South Africa faces the possible collapse of several inshore fisheries, particularly certain species of linefish, abalone and West Coast Rock Lobster. If nothing is done, not only will the ecology be poorer and change in many unexpected ways, but sea-derived livelihoods will colla … | Continue reading
Today a large international consortium of researchers published a complex but important study looking at how DNA works in animals. The research focused on a marine organism, a creature called amphioxus (also known as "the lancelet"), to explore some of the steps that took place a … | Continue reading
In recent years, cities have asserted themselves as relevant actors in efforts to address global climate change. The announcement by the United States of their intent to withdraw from the Paris Agreement has generated more attention than ever for what cities and other subnational … | Continue reading
Based on a new theoretical model, a team of scientists explored the rich data archive of ESA's XMM-Newton and NASA's Chandra space observatories to find pulsating X-ray emission from three sources. The discovery, relying on previous gamma-ray observations of the pulsars, provides … | Continue reading
Imagine an aircraft engine that has no moving parts, produces no harmful exhaust and makes no noise. That's what researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US have created by adapting a technology previously only used in spacecraft so it can power fligh … | Continue reading
As a busy undergraduate at MIT, Christina Bognet decided she wanted to start eating a healthier diet. She began checking the nutritional content of her food and considering portion sizes. She created grocery lists to minimize food waste and cost, sifting through hundreds of recip … | Continue reading
An MIT Tata Center funded research team led by MIT Professor Lee Gehrke and collaborator Irene Bosch has developed a paper-based diagnostic test to detect Zika, dengue, chikungunya and other related viruses within minutes. To commercialize the venture, they recently formed life s … | Continue reading
Scientists reveal how a 'molecular machine' in bacterial cells prevents fatal DNA twisting, which could be crucial in the development of new antibiotic treatments. | Continue reading
As a yearlong effort to study broadband access in Pennsylvania nears its conclusion, the Penn State faculty member leading the effort sees numerous opportunities. The overwhelming amount of data documenting that relatively few residents of the Commonwealth have access to even the … | Continue reading
On Nov. 26, NASA's InSight spacecraft will blaze through the Martian atmosphere and attempt to set a lander gently on the surface of the Red Planet in less time than it takes to hard-boil an egg. InSight's entry, descent and landing (EDL) team, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Labo … | Continue reading
NASA's Mars Interior Exploration using Seismic Investigations, Geodesy and Heat Transport (InSight) spacecraft is on track for a soft touchdown on the surface of the Red Planet on Nov. 26, the Monday after Thanksgiving. But it's not going to be a relaxing weekend of turkey leftov … | Continue reading
Chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes have been on the rise for decades. They're the number one cause of death and disability in the U.S. today and one reason why health care costs are out of control. | Continue reading
The Mexican tetra fish can repair its heart after damage — something researchers have been striving to achieve in humans for years. | Continue reading
Reading complex and engaging texts is key to inspiring young learners' interest in Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) and potentially improving how the subject is taught in UK secondary schools, according to new Oxford University research. | Continue reading
Before the advent of modern observational and modeling techniques, understanding how the ocean behaved required piecing together disparate data—often separated by decades in time—from a handful of sources around the world. In the 1980s, that started to change when technological a … | Continue reading
Camp Fire in northern California, US, has, without doubt, been one of the state's most destructive. This animation uses data from different Copernicus Sentinels to show the spread of aerosols and smoke. | Continue reading
For thousands of years, the people of North Sentinel island have been isolated from the rest of the world. | Continue reading
For the last decade, scientists have been making giant leaps in their ability to build and control systems based on the bizarre rules of quantum mechanics, which describe the behavior of particles at the subatomic scale. | Continue reading
Facebook's outgoing head of communications is taking the blame for hiring Definers, the public relations firm doing opposition research on the company's critics, including billionaire philanthropist George Soros. | Continue reading
Squatting on spongy soil, a climate scientist lays a small cone-shaped device to "measure the breathing" of a peat bog in the northern part of Canada's Quebec province. | Continue reading
The world is not moving fast enough to curb global warming and needs immediate action to address the issue, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told an online climate change conference Thursday. | Continue reading
A rarely seen shark embryo. Corals up to 7 feet (2 meters) high. Sponges with sharp edges. | Continue reading
An active Alaska volcano is ramping up, spewing ash emissions nearly 3 miles (5 kilometers) into the air. | Continue reading
A new supercomputer designed to speed up research on two of the UK's most important battery research projects has been installed at University College London (UCL). Named Michael, after the UK's most famous battery scientist, Michael Faraday, the supercomputer will reach 265 tera … | Continue reading
Every school kid knows that Earth has a magnetic field – it's what makes compasses align north-south and lets us navigate the oceans. It also protects the atmosphere, and thus life, from the sun's powerful wind. | Continue reading
The fate of Nissan's disgraced Carlos Ghosn as chairman of the Japanese car giant is set to be decided Thursday when board members meet to vote on his dismissal, days after the tycoon's arrest for financial misconduct. | Continue reading
U.S. scientists have wrapped up a 22-day mission exploring waters around Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands with the deepest dives ever recorded in the region. | Continue reading
Given the size and scope of the devastation after a deadly wildfire swept Northern California, experts say the search to find the missing and identify victims could take months. | Continue reading
Amazon on Wednesday said that a website glitch accidentally exposed names and email addresses of some of the e-commerce giant's customers. | Continue reading
The Spanish senate approved Wednesday a controversial online data protection law which critics say will allow political parties to target voters with ads based on their internet browsing history. | Continue reading
It all comes down to the final six minutes of a six-month journey to Mars. | Continue reading
Western Lake Erie's annual summer algal blooms are triggered, at least in part, by cyanobacteria cells that survive the winter in lake-bottom sediments, then emerge in the spring to "seed" the next year's bloom, according to a research team led by University of Michigan scientist … | Continue reading
Hunger increases risk-taking behaviour in snails, according to research from neuroscientists at the University of Sussex. | Continue reading
A new study examining differences in the language used in nearly 40-million tweets suggests national stereotypes—Canadians tend to be polite and nice while Americans are negative and assertive—are reflected on Twitter, even if those stereotypes aren't necessarily accurate. | Continue reading
If you want to build an organ for transplant, you need to think in 3-D. Using stem cells, scientists are now able to grow parts of organs in the lab, but that is a far cry from constructing a fully-formed, functioning, three-dimensional organ. | Continue reading
Droughts or heat waves have consequences that spread beyond farmers anxiously watching their fields; these fluctuations in crop yields can send shockwaves through local and global food supplies and prices. | Continue reading
A new simulator is letting scientists use a joystick to swim a virtual whale across a video screen. But this is no game—it's a serious attempt to better understand how the giant mammals become entangled in fishing lines. | Continue reading
Facebook has appealed its 500,000-pound ($644,000) fine for failing to protect the privacy of its users in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, arguing that U.K regulators failed to prove that British users were directly affected. | Continue reading
Part of a group of a rare giraffes that has become a Niger tourist attraction is to be moved to a reserve 600 kilometres (400 miles) away owing to encroaching desert, farmland and increasing instances of them being struck by vehicles, officials said Wednesday. | Continue reading
Scientists have discovered that semiconducting molecules with unpaired electrons, termed 'radicals' can be used to fabricate very efficient organic-light-emitting diodes (OLEDs), exploiting their quantum mechanical 'spin' property to overcome efficiency limitations for traditiona … | Continue reading
A global team of investigators has identified a key protein involved in Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS), a serious and sometimes fatal respiratory disease, according to research published today in the journal Nature. | Continue reading
New research from an international team of scientists led by University of Cape Town isotope geochemist Dr. Robyn Pickering is the first to provide a timeline for fossils from the caves within the Cradle of Humankind. It also sheds light on the climate conditions of our earliest … | Continue reading
Scientists once thought that humans must have 2 million genes to account for all our complexity. But since sequencing the human genome, researchers have learned that humans only have about 19,000 to 25,000 genes—not many more than a common roundworm. Now, evidence suggests humans … | Continue reading
A civil society organization says greenhouse gas emissions in Brazil dropped last year mainly because of lower deforestation rates. | Continue reading
With the embers still raining from blackened skies choked by California's massive wildfires, the effort turns to rebuilding Paradise—a town of almost 30,000 that was wiped off the map. | Continue reading
Egypt says archaeologists digging in Cairo have found two blocks of limestone with inscriptions belonging to an engineer who worked for Ramses II, one of the longest ruling pharaohs in antiquity. | Continue reading
Tropical Storm Man-Yi continued to strengthen in the Northwestern Pacific Ocean as NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided a visible image of the storm. Warnings are in effect through the Federated States of Micronesia at the storm continues to affect the region. | Continue reading
Tropical Depression 33W moved through the central Philippines and entered the Sulu Sea when NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided a visible image of the storm. | Continue reading