An international research team, including a member of the Complexity Science Hub Vienna, investigated the role of "big gods" in the rise of complex large-scale societies. Big gods are defined as moralizing deities who punish ethical transgressions. Contrary to prevailing theories … | Continue reading
There are roughly five times as many recreational fishers as commercial fishers throughout the world. And yet, the needs and peculiarities of these 220 million recreational fishers have largely been ignored in international fisheries and conservation policy. This gives rise to co … | Continue reading
A test version of the 10.5-m long magnetometer boom built for ESA's mission to Jupiter, developed by SENER in Spain, seen being tested at ESA's Test Centre in the Netherlands, its weight borne by balloons. | Continue reading
Female birds age more slowly and live longer when they have help raising their offspring, according to new research from the University of Sheffield. | Continue reading
Thawing permafrost in high-altitude mountain ecosystems may be a stealthy, underexplored contributor to atmospheric carbon dioxide emissions, new University of Colorado Boulder research shows. | Continue reading
A sacred giant turtle that died in Hanoi's storied Hoan Kiem lake has been given a new lease on life by city authorities who have embalmed the beloved creature for posterity—and tourist visits. | Continue reading
About 2,000 Australians were being moved inland Thursday from part of the northern coast ahead of a powerful cyclone expected to hit this weekend. | Continue reading
A boulder-sized fish of a kind known to "sink yachts" has washed up on an Australian beach. | Continue reading
Walls draped in lush vertical gardens and air filtered through purifiers insulate diners at a swanky New Delhi food court from the choking haze outside in one of the most polluted places on earth. | Continue reading
Scientists in the Galapagos Islands have attached tracers to five blue sharks for the first time as part of a project to study their migratory patterns, Ecuador's government said. | Continue reading
After finding that exposure to the weedkiller Roundup was a "substantial factor" in one man's cancer, jurors in California must now grapple with the question of just how culpable the product's manufacturer, agriculture giant Monsanto, was in his illness. | Continue reading
As millions of people in Asia choke under polluted skies, authorities have turned to water-dispersing drones and outdoor air purifiers to improve air quality, while companies have tried to cash in by selling everything from canned air to lung-purifying teas. | Continue reading
Boeing's ill-fated 737 MAX and federal regulators next week will face the first public grilling by Congress over the two fatal plane crashes in recent months. | Continue reading
Boeing's grounded airliners are likely to be parked longer now that European and Canadian regulators plan to conduct their own reviews of changes the company is making after two of the jets crashed. | Continue reading
New research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA) reveals that sharp variations of the surface of volcanoes can affect data collected by monitoring equipment. | Continue reading
Scientists should stop using the term 'statistically significant' in their research, urges this editorial in a special issue of The American Statistician published today. | Continue reading
Remote communities in the Peruvian Andes, as well as communities downstream, depend on the water from melting glaciers and mountain ecosystems to provide them with food and power, and to support industry. | Continue reading
Asian Americans graduate from university at far higher rates than white Americans, but despite this are no more likely to hold professional or managerial jobs, according to a new study. | Continue reading
Once a traditional satellite is launched into space, its physical hardware and computer software stay mostly immutable for the rest of its existence as it orbits the Earth, even as the technology it serves on the ground continues to change. | Continue reading
Earth's ultimate survivors can weather extreme heat, cold, radiation and even the vacuum of space. Now the U.S. military hopes these tiny critters called tardigrades can teach us about true toughness. | Continue reading
NASA's Aqua satellite provided a view of Tropical Cyclone Veronica after it developed off the northern coast of Western Australia. | Continue reading
Tropical storms are likely to become more deadly under climate change, leaving people in developing countries, where there may be a lack of resources or poor infrastructure, at increased risk, new research from Oregon State University shows. | Continue reading
Scientists at the University of Illinois at Chicago have developed a way to identify the beginning of every gene—known as a translation start site or a start codon—in bacterial cell DNA with a single experiment and, through this method, they have shown that an individual gene is … | Continue reading
Controlling mosquito-borne illnesses, such as Dengue or West Nile virus, has historically been difficult due to a lack of effective vaccines and concerns about the environmental impact of insecticides. Thus, scientists have turned to manipulating Wolbachia, a parasitic bacterium … | Continue reading
Chemistry researchers at Oregon State University have patented a method for making anti-leukemia compounds that until now have only been available via an Asian tree that produces them. | Continue reading
With 1 million new cases of congestive heart failure diagnosed each year, a revolutionary product is making it easier for hospitals to monitor patients with the condition in the comfort of their own homes. | Continue reading
The center of our galaxy is a frenzy of activity. A behemoth black hole—4 million times as massive as the sun—blasts out energy as it chows down on interstellar detritus while neighboring stars burst to life and subsequently explode. | Continue reading
We all know that turning off lights and buying energy-efficient appliances affects our financial bottom line. Now, according to a new study by University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers, we know that saving energy also saves lives and even more money for consumers by alleviating … | Continue reading
Tropical Cyclone Trevor appeared to have a cloud-filled eye in visible imagery from NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite. | Continue reading
Sea ice in the Arctic appears to have hit its annual maximum extent after growing through the fall and winter. The 2019 wintertime extent reached on March 13 ties with 2007's as the 7th smallest extent of winter sea ice in the satellite record, according to scientists at the NASA … | Continue reading
Direct observations of the structure and catalytic mechanism of a prototypical kinase enzyme—protein kinase A or PKA—will provide researchers and drug developers with significantly enhanced abilities to understand and treat fatal diseases and neurological disorders such as cancer … | Continue reading
A new species of Surazomus, which belongs to the class Arachnida and the order Schizomida, has been discovered in the eastern Amazon, according to a study published March 20 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Gustavo Ruiz and Roberta Valente of the Universidade Federal do Par … | Continue reading
A new model quantifies how forest change affects local surface temperatures by altering sunlight-reflection and evapotranspiration properties, and predicts that Brazilian deforestation could result in a 1.45°C increase by 2050, in a study published March 20, 2019 in the open-acce … | Continue reading
Introduction of nonnative lake trout in Yellowstone Lake has affected organisms from the microscopic level in the lake to large animals in the region, according to newly published research. | Continue reading
The realization of so-called topological materials—which exhibit exotic, defect-resistant properties and are expected to have applications in electronics, optics, quantum computing, and other fields—has opened up a new realm in materials discovery. | Continue reading
Eighty-five percent of artists whose work is found in collections of major U.S. museums are white, and 87 percent are male, according to new research by Chad Topaz of Williams College, MA, and colleagues. The study, published in PLOS ONE, also suggests that artist diversity is no … | Continue reading
People from North Africa are likely the main group that founded the indigenous population on the Canary Islands, arriving by 1000 CE, reports a new study by Rosa Fregel of Stanford University and Universidad de La Laguna, Spain, and colleagues, published March 20, 2019 in the ope … | Continue reading
A drama in which a submersible made an emergency ascent from 250 meters (820 feet) below the Indian Ocean was caused by condensation burning out a small motor in the cockpit, the director of the British-led Nekton Mission said on Wednesday. | Continue reading
A team of researchers from New York University has engineered nanoscale protein micelles capable of both delivering chemotherapeutic drugs and of being tracked by magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). | Continue reading
A new computer program that spots when information in a quantum computer is escaping to unwanted states will give users of this promising technology the ability to check its reliability without any technical knowledge for the first time. | Continue reading
A study by the University of Liverpool reveals new insights into how cells respond to oxygen deprivation. | Continue reading
A Lithuanian man who duped Google and Facebook into transferring over $100 million into accounts he controlled has pleaded guilty to wire fraud. | Continue reading
The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed a lower court to take another look at a lawsuit that involved Google and privacy concerns and ended in a class-action settlement. | Continue reading
German carmakers are increasingly turning to electric vehicles to master tough new emissions limits looming in the EU, but the shift away from internal combustion engines will entail years of lower margins and profits, cost cutting and job losses. | Continue reading
Negative media portrayals of Muslim Americans can have adverse effects on how they view themselves as citizens and their trust in the U.S. government. | Continue reading
It's cliché to describe something very noisy as "louder than a jet engine." But supersonic jet engines, like those powering fighters flown by the U.S. military, are so much louder than regular jet engines that scientists have a special term for their sound—"broadband shock-associ … | Continue reading
Can you spot a liar? | Continue reading