to new survey data from the Annenberg Public Policy Center that finds support for pro-environmental government policies meant to lessen the effects of climate change. ⌘ Read more
Small loans can help people establish and expand their small businesses. A field study in Ghana has now revealed that men ask for and receive more money from microcredit companies than women. However, if women are better informed, they are more likely to apply for higher amounts. ⌘ Read more
Transition metal telluride nanosheets have shown enormous promise for fundamental research and other applications across a rainbow of different fields, but until now, mass fabrication has been impossible, leaving the material as something of a laboratory curiosity rather than an industrial reality. ⌘ Read more
Choosing paint for your home brings a lot of options: What kind of paint, what type of finish and what color? Water-based paints have emerged as "greener" and less smelly than solvent-based options. And they are often advertised as containing little-to-no volatile organic compounds (VOCs). But, according to research published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, some of these paints do contai ... ⌘ Read more
While investigating 16 years of images of young stars from a retired astronomical camera, Leiden master's student Sam de Regt discovered that two of those stars were still enveloped in birth clouds that had not been seen at this level of detail before. He publishes his data-cleaning method and the new images of the two stars in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. ⌘ Read more
When nucleic acids like DNA or RNA build up in a cell's cytoplasm, it sets off an alarm call for the immune system. Enzymes usually clear these nucleic acids before they cause an issue, but when these enzymes don't work and the immune system gets called in, it can lead to autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. ⌘ Read more
A study from the Technical University in Berlin suggests "sufficiency" should be a more prominent strategy for protecting biodiversity. ⌘ Read more
As universities around the world strive to cultivate diverse and equitable communities, a recent study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis highlights the necessity of recognizing age as a fundamental dimension of diversity. ⌘ Read more
Researchers have developed a 3D full-color display method that uses a smartphone screen rather than a laser to create holographic images. With further development, the new approach could be useful for augmented or virtual reality displays. ⌘ Read more
The population of brown bears in the Pyrenees mountains, which had been threatened with extinction, keeps growing, French authorities said Tuesday. ⌘ Read more
Using the MeerKAT radio telescope, an international team of astronomers has detected 10 new millisecond pulsars in a Galactic globular cluster known as Terzan 5. The finding, which makes Terzan 5 the most pulsar-rich globular cluster, was reported in a research paper published March 26 on the pre-print server arXiv. ⌘ Read more
North America is on the verge of another masking of the sun. ⌘ Read more
The New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision is canceling visits to nearly two dozen facilities expected to be thrown into "total darkness" amid the solar eclipse on April 8. ⌘ Read more
Tropical cyclones, also known as hurricanes and typhoons, are meteorological phenomena that occur over tropical and subtropical oceans experiencing low atmospheric pressure, where water vapor from the warm oceans condenses to produce spiraling cloud formations hundreds of meters wide. The resulting heavy rain and wind speeds exceeding 74 miles per hour can bring devastation to communities in their path when these tropic ... ⌘ Read more
Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers has observed a nearby merging galaxy known as NGC 3256. Results of the observational campaign, presented March 21 on the pre-print server arXiv, yield essential information about molecular outflows of this galaxy. ⌘ Read more
Japan's valiant moon lander was put to sleep again after unexpectedly surviving its second ultra-chilly long lunar night, the space agency said Monday. ⌘ Read more
You're not just getting older. Song lyrics really are becoming simpler and more repetitive, according to a study published on Thursday. ⌘ Read more
Some political figures seek to remove references to slavery from the study of American history, adding to the vast knowledge gaps that stem from the transatlantic slave trade. To better understand these histories, scholars and individuals are turning to genetic genealogy to discover and retrace descendant-family lineages. ⌘ Read more
In the effort to combat the catastrophic impacts of global warming, we must accelerate carbon emissions reduction efforts and rapidly scale strategies to remove carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and the oceans. The technologies for reducing our carbon emissions are mature; those for removing carbon from the environment are not, and need robust support from governments and the pr ... ⌘ Read more
Planting trees in the wrong places can actually contribute to global warming, scientists said on Tuesday, but a new map identifies the best locations to regrow forests and cool the planet. ⌘ Read more
Climate change is making giant heat waves crawl slower across the globe and they are baking more people for a longer time with higher temperatures over larger areas, a new study finds. ⌘ Read more
DGIST's Physics and Chemistry Professor Park Jin-hee and her research team have developed a technology that allows easy detection of hazardous chemicals. Allowing one to detect harmful substances by analyzing color changes using a mobile phone camera, the technology is expected to be utilized for various purposes, such as the detection of environmental pollution and prevention of gas leak ... ⌘ Read more
Their dragon-like appearance has earned lobsters the moniker "dragons of the sea." It is one reason why they are a favorite fixture during Lunar New Year banquets. The Chinese call them longxia or dragon shrimps. And in some Asian cultures, eating them means imbibing the good fortune, rosy health, and formidable power embodied by the dragon—the most auspicious of the 12 zodiac animals. ⌘ Read more
The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday set strict emissions standards for heavy-duty trucks, buses and other large vehicles, an action that officials said will help clean up some of the nation's largest sources of planet-warming greenhouse gases. ⌘ Read more
While eclipse watchers look to the skies, people who are blind or visually impaired will be able to hear and feel the celestial event. ⌘ Read more
An earthquake of magnitude 2.8 has been reported in southern Illinois, near the Missouri state line, the U.S. Geological Survey reported. ⌘ Read more
The heliosphere—made of solar wind, solar transients, and the interplanetary magnetic field—acts as our solar system's personal shield, protecting the planets from galactic cosmic rays. These extremely energetic particles accelerated outwards from events like supernovas and would cause a huge amount of damage if the heliosphere did not mostly absorb them. ⌘ Read more
A researcher at Colorado State University has developed a potential approach for identifying and understanding dark matter using the soon-to-be-built gigantic particle detectors at the international Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). ⌘ Read more
New research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison decodes the evolutionary pathway of regulatory proteins, the molecules that help control gene expression. ⌘ Read more
One ecosystem's trash could be another ecosystem's treasure, according to scientists studying cyanobacteria, more commonly known as blue-green algae. ⌘ Read more
A team of molecular engineers at Tsinghua University, in China, has developed a new type of hydrogel that can stretch to 15 times its original size and then snap back to its original form. In their study, published in the journal Science, the group modified the process normally used to create hydrogels to produce a new one that is far more elastic. ⌘ Read more
Could it be that human existence depends on gravitational waves? Some key elements in our biological makeup may come from astrophysical events that occur because gravitational waves exist, a research team headed by John R. Ellis of Kings College London suggests. ⌘ Read more
Canada's Quebec province is rich with minerals needed for everything from electric cars to cell phones, but residents living atop the potential windfall are worried their backyards will be dug up—and they won't get a dime. ⌘ Read more
Are family challenges distracting you at work, making your job feel demanding and stressful? ⌘ Read more
At a time when America needs volunteers more than ever, to tackle social problems from homelessness to disaster recovery, fewer people have been volunteering. ⌘ Read more
Scientists have used electrical pulses to manipulate magnetic information into a polarized light signal, a discovery that could revolutionize long-distance optical telecommunications, including between Earth and Mars. ⌘ Read more
In mammals, social behavior and social status can substantially influence the survival, reproductive performance, and health of individuals. However, it is not yet fully understood how the translation of social and environmental factors into the physiology of an organism is reflected in molecular processes. ⌘ Read more
China has sent more than a million bottles of water from melting Tibetan glaciers to the Maldives, officials said Thursday, a gift from the world's highest mountains to a low-lying archipelago threatened by rising seas. ⌘ Read more
Athenians are choking in clouds of thick dust blown in from the Sahara along with unseasonably warm weather, weather forecasters and doctors warned on Thursday. ⌘ Read more
Japan's moon lander woke up after unexpectedly surviving a second frigid, two-week lunar night and transmitted new images back to Earth, the country's space agency said Thursday. ⌘ Read more
Phytoplankton is the primary energy source for all marine ecosystems: These tiny plants floating in the seawater use photosynthesis to bind energy in the form of biomass, which is then passed on step by step in the marine food webs all the way to different types of fish and piscivores. ⌘ Read more
Floods affect more people worldwide than any other natural hazard, causing enormous damage that is expected to increase in a warming world. However, people and decision-makers in vulnerable regions are often unwilling to prepare for exceptionally severe events because they are difficult to imagine and beyond their experience. ⌘ Read more
With resistance to chemical antibiotics on the rise, the world needs entirely new forms of antibiotics. A new study published in Microbiology Spectrum shows that an enzymatic cocktail can kill a variety of mycobacterial species of bacteria, including those that cause tuberculosis. The research was carried out by scientists at Colorado State University and Endolytix Technologies. ⌘ Read more
A new image from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration—which includes scientists from the Center for Astrophysics \\| Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA)— has uncovered strong and organized magnetic fields spiraling from the edge of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A\\* (Sgr A\\*). ⌘ Read more
Australia's grassland earless dragon is no bigger than a pinkie when it emerges from its shell, but the little lizard faces an enormous challenge in the years ahead: avoiding extinction. ⌘ Read more
Rabbits are popular family pets, with around 1.5 million in the UK and it is important that owners recognize when their animal is in pain, and know when to seek help to protect their rabbit's welfare. New research by the University of Bristol Veterinary School has found that the majority of rabbit owners could list signs of pain and could mostly identify pain-free rabbits and those in severe pain, but many lacked knowledge of the subtler signs ... ⌘ Read more
Queensland University of Technology researchers have homed in on AI-powered chatbots in the local government sector to look at their benefits and risks, what they are used for and why, and how users view them. ⌘ Read more
Australians have had plenty of time in the last 100 years to work out what they value about cinema-going and why it matters. Head to any cinema and catch the Val Morgan advertising in the pre-show. Take a closer look at the date the company was founded. Not 1984, but 1894. That's more than 125 years of "Making Messages Memorable" on Australian screens. ⌘ Read more
A newly devised procedure to de-ice Euclid's optics has performed significantly better than hoped. Light coming in to the visible "VIS" instrument from distant stars was gradually decreasing due small amounts of water ice building up on its optics. Mission teams spent months devising a procedure to heat up individual mirrors in the instrument's complex optical system, without interfering with the finely tuned mission's calibration or potentially causing further contamination. After the v ... ⌘ Read more
A fresh, icy crust hides a deep, enigmatic ocean. Plumes of water burst through cracks in the ice, shooting into space. An intrepid lander collects samples and analyzes them for hints of life. ⌘ Read more
An international team of 25 scientists has proposed a roadmap for how to prevent the next pandemic by conserving natural areas and promoting biodiversity, thereby providing animals with enough food, safe havens and distance to limit contact and the transfer of pathogens to humans. ⌘ Read more
As efforts to restore tree cover accelerate to help avoid runaway climate change, a new study highlights how restoring tree cover can, in some locations, heat up the Earth rather than cool it by affecting how much sunlight the surface reflects (i.e. "the albedo"). ⌘ Read more
Several thousand sensors distributed over a square kilometer near the South Pole are tasked with answering one of the large outstanding questions in physics: does quantum gravity exist? The sensors monitor neutrinos—particles with no electrical charge and almost without mass—arriving at the Earth from outer space. A team from the Niels Bohr Institute (NBI), University of Copenhagen, has contributed to develo ... ⌘ Read more
When we talk, we often use our hands in addition to words. Gesturing is a phenomenon that has been observed across languages and cultures. Some cultures are typically thought to use more gestures than others. ⌘ Read more
Safety science literature and terminology reveal a limited array of concepts to describe the comprehensive characteristics of system safety and security, including terms such as safety culture and risk. Despite these efforts, the rapid evolution of safety science outpaces the adequacy of these concepts, signaling a pressing need for new, meaningful general concepts. ⌘ Read more
It is estimated that 30% of the world's terrestrial carbon stocks are found in the boreal forest, 60% of which is below ground. Organic soil horizons contain about one-third of the soil carbon. Therefore, the stability of boreal soils is critical to understanding global carbon cycle feedbacks to climate change and soil management. However, the regulating factors of humus carbon sequestration in the b ... ⌘ Read more
During cell division, a ring forms around the cell equator, which contracts to divide the cell into two daughter cells. Together with researchers from Heidelberg, Dresden, Tübingen and Harvard, Professor Jan Kierfeld and Lukas Weise from the Department of Physics at TU Dortmund University have succeeded for the first time in synthesizing such a contractile ring with the help of DNA nanotechnology and uncovering ... ⌘ Read more
Chicago ranked second among major U.S. cities with the worst air pollution in 2023, its average annual concentration of dangerous fine particulate matter almost three times global guidelines, according to a recent report. Even as national standards have tightened, pollution levels in the city still surpassed old regulations. ⌘ Read more
Welcome to New Jersey, known around the world for Tony Soprano, Turnpike tolls, chemical plants, and ... maple syrup? ⌘ Read more
Education drives economic growth and individual well-being. Secondary education, in particular, plays a crucial role. In recent decades, this recognition has encouraged several African countries to make secondary education free. One example is Ghana's Free Public Senior High School (FreeSHS) policy, initiated in 2017. ⌘ Read more
March Madness—the time when the best men's and women's college basketball teams challenge each other—is a made-for-television spectacle watched by millions. While March Madness has been around for decades, one of the tournament's biggest changes happened in 2018, when the Supreme Court struck down the ban on sports betting. ⌘ Read more
Schools across South Sudan have been ordered to close as a heat wave of 45°C sweeps across the country. In recent years, severe flooding has already caused major disruptions to schooling in South Sudan where, on average, children complete less than five years of formal education across their lives. ⌘ Read more
For ecologists, one of the most pressing questions is to understand how ecosystems will change or adapt as the climate changes rapidly. We are already seeing many species of plant and animal moving uphill and towards the poles in response to higher temperatures. It's very likely most species will move to track their preferred temperature niche. ⌘ Read more
A shortage of cocoa beans has led to a near shutdown of processing plants in Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana, the two countries responsible for 60% of global production. With chocolate makers around the world reliant on west Africa for cocoa, there is significant concern about the impact on the prices of chocolate and the livelihood of farmers. Cocoa researcher Michael Odijie explains the reasons for the shortag ... ⌘ Read more
How stable are planetary systems? Will Earth and its seven siblings always continue in their steady celestial paths, or might we one day be randomly ejected from our cosmic home? ⌘ Read more
In dim light a cat sees much better than you do, as do dogs and nocturnal animals. That's because the structure of a cat's eye has a tapetum lucidum, a mirror-like layer immediately behind the retina. Light entering the eye that is not focused by the lens onto the retina is reflected off the tapetum lucidum, where the retina gets another chance to receive the light, process it, and send i ... ⌘ Read more
Research led by Macquarie University sheds new light on how concentrations of metals used in renewable energy technologies can be transported from deep within the Earth's interior mantle by low temperature, carbon-rich melts. ⌘ Read more
Stock up on groceries. Print off driving directions. And be very, very patient. ⌘ Read more
A top panel of geologists has decided not to grant the 'human age' its own distinct place in Earth's geological timeline after disagreeing over when exactly our era might have begun. ⌘ Read more
A new analysis of zooplankton in western Lake Erie shows that their biomass and seasonal behavioral patterns have been drastically altered by human-driven changes in water temperature and food webs. ⌘ Read more
The first study of humpback whale entanglements in B.C. aquaculture facilities in PLOS One found eight over 13 years, with the curiosity of young whales a potential contributing factor. ⌘ Read more
Avian influenza is killing tens of thousands of seals and sea lions in different corners of the world, disrupting ecosystems and flummoxing scientists who don't see a clear way to slow the devastating virus. ⌘ Read more
Roots play a vital role in plant health, adapting to environmental changes and indicating crop growth. However, studying root senescence is challenging due to difficulties in obtaining clear in situ root images. Traditional methods are limited, and while in situ cultivation and advanced imaging techniques offer some solutions, they face issues such as high costs and low image quality. Recent advances in deep ... ⌘ Read more