After flying in space for more than two years, NASA's spacecraft OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) recently entered into orbit around its target, the asteroid Bennu. Asteroids like Bennu are considered to be leftove … | Continue reading
Organic semiconductors enable the fabrication of large-scale printed and mechanically flexible electronics applications, and have already successfully established themselves on the market for displays in the form of organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs). In order to break into ot … | Continue reading
Researchers in Singapore have built a refrigerator that's just three atoms big. This quantum fridge won't keep your drinks cold, but it's cool proof of physics operating at the smallest scales. The work is described in a paper published 14 January in Nature Communications. | Continue reading
Bay, fjord, cove, armchair and zigzag—chemists use terms such as these to describe the shapes taken by the edges of nanographene. Graphene consists of a single-layered carbon structure in which each carbon atom is surrounded by three others. This creates a pattern reminiscent of … | Continue reading
A big earthquake occurred south of Istanbul in the summer of 2016, but it was so slow that nobody noticed. The earthquake, which took place at mid-crustal depth, lasted more than 50 days. A novel processing technique applied to data from special borehole strainmeter instruments a … | Continue reading
Most people see the ocean waves and vaguely wonder why some are big and some are small —or look into a roaring fire and are curious as to what makes the flames move as they do—with seemingly no rhyme or reason. | Continue reading
There aren't many corners of the world left untouched by humanity. Recent research has highlighted that just 23% of the planet's land surface (excluding Antarctica) and 13% of the ocean can now be classified as wilderness, representing nearly a 10% decline over the last 20 years. … | Continue reading
With their first ever RNA-based inducible system for switching on genes in the roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans), two researchers from the University of Konstanz have closed a significant gap in genetic switches. The new approach was developed as part of a joint resea … | Continue reading
New technology that harnesses sunlight to drive chemical reactions is paving the way for a more sustainable chemical manufacturing industry, one of the globe's biggest energy users. | Continue reading
Under-road heating that melts ice and snow within 15 minutes and real-time information about icy road conditions could help prevent wintertime accidents. | Continue reading
Joe Kaeser, chief executive of German conglomerate Siemens, launched Wednesday a rare broadside against the European Commission, complaining that "backwards-looking technocrats" threatened to block a planned rail merger with France's Alstom. | Continue reading
More than 400 schools in Thailand's capital, Bangkok, were shut for the rest of the week Wednesday due to increasing concern over dangerously unhealthy air pollution. | Continue reading
Bees are among the most important species responsible for pollinating about one-third of the world's food supply, with their contribution in the United States alone valued at $15-20 billion each year. Rapid declines in honey bee colonies globally, and in the United States specifi … | Continue reading
Transcription factors (TFs) are proteins that regulate the transcription of genes, which is the first step in making a protein. The way TFs work is by searching the entire genome and binding to specific regions that regulate genes, turning them "on" or "off". TFs are known to not … | Continue reading
A much debated ancient human skull from Mongolia has been dated and genetically analysed, showing that it is the earliest modern human yet found in the region, according to new research from the University of Oxford. Radiocarbon dating and DNA analysis have revealed that the only … | Continue reading
For many of us, when we send a text or make a call from our cell phones, we're relying on 4G. Though for as much as we rely on it, very few of us know what it actually means. In reality, the "G" in these terms only stands for generation: generation of wireless mobile telecommunic … | Continue reading
The periodic table of chemical elements is having its 150th birthday, and the U.N. scientific agency is holding a year of events to celebrate. | Continue reading
Scientists have long known that some beaked whales beach themselves and die in agony after exposure to naval sonar, and now they know why: the giant sea mammals suffer decompression sickness, just like scuba divers. | Continue reading
Winning back trust is seen as the key priority for Facebook as the world's biggest social network readies its update on the final months of 2018 on Wednesday. | Continue reading
Toxic smog forced Bangkok authorities to issue an unprecedented order to shut nearly 450 schools on Wednesday, as authorities struggle to manage a pollution crisis that has stirred widespread concern. | Continue reading
Apple said Tuesday that profits held steady in the most recent quarter, with revenue growth in music, movies, apps and other services offsetting slumping iPhone sales, sparking a rally in shares of the California tech giant. | Continue reading
Indonesia's volatile Mount Merapi volcano has unleashed a river of lava that flowed 1,400 meters (4,590 feet) down its slopes. | Continue reading
Modern agriculture's large monoculture fields grow a lot of corn and soybeans, planted annually. The outputs from row crops can be measured both in dollars paid in the market and also in non-market costs, known as externalities. Soil, nutrients, groundwater, pollinators, wildlife … | Continue reading
Rutgers researchers and other scientists have created a visual guide to help identify and control the Asian longhorned tick, which transmits a fatal human disease in its native countries and threatens livestock in the United States. | Continue reading
Antireflection (AR) coatings on plastics have a multitude of practical applications, including glare reduction on eyeglasses, computer monitors and the display on your smart-phone when outdoors. Now, researchers at Penn State have developed an AR coating that improves on existing … | Continue reading
Dark matter, which is thought to account for nearly a quarter of matter in the universe (but has yet to be observed), has perplexed physicists for decades. They're constantly looking for something surprising to show up in experiments—results that deviate from the standard model t … | Continue reading
A team of mathematicians has determined the ideal wing shape for fast flapping flight—a discovery that offers promise for better methods for harvesting energy from water as well as for enhancing air speed. | Continue reading
Researchers at the University of Sydney have found that the relationship between the tissue-sucking Varroa mite and virulence of a virus of honey bees, has most likely been misunderstood. | Continue reading
University of Oklahoma researchers, led by Courtney Hofman and Rita Austin, in collaboration with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, are addressing the challenges of curating ancient biomolecules and working toward the development and dissemination of best practi … | Continue reading
Chinese tech company Huawei went so far as to steal a robot's arm in its bid to get its hands on T-Mobile's trade secrets, the U.S. government alleges. | Continue reading
In his free time last summer, Rice University geoscientist Ming Tang made a habit of comparing the niobium content in various rocks in a global minerals database. What he found was worth skipping a few nights out with friends. | Continue reading
Generations of students have read Shakespeare and Hemingway for high school literature class and Jeanne Dyches, assistant professor in Iowa State University's School of Education, would like students to question that tradition. | Continue reading
Using Research Resource Identifiers (RRIDs) helps reduce the improper use of cell lines in biomedical studies, according to a study published today in eLife. | Continue reading
Visible from NASA's Aqua satellite revealed the effects of wind shear on Tropical Cyclone Riley in the Southern Indian Ocean. | Continue reading
An endangered Queensland bird is at risk of extinction because environmental legislation is failing to protect its habitat, according to a University of Queensland-led study. | Continue reading
Large molecules from dietary fiber, called polymers, can physically influence the environment in the small intestine by causing solid particles to group together (or aggregate), according to research published in eLife. | Continue reading
Researchers are urging universities across the United States to find a new way to identify the next generation of scientists. A new study discovered that traditional admissions metrics for physics Ph.D. programs such as the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) do not predict complet … | Continue reading
Millions of Americans braced Tuesday for a dangerous polar vortex which began to settle over a large swath of the United States, threatening to set new records as schools and businesses closed and authorities warned of frostbite. | Continue reading
If Twitter is the town square for journalists, some are ready to step away. | Continue reading
In an effort to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of law enforcement searches for human remains in the wild, searchers should cover the same area twice from two different angles and work no more than 1 to 2 meters apart while exploring the area. | Continue reading
The latest data release from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) includes observations revealing the internal structure and composition of nearly 5,000 nearby galaxies observed during the first three years of a program called Mapping Nearby Galaxies at Apache Point Observatory (M … | Continue reading
Smart knee implants may soon be a reality thanks to research conducted by a team including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York. | Continue reading
Say goodbye to the conventional focus group and its lack of real-time feedback. | Continue reading
A new study suggests that diverse groups around the world share more in common in terms of their beliefs and values than polarised reporting too often suggests. | Continue reading
China, already the world's leading emitter of human-caused greenhouse gases, continues to pump increasing amounts of climate-changing methane into the atmosphere despite tough new regulations on gas releases from its coal mines, a new Johns Hopkins study shows. | Continue reading
The 2014-16 Ebola virus epidemic that ravaged Western Africa, killing thousands, was the largest in history. An analysis of the epidemic found that not all individuals played an equal role in spreading the deadly infectious disease—just 3 percent of patients caused more than 60 p … | Continue reading
Semiconductor manufacturing and many other industrial operations involve cleaning processes, and from environmental and health perspectives, it's become highly desirable to use physical cleaning techniques such as liquid jets or underwater ultrasound instead of toxic chemicals. | Continue reading