Betelgeuse is the well known red giant star in the corner of Orion the hunter. The name translated in some languages means "armpit of the giant," which, I think of all the star names, is simply the best! Betelgeuse has been fascinating observers of late not only because it unexpe … | Continue reading
For decades, researchers have debated the long-term impact of early childhood education, sharing evidence that while some children experience positive long-term outcomes, others see initial benefits fade out—or even experience detrimental outcomes. | Continue reading
If you ever wondered what the weather might look like should global average temperatures rise 2C degrees above pre-industrial levels—the critical warming threshold the Paris Agreement seeks to prevent us from reaching—take your mind's eye back to Friday 17 November. That day, for … | Continue reading
Some commentators have criticized Israel for causing what is claimed to be disproportionate harm to civilians in its military response to Hamas' Oct. 7, 2023, attack. | Continue reading
The rampant increase of hate messages on social media is a scourge in today's technology-infused society. Racism, homophobia, xenophobia and even personal attacks on people who have the audacity to disagree with someone else's political opinion—these and other forms of online hat … | Continue reading
For the first time ever, food and agriculture took center stage at the annual United Nations climate conference in 2023. | Continue reading
A very large percentage of South Africans who are released from prison end up being rearrested and being convicted for crimes again. The country has one of the highest recidivism rates in the world. | Continue reading
African countries can simultaneously address climate change and improve public health by reducing air pollution. In many cases these actions also have other societal, economic, environment or health benefits. | Continue reading
After three La Niña summers many of us would have been expecting much hotter and drier conditions this spring and summer after the arrival of El Niño. Instead, in many parts of eastern Australia it's rained and rained over the last few weeks. | Continue reading
As global leaders gather in Dubai for COP28, health has finally landed firmly on the climate change agenda, with the first "health day" at the annual UN climate summit taking place yesterday (December 3). | Continue reading
Federal and state governments have just released a national framework for generative AI in schools. This paves the way for generative AI—algorithms that can create new content—to be used routinely in classrooms around the country. | Continue reading
Black people continue to be overrepresented at all levels of the Canadian justice system. According to the Correctional Service of Canada, 9% of offenders in custody were Black in 2020–2021, despite only representing about 4% of Canada's population. | Continue reading
Native American mothers whose children were separated from them—either through child removal for assimilation into residential boarding schools or through coerced adoption—experience the kind of grief no parent should ever feel. Yet theirs is a loss that is ongoing, with no sense … | Continue reading
PFAS chemicals (per-and poly fluoroalkyl substances), also known as forever chemicals, are rarely out of the news at the moment. The latest concern about this chemical group is their presence in drinking water in England. | Continue reading
Rishi Sunak, David Cameron and King Charles are just three of the more than 70,000 delegates from nearly 200 countries at the latest UN climate summit in Dubai, COP28. But they are among hundreds who will have traveled there by private jet. In fact, the UK prime minister, foreign … | Continue reading
Researchers at the College of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) have identified an important pathway that reveals why some mammals, like humans, dogs, and cats, regularly develop mammary cancer while others, such as horses, pigs, and cows, rarely do. | Continue reading
Ocean acidification, mammal respiration, and aerosol formation all depend on chemistry that occurs at air-water interfaces. In new research, scientists from the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have discovered which pathway carbon dioxid … | Continue reading
A consideration of how mountains influence El Niño and La Niña-induced precipitation change in western North America may be the ticket to more informed water conservation planning along the Colorado River, new research suggests. | Continue reading
In a recently published study in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, researchers at the Department of Medical Biochemistry and Biophysics (MBB) at Karolinska Institutet have questioned the old paradigm surrounding isotopes of light elements—carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and ox … | Continue reading
Scientists have amassed genome data for dozens of "magic mushroom" isolates and cultivars, with the goal to learn more about how their domestication and cultivation has changed them. The findings, published December 4 in the journal Current Biology, may point the way to the produ … | Continue reading
A research team, led by scientists at the University of York, mapped the family tree of the ferocious ambush-predators and their extinct relatives known as Pseudosuchia. They then compared this with data from the fossil record to understand why crocodiles have so few living speci … | Continue reading
While we often think of diseases as caused by foreign bodies—bacteria or viruses—there are hundreds of diseases affecting humans that result from errors in cellular production of proteins. | Continue reading
Himalayan Glaciers fight back to preserve themselves, but for how long? An international team of researchers, co-led by Professor Francesca Pellicciotti of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), explains a stunning phenomenon: rising global temperatures have led … | Continue reading
Researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on December 4 have found the earliest-known fossil mosquito in Lower Cretaceous amber from Lebanon. What's more, the well-preserved insects are two males of the same species with piercing mouthparts, suggesting they likely suck … | Continue reading
Contrary to current understanding, the brains of human newborns aren't significantly less developed compared to other primate species, but appear so because so much brain development happens after birth, finds a new study led by University College London researchers. | Continue reading
Additive manufacturing (AM), or 3D printing, is a rapidly growing technology with the potential to revolutionize many industries. However, AM parts can be susceptible to defects, such as porosities and cracks, which can limit their performance and reliability. | Continue reading
Nearly 1,000 birds were killed Oct. 4–5 when they collided with an illuminated glass building in Chicago. Though mass fatalities of this magnitude are rare, light pollution poses a serious—and growing—threat to migrating birds. | Continue reading
Physicists at the University of Duisburg-Essen and their cooperating partners have discovered that tiny graphene sheets can become electromagnets under infrared radiation. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications. | Continue reading
With age, cells can experience senescence, a state where they stop growing but continue releasing inflammatory and tissue-degrading molecules. When a person is young, the immune system responds and eliminates senescent cells, often referred to as zombie cells. However, zombie cel … | Continue reading
The properties that make materials like semiconductors so sought after result from the way their atoms are connected, and insight into these atomic configurations can help scientists design new materials or use existing materials in new, unforeseen ways. | Continue reading
Biological molecules called peptides play a key role in many biological activities, including the transport of oxygen and electrons. Peptides consist of short chains of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. They are also the inspiration for new kinds of biotechnology. | Continue reading
A recent study in Science uses bioinformatic analysis as well as biochemical and structural studies to characterize a novel family of effector proteins, named Cami1. The research shows that when a virus attacks a bacterium, CRISPR-Cas10 signaling molecules activate Cami1—a riboso … | Continue reading
A trio of researchers with varied backgrounds is suggesting in an article published in the journal Communications Biology that eating naturally fermented foods may have led to an increase in brain size for early humans. In their paper, Katherine Bryant, a psychologist at Aix-Mars … | Continue reading
An international research team led by quantum physicist Markus Arndt (University of Vienna) has achieved a breakthrough in the detection of protein ions: Due to their high energy sensitivity, superconducting nanowire detectors achieve almost 100% quantum efficiency and exceed the … | Continue reading
Societies and political structures, like the humans they serve, appear to become more fragile as they age, according to an analysis of hundreds of pre-modern societies. A new study, which holds implications for the modern world, provides the first quantitative support for the the … | Continue reading
Self-folding polymers containing gadolinium forming nanosized complexes could be the key to enhanced magnetic resonance imaging and next-generation drug delivery, as demonstrated by scientists at Tokyo Tech. Thanks to their small size, low toxicity, and good tumor accumulation an … | Continue reading
A radical theory that consistently unifies gravity and quantum mechanics while preserving Einstein's classical concept of spacetime has been announced in two papers published simultaneously by UCL (University College London) physicists. | Continue reading
The field of attosecond physics was established with the mission of exploring light–matter interactions at unprecedented time resolutions. Recent advancements in this field have allowed physicists to shed new light on the quantum dynamics of charge carriers in atoms and molecules | Continue reading
National University of Singapore (NUS) scientists have utilized generative machine learning models to explore the different methods in which atoms between adjacent crystals in a piezoelectric material, which are materials that generate a small electrical voltage upon application … | Continue reading
Researchers from ETH Zurich, Empa and Stanford have taken snapshots of the crystal structure of perovskite nanocrystals as it was deformed by excited electrons. To their surprise, the deformation straightened out the skewed crystal structure rather than making it more disordered. | Continue reading
Rains lashed southern India's city of Chennai on Monday ahead of the landfall of a powerful cyclone, with a crocodile spotted swimming the streets and cars floating away. | Continue reading
The UK's only giant pandas left Edinburgh for China on Monday after spending 12 cubless years in the Scottish capital. | Continue reading
In a study led by University of Florida astronomer Adam Ginsburg, groundbreaking findings shed light on a mysterious dark region at the center of the Milky Way. The turbulent gas cloud, playfully nicknamed "The Brick" due to its opacity, has sparked lively debates within the scie … | Continue reading
A research team, led by Professor Ja Yil Lee in the Department of Biological Sciences at UNIST has made a breakthrough in the field of molecular biology. Their research, published in the journal Nucleic Acids Research, has successfully imaged the real-time process of DNA replicat … | Continue reading
Using the Australian Square Kilometer Array Pathfinder (ASKAP), astronomers have discovered a new pulsar, which has received the designation PSR J1032−5804. The newfound pulsar turned out to be relatively young and highly scattered. The finding was reported in a paper published N … | Continue reading
Janus adhesive hydrogels hold promising applications across health care fields. Nevertheless, a simple method to synthesize the material had yet to be bioengineered in the lab. | Continue reading
Tom Hauge, a veteran wildlife biologist in Wisconsin, was told 21 years ago that a deadly disease had shown up in deer that roamed across the state's southwest corner. | Continue reading
Exxon Mobil Corp. and Saudi Arabia's Aramco, the world's largest private and state-sector oil companies, led a pledge by 50 oil and gas producers at the COP28 climate summit to cut emissions from their own operations. | Continue reading