A team at the Institute of Scientific and Industrial Research at Osaka University has determined the optical parameters of cellulose molecules with unprecedented precision. They found that cellulose's intrinsic birefringence, which describes how a material reacts differently to l … | Continue reading
The human genome is fascinating. Once predicted to contain about a hundred thousand protein-coding genes, it now seems that the number is closer to twenty thousand, and maybe less. And although our genome is made up of about three billion units—base pairs—many of them don't seem … | Continue reading
RNA sequencing is a technique used to analyze entire genomes by looking at the expression of their genes. Today, such genome-wide expression analyses are a standard tool for genomic studies because they rely on high-throughput technologies, which themselves have become widely ava … | Continue reading
LMU researchers utilized a biophysical approach to understand how bacterial import proteins bind and selectively convey their cargoes across membranes. The results reveal an unexpectedly wide variety of transfer mechanisms. | Continue reading
A Mainer who's headed to the International Space Station says she's always dreamed of being in space and "seeing this giant blue ball below me." | Continue reading
A private cargo ship brought food galore to the International Space Station on Friday. | Continue reading
The Araguaian river dolphin of Brazil is something of a mystery. It was thought to be quite solitary, with little social structure that would require communication. But Laura May Collado, a biologist at the University of Vermont, and her colleagues have discovered that the dolphi … | Continue reading
If all goes well, 2030 will be quite a special year. | Continue reading
Agricultural and marine scientists at the University of California have joined forces to combat one of the greatest sources of methane emissions in California: cow burps. | Continue reading
Debates over gun regulations make headlines across the world, but there's an underground operation for weapons that has drawn very little attention – until now. Researchers from Michigan State University crept into the dark web to investigate how firearms are anonymously bought a … | Continue reading
Taking a step closer to a "green" replacement for fossil fuels, a research team that includes a chemical engineer at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) has developed a novel process using an unusual solvent and an exotic microorganism that may make it possible to manufacture i … | Continue reading
Should Canada go to the moon? What's there for Canadians? It is these questions that we should ponder when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently announced that Canada will be participating in the new space exploration vision. | Continue reading
While flames engulfed Notre Dame on the evening of April 15 and the world watched in despair, French president Emmanuel Macron told news cameras that the Paris cathedral was part of the history of all French people: | Continue reading
I was invited to speak to a group of teenagers on climate strike in Oxford recently. Like many scientists, I support the strikes, but also find them disturbing. Which I'm sure is the idea. | Continue reading
Hospitality service Airbnb is fast becoming the 800-pound gorilla that's shaking up the hotel industry and forever changing it. | Continue reading
Water, despite its central place in so many processes vital to life on Earth, remains a chemical mystery in many respects. One of those mysteries is the nature of water at the exact point where it comes into contact with air. | Continue reading
The human gut harbors trillions of invisible microbial inhabitants, referred to as the microbiota, that collectively produce thousands of unique small molecules. The sources and biological functions of the vast majority of these molecules are unknown. Yale researchers recently ap … | Continue reading
Millions of fans just began watching the eighth and final season of the megahit HBO series "Game of Thrones" to see who will emerge from the long winter as the ruler of Westeros. | Continue reading
UW scientists are prepping a kidney-on-a-chip experiment at Cape Canaveral, Florida, awaiting a shuttle launch that will take the chips into space. At an altitude of 250 miles, astronauts will help study how reduced gravity in space affects kidney physiology. | Continue reading
India could make a major dent in air pollution by curbing emissions from dirty household fuels such as wood, dung, coal and kerosene, shows a new analysis led by researchers at the University of California, Berkeley and the India Institute of Technology. | Continue reading
Millions more Instagram users were affected by a password security lapse than parent company Facebook acknowledged nearly four weeks ago. | Continue reading
Netflix announced plans Thursday to create a New York City production center for its original programs that could lead to thousands of new jobs. | Continue reading
Americans burned a record amount of energy in 2018, with a 10% jump in consumption from booming natural gas helping to lead the way, the U.S. Energy Information Administration says. | Continue reading
NASA's first female astronaut candidate, pilot Jerrie Cobb, has died. | Continue reading
Pinterest got off to a flying start on Wall Street Thursday in the market debut for the San Francisco-based visual discovery service, a positive sign for the wave of Silicon Valley firms planning stock listings. | Continue reading
Companies that go public on the stock market provide an economic boost to the local communities where they're based, according to new research from Rice University's Jones Graduate School of Business. | Continue reading
Named after the dark stripes that form inside potatoes after they are cut and fried, zebra chip disease is a potentially devastating affliction that can result in yield losses up to 100% for farmers. | Continue reading
Fish warn each other about danger by releasing chemicals into the water as a signal, research by the University of Saskatchewan (USask) has found. | Continue reading
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, recently investigated levels of methylmercury in a small sampling of commercial dog foods and found good news for dog owners. Of the 24 diets tested, only three were positive for low concentrations of total mercury, and only one … | Continue reading
Pouring through 10 years' worth of Southern California seismic data with the scientific equivalent of a fine-tooth comb, Caltech seismologists have identified nearly two million previously unidentified tiny earthquakes that occurred between 2008 and 2017.Their efforts, published … | Continue reading
Elaborate molecular networks inside living cells enable them to sense and process many signals from the environment to perform desired cellular functions. Synthetic biologists have been able to reconstruct and mimic simpler forms of this cellular signal processing. But now, a new … | Continue reading
Through randomly selected measurements, Austrian physicists can now determine the quantum entanglement of many-particle systems. With the newly developed method, quantum simulations can be extended to a larger number of quantum particles. In Science, physicists from Innsbruck, Au … | Continue reading
Galapagos giant tortoises, sometimes called Gardeners of the Galapagos, are creatures of habit. In the cool dry season, the highlands of the volcano slopes are engulfed in cloud which allows the vegetation to grow despite the lack of rain. On the lower slopes, however, there is n … | Continue reading
The Israeli start-up behind last week's failed lunar landing says human error may have caused the spacecraft to crash into the moon. | Continue reading
Investors are giving unicorn technology companies Zoom and Pinterest a rousing reception in their debuts on the stock market. | Continue reading
Some 200,000 bees inhabiting hives in Notre-Dame cathedral survived the inferno that engulfed the heritage landmark in a miraculous escape, their beekeeper said Thursday. | Continue reading
New North Carolina State University research shows that key proteins known for their ability to prevent viral infections by inducing cell death can also block certain bacterial infections without triggering the death of the host cells. | Continue reading
The American Bumblebee—a species once more commonly seen buzzing around Southern Ontario—is critically endangered, according to a new study led by York University. | Continue reading
In a proof-of-principle study in mice, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine report the creation of a specialized gel that acts like a lymph node to successfully activate and multiply cancer-fighting immune system T-cells. The work puts scientists a step closer, they say, to injec … | Continue reading
Ancient Roman leaders once made decisions about important events, such as when to hold elections or where to build new cities, based on the presence or flight patterns of birds. Builders often omit the thirteenth floor from their floor plans, and many pedestrians go well out of t … | Continue reading
The tectonic deformation and growth pattern of the western Kunlun, which is the northwestern margin of the Tibetan Plateau, are not currently well understood. The surface rupture caused by an earthquake can provide a unique opportunity to investigate the impact of coseismic fault … | Continue reading
A newly proposed system of measurement known as the community sustainability assessment system, or CSAS, could be used to define what it means to be a sustainable community as well as evaluate the impact of individual communities on global sustainability, according to new researc … | Continue reading