Before having our first baby last year, we wondered whether we had the money, time and necessary skills to raise a child. Perhaps you find yourself contemplating the same? Many people certainly have, as birth rates have been declining across the world for the past 200 years. | Continue reading
With NASA gearing up to send humans back to the moon in the next few years with the Artemis missions with the goal of establishing a permanent outpost at the lunar south pole, nations are making efforts to contribute to Artemis and a permanent presence on our nearest celestial ne … | Continue reading
It seems like we have free will. Most of the time, we are the ones who choose what we eat, how we tie our shoelaces and what articles we read on The Conversation. | Continue reading
Modern slavery affects an estimated 120,000 people in the UK. Under international law, countries must identify and protect survivors, while prosecuting and punishing those who traffic and exploit them. | Continue reading
A new survey, analyzed by the University of Bristol and commissioned by abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, shows nearly two-thirds (65%) of households, amounting to 18.4 million, have consumer debt and more than 4 in 10 households (44% or 12.5 million) have taken out new borrowing i … | Continue reading
James Cook University researcher Matthew Connors has discovered two new praying mantis species with the help of citizen scientists. The finds have been published in Zootaxa. | Continue reading
The relationship between the US and China is the most important in the world, and it has been unstable and sometimes under extreme stress in recent years. But a recent meeting between presidents Joe Biden and Xi Jinping in California may bring new momentum for global climate acti … | Continue reading
Climate change has many effects, but one of the most significant will feature for the first time at COP28—its impact on human health. | Continue reading
Online platforms are awash with ads for so-called "green" products. Power companies are "carbon neutral." Electronics are "for the planet." Clothing is "circular" and travel is "sustainable." Or are they? | Continue reading
Quality of life for young trans and gender diverse (TGD) people is being impacted by inconsistent and conflicting parental support, according to research led by Nottingham Trent University (NTU) with the University of Brighton. | Continue reading
Covalent organic frameworks (COFs) are a special class of materials composed of interconnected organic building blocks held together by strong chemical bonds. Featured with evenly distributed atoms and abundant internal empty space, COFs can be utilized as the starting point for … | Continue reading
Artificial intelligence (AI) may attempt to mimic the human brain, but it has yet to fully grasp the complexity of what it means to be human. While it may not truly understand feelings or original creativity, it can help us better understand ourselves—especially our physical bodi … | Continue reading
Our search for life beyond Earth is still in its infancy. We're focused on Mars and, to a lesser extent, ocean moons like Jupiter's Europa and Saturn's Enceladus. Should we extend our search to cover more unlikely places like molecular clouds? | Continue reading
As a result of climate change, the Golden State's farms are expected to face a surge in agricultural pests, which poses a threat to California's specialty crops industry. | Continue reading
Water, as one of the essential natural resources, is vital for the growth of any region. How much water a city has access to and how water is distributed is a crucial part of sustainable development. | Continue reading
A new report by CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, shows existing technologies will enable Australia to halve emissions by 2030 from 2020 levels, under a rapid decarbonization scenario led by a renewable electricity sector. | Continue reading
New genetic research has revealed how British otters were able to recover from species loss in the 1950s with the help of their counterparts from Asia. | Continue reading
Two teams of bio-researchers have developed similar processes for demonstrating how photolyase isolates use light to repair damaged DNA. In their papers, both published in the journal Science, the two groups outline their stop-motion-animation-type process to capture the action i … | Continue reading
The tridentiger typically inhabits semi-saline and freshwater environments located in the tropical, subtropical, and temperate regions of the western Pacific Ocean. It occupies a crucial position in the food chain, making it ecologically important. As an indicator species, the tr … | Continue reading
Research in the International Journal of Public Sector Performance Management has investigated workplace happiness and its impact on productivity within and outside the information technology sector in Delhi. Their findings shed light on the significant impact of workplace happin … | Continue reading
When it comes to studying patterns in how bugs damage plants, is it important to know the average amount and type of damage? Or the variation around the average? | Continue reading
Ozone can be a powerful and safe sanitizer when infused in water for food processing. However, in a recent Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station study looking at its use in raw pet food processing, scientists found that ozonated water sanitation's effectiveness is variable dep … | Continue reading
As the demand for rare earth elements increases world-wide, so too do the mining activities associated with rare earth element extraction. Rare earth elements are listed as 15 elements on the periodic table constituting what is known as the lanthanide series, ranging in atomic nu … | Continue reading
Friction is hard to predict and control, especially since surfaces that come in contact are rarely perfectly flat. New experiments demonstrate that the amount of friction between two silicon surfaces, even at large scales, is determined by the forming and rupturing of microscopic … | Continue reading
Jacqueline "Jackie" Gerson knows very well how "artisanal gold mining" sounds to people who haven't heard the phrase before. | Continue reading
Simultaneous episodes of extreme heat and drought—typical of a moderate warming scenario predicted for the end of the 21st century—could occur earlier and repeatedly in Europe, reports a study published in Communications Earth & Environment. | Continue reading
Headlines across the world this year focused on fires, including both wildfires and the use of military firepower, in various places. | Continue reading
One of the biggest mysteries in cosmology is the rate at which the universe is expanding. This can be predicted using the standard model of cosmology, also known as Lambda-cold dark matter (ΛCDM). This model is based on detailed observations of the light left over from the Big Ba … | Continue reading
Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have made a significant stride toward understanding a viable process for direct air capture, or DAC, of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. This DAC process is in early development with the aim of achieving ne … | Continue reading
According to a recent survey by the News Media Association, 90% of editors in the United Kingdom "believe that Google and Meta pose an existential threat to journalism." | Continue reading
Logging typically degrades tropical forests. But what if logging is carefully planned and carried out by well-trained workers? | Continue reading
Recent research has led to the development of film-type shape-configurable speakers. These speakers, based on the unique properties of MXene, offer tunable sound directivity and hold immense promise for the rapidly growing field of wearable electronics. The study is published in … | Continue reading
Micrometeorites originating from icy celestial bodies in the outer solar system may be responsible for transporting nitrogen to the near-Earth region in the early days of our solar system. That discovery was published in Nature Astronomy by an international team of researchers, i … | Continue reading
When Emiliano Cortés goes hunting for sunlight, he doesn't use gigantic mirrors or sprawling solar farms. Quite the contrary, the professor of experimental physics and energy conversion at LMU dives into the nanocosmos. | Continue reading
A research group led by the Nagoya University Museum and Graduate School of Environmental Studies in Japan has clarified differences in the physical characteristics of rocks used by early humans during the Paleolithic. They found that humans selected rock for a variety of reasons … | Continue reading
Researchers at the University of Sydney Nano Institute have invented a compact silicon semiconductor chip that integrates electronics with photonic, or light, components. The new technology significantly expands radio-frequency (RF) bandwidth and the ability to accurately control … | Continue reading
Pentoses are essential carbohydrates in the metabolism of modern lifeforms, but their availability during early Earth is unclear since these molecules are unstable. | Continue reading
Writing in the journal Nature ahead of COP28, a team of Met Office scientists has emphasized that—surprisingly—there is currently no formally agreed way of defining the current level of global warming relevant to the Paris Agreement. | Continue reading
Interactions between intense laser pulses and plasma mirrors have been the focus of several recent physics studies due to the interesting effects they produce. Experiments have revealed that these interactions can generate a non-linear physical process known as high-order harmoni … | Continue reading
Recent research led by Tigga Kingston, a professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Texas Tech University, delivers a stark warning concerning the distressing decline of flying foxes and related species, also known as Large Old World Fruit Bats (LOWFBs). | Continue reading
A method for producing a highly absorbent material from sisal (Agave sisalana)—a drought-tolerant succulent plant—is described in a study published in Communications Engineering. The authors suggest that, with further development, their method could be used to produce locally sou … | Continue reading
Just as people can get sunburned, plants can also suffer from too much sunlight. To stay healthy, they use an internal "sun protection mechanism." Pierrick Bru, a Ph.D. student working with Alizée Malnoë at Umeå Plant Science Centre and Umeå University, has been studying a specia … | Continue reading
There is good news for researchers working with high-resolution fluorescence microscopy: Biocompatible molecular rulers are available for the first time to calibrate the latest super-resolution microscopy methods. | Continue reading
COP28 is officially the largest ever UN climate summit, with 80,000 participants registered on a list that—for the first time—shows who they work for. | Continue reading
Researchers from The Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability (DTU Biosustain) have developed an innovative fermentation process that produces natural betalain-type food colors. This groundbreaking technology is set to revolutionize the food color industry by offering … | Continue reading
It's an iconic episode of "Seinfeld"—Jerry tries to return a jacket and when asked why, he replies, "spite." In fact, he goes on to explain, he didn't care for the person who sold it to him. | Continue reading
University of California, Davis, researchers are working with the Sacramento SPCA to alleviate a near-universal source of stress for cats and those who care for them: nail trimming. | Continue reading
Even brief exposure to highway pollution could cause significant increases in blood pressure, a new study from the University of Washington has found, adding to a growing body of work correlating vehicle exhaust with negative health outcomes. | Continue reading