How did sound propagate inside the Mosque of Cordoba in the time of Abd al-Rahman I? Today, thanks to virtual simulation tools, it is possible to know the sound fields of spaces that no longer exist. This field of work is known as acoustic archaeology by some researchers. Working … | Continue reading
In American criminology, crime and other forms of deviance have often been attributed to individuals' definitions or internalized attitudes toward deviance. In previous studies, however, empirical tests of the causal processes of learning attitudes toward deviance have been relat … | Continue reading
Erik Trinkaus, an anthropologist at Washington University, has found what he describes as "an abundance of developmental anomalies" in people that lived during the Pleistocene. In his paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, he describes his study of fo … | Continue reading
Hitting a material with laser light sends vibrations rippling through its latticework of atoms, and at the same time can nudge the lattice into a new configuration with potentially useful properties – turning an insulator into a metal, for instance. | Continue reading
Soon you may no longer have to worry about how long your dental repairs will last. A new dental reconstruction material developed in Sweden offers unprecedented improvements over existing acrylate-based fillers. | Continue reading
There was a huge amount of excitement when the Higgs boson was first spotted back in 2012 – a discovery that bagged the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2013. The particle completed the so-called standard model, our current best theory of understanding nature at the level of particles. | Continue reading
A team from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) developed a novel nanostructure embedded into a semiconductor nanofibre that results in superb conductivity. The nanocomposite addresses a key inhibitor to conductivity, with the potential to improve a wide range of applica … | Continue reading
No doubt about it, NASA explores some of the most awe-inspiring locations in our solar system and beyond. Once seen, who can forget the majesty of astronaut Jim Irwin standing before the stark beauty of the Moon's Hadley Apennine mountain range, of the Hubble Space Telescope's go … | Continue reading
A study conducted by an international team of researchers led by Agustín Sánchez-Lavega, professor of Physics at the UPV/EHU, reveals the existence of a rich diversity in the atmospheric phenomena confined inside Jupiter's spot as a result of the intense hurricane winds blowing a … | Continue reading
An international research team used a computer model to reconstruct the history of glaciation in the Alps, visualising it in a two-minute computer animation. The simulation aims to enable a better understanding of the mechanisms of glaciation. | Continue reading
The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission has resumed collecting science-quality data and planned in-orbit checks after successfully completing a switchover to a backup system in the microwave instrument (MWI) on one of the mission's twin spacecraft … | Continue reading
The latest advances in computing and virtual reality (VR) have enabled researchers at KAUST to develop a suite of apps that allow users to visualize and interpret large and complex datasets in three dimensions. | Continue reading
Drones are becoming ubiquitous—they help bridge inspectors examine otherwise inaccessible spaces, monitor crop health for farmers, and assist search and rescue teams. They are also a boon to bad guys, from drug runners to terrorists. That's where David Kovar, F17, comes in. He's … | Continue reading
Usually, researchers study the effect communications have on the target of a message, says Alcides Velasquez, University of Kansas assistant professor of communication studies. But in the case of a new study on social media and Latino political participation, Velasquez and his co … | Continue reading
As the Northern hemisphere starts to feel the cold winter approaching, research stations in Antarctica are emerging from their long dark winter and awaiting the arrival of fresh supplies after living months in isolation. | Continue reading
UCLA researchers invented a portable device that uses holograms and machine learning to identify and measure airborne biological particles, or bioaerosols, that originate from living organisms such as plants or fungi. Trained to recognize five common allergens—pollen from Bermuda … | Continue reading
When considering whether to buy stock in a company, investors often look to the trading activity of the company's top executives. If the CEO or CFO has recently made large purchases of company stock, investors tend to assume the stock price is about to go up; if they are selling … | Continue reading
Arctic sea ice loss in the last 37 year is not due to humans alone. | Continue reading
Women in Africa with little formal education are delaying marriage—much like their better-educated peers, a new University of Michigan study indicates. | Continue reading
Voters will have their voices heard during Tuesday's midterm elections. Walter Mebane, professor of political science and statistics at the University of Michigan, is an expert on election forensics, a field devoted to using statistical methods to determine whether the results of … | Continue reading
Diverse communities of plants and animals typically perform better than monocultures. However, the mechanisms that are responsible for this have so far been a mystery to science. Biologists at the University of Zurich have now been able to identify the genetic cause of these effe … | Continue reading
A new test for industrial catalysts developed by chemists at Utrecht University uses fluorescent molecules to show which of three catalysts works better than the others. This makes it much easier to work on improving the catalysts, while also making production processes in the ch … | Continue reading
A collective-risk dilemma experiment with members of the public in Barcelona shows that people are more or less likely to contribute money to fight climate change depending on their wealth. And the results indicate that participants with fewer resources were prepared to contribut … | Continue reading
Scientists at the RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science in Japan have found that the protein NGA1 is critical for plants to have normal responses to dehydration. Published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study shows how NGA1 controls transcription … | Continue reading
Quantum systems can be manipulated with extremely high precision, but not perfectly. Researchers in the Department of Physics at ETH Zurich have now demonstrated how to monitor and correct errors that occur during such operations. | Continue reading
Researchers from the Julius Kühn Institut, Germany have found that produce is a reservoir for transferable antibiotic resistance genes that often escape traditional molecular detection methods. These antibiotic resistance genes might escape cultivation-independent detection, but … | Continue reading
A man has died after being mauled by a shark in the third such attack in two months at a popular tourist site on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, authorities said Tuesday. | Continue reading
Online leader Amazon Inc. refused comment Tuesday on reports that it plans to split its new headquarters between two locations, possibly in New York City and Arlington, Virginia. | Continue reading
Toyota Motor Corp. reported a 28 percent surge in the last quarter on growing sales in Europe, Asia and the Americas and cost cutting. It raised its profit forecast for the full year. | Continue reading
A piranha's bite is definitely worse than its bark, but the bark has uses too. A new study of the sounds made by piranhas in the Amazon finds that their underwater "barks" are an effective tool for identifying different species in murky waters. | Continue reading
With thousands of fans clapping, chanting, shouting and jeering, college basketball games can be almost deafeningly loud. Some arenas have decibel meters, which, accurately or not, provide some indication of the noise volume generated by the spectators and the sound systems. Howe … | Continue reading
Tennessee and Alabama will get their largest solar power projects yet, to supply a Facebook data center with 100 percent renewable energy. | Continue reading
French tyre manufacturer Michelin announced plans Monday to close a Scottish manufacturing plant with 845 employees due to growing competition from cheeper products in Asia. | Continue reading
Europe's largest tech event, the Web Summit, gets underway in Lisbon on Monday amid a backlash over internet firms' role in spreading "fake news" and how they use consumer data. | Continue reading
The inventor of the worldwide web, Tim Berners-Lee, on Monday announced plans for a "contract" to ensure the internet remains "safe and accessible" for all. | Continue reading
Many farms have areas where the ground either floods or does not retain enough water or fertilizer for crops to thrive. Such marginal lands could become useful and potentially profitable if they are planted with perennial bioenergy crops such as shrub willow and switchgrass, repo … | Continue reading
Think of it as mathematics with a bite: Researchers at CU Boulder have uncovered the statistical rules that govern how gigantic colonies of fire ants form bridges, ladders and floating rafts. | Continue reading
Water researchers have found a way to fight the "king of poisons" that accounts for one of every 20 deaths in Bangladesh. | Continue reading
Astronomers have found what could be one of the universe's oldest stars, a body almost entirely made of materials spewed from the Big Bang. | Continue reading
Finding a fast and inexpensive way to detect specific strains of bacteria and viruses is critical to food safety, water quality, environmental protection and human health. However, current methods for detecting illness-causing strains of bacteria such as E. coli require either ti … | Continue reading
Contrary to what many people believe, outer space is not empty. In addition to an electrically charged soup of ions and electrons known as plasma, space is permeated by magnetic fields with a wide range of strengths. Astrophysicists have long wondered how those fields are produce … | Continue reading
The past 70 years have been good for corn production in the midwestern United States, with yields increasing fivefold since the 1940s. Much of this improvement has been credited to advances in farming technology but researchers at Harvard University are asking if changes in clima … | Continue reading
Although dairy pastoralism once made Mongolian steppe herders successful enough to conquer most of Asia and Europe, the origins of this way of life on the East Asian steppe are still unclear. Now an international team of researchers led by the Max Planck Institute for the Science … | Continue reading
For sweeping drama, it's hard to beat hydropower from dams—a renewable source of electricity that helped build much of the developed world. Yet five scientists from Michigan State University (MSU) say that behind roaring cascades is a legacy of underestimated costs and overestima … | Continue reading
Bacteria and fungi might conjure up images of diseases and spoiled food, but they also do a lot of good. The billions of microbes in a handful of dead leaves, for example, act as nature's recyclers and regenerate nutrients needed for the next generation of plants to grow. | Continue reading
Decisions about whether to build, remove or modify dams involve complex trade-offs that are often accompanied by social and political conflict. A group of researchers from the natural and social sciences, engineering, arts and humanities has joined forces to show how, where and w … | Continue reading
The stress of hotter temperatures may trigger a response in a plant's RNA, or ribonucleic acid—part of a cell's genetic messaging system—to help manage this change in its environment, according to a team of Penn State researchers. | Continue reading
There is a problem with the set of tools social scientists use to study human behavior. | Continue reading