Geophysicists at ETH Zurich have shown that every single wave of a magnitude 3.9 earthquake registers in the noise suppression system of fiber-optic networks. This method, now published in Scientific Reports, can be used to set up close-meshed earthquake and tsunami early warning … | Continue reading
The capacity to regulate the biodistribution of therapeutics is a highly desired feature that can limit the side effects of many drugs. In a new study in Scientific Reports, Noah Joseph, and a team of biotechnology and nanoscience scientists in Israel, describe a nanoscale agent … | Continue reading
Investigators from the laboratory of Ali Shilatifard, Ph.D., the Robert Francis Furchgott Professor and chair of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, have discovered a new repeat gene cluster sequence that is exclusively expressed in humans and non-human primates. | Continue reading
In a rare collaboration, two scientists, who are brothers working in unrelated disciplines, combined complementary expertise to tackle a chemical problem relating to the use of silicon in electronic devices. | Continue reading
A study led by Simon Fraser University researchers finds that mining companies are staking claims on future salmon habitats as glaciers retreat. | Continue reading
A new study published Nov. 23 in Nature Climate Change reveals that forests formally managed by Indigenous and local communities have improved outcomes for carbon, biodiversity and livelihoods, simultaneously addressing three goals sought by global proposals for "nature-based sol … | Continue reading
In a recent study, a team led by Würzburg botanist Kenji Fukushima investigated the genomic structure of the carnivorous pitcher plant Nepenthes gracilis and showed how polyploidy—the phenomenon of having more than two sets of chromosomes in cells—contributes to evolutionary inno … | Continue reading
A pair of veterinary medicine specialists at the University of Glasgow has found that the famous dancing monkeys of Pakistan have highly elevated levels of stress hormones. In their study, published in the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science, Mishaal Akbar and Neil Price Eva … | Continue reading
An international research team led by Michael Kramer and Kuo Liu from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn, Germany, have studied magnetars to uncover an underlying law that appears to apply universally to neutron stars. | Continue reading
New active pharmaceutical ingredients lay the foundations for innovative and better medical treatments. However, identifying them and, above all, producing them through chemical synthesis in the laboratory is no mean feat. To home in on the optimum production process, chemists no … | Continue reading
A team of astrophysicists led by Núria Miret-Roig from the University of Vienna found that two methods for determining the age of stars measure different things: Isochronous measurement thereby determines the birth date of stars, while dynamical tracking provides information on w … | Continue reading
The human immune system is based on cells that communicate with each other via signaling molecules known as cytokines and chemokines. One of these signaling molecules is the protein MIF (macrophage migration inhibitory factor). It plays an important role in the regulation of vari … | Continue reading
Seas, oceans, rivers, and other bodies of water on Earth have become increasingly polluted over the past decades, and this is threatening the survival of many aquatic species. This pollution takes a wide range of forms, including the proliferation of so-called micro and nano plas … | Continue reading
In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, scientists explore how small water jets can create stable periodic oscillations on a solid disk, uncovering a connection between these movements and the waves they generate and providing insights into the dynamic interplay of f … | Continue reading
In a landmark collaboration between Wiradjuri people, NSW State government and archaeologists, new research has revealed the deep-time hidden story of Wiradjuri carved trees (marara) and burials (dhabuganha) in Southeast Australia. | Continue reading
A combination of machine learning and lab experiments has given researchers a peek into the different languages bacteria use to communicate. Understanding how bacteria communicate—and when they can't—has implications for treating drug-resistant bacteria and for developing biocomp … | Continue reading
Dark matter, composed of particles that do not reflect, emit or absorb light, is predicted to make up most of the matter in the universe. Its lack of interactions with light, however, prevents its direct detection using conventional experimental methods. | Continue reading
A pair of astrophysicists at Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico has found, via study of data from the low-Earth orbiting Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, regular gamma radiation pulses emanating from around the black hole (at the center of the Milky Way galaxy Sagittarius A* … | Continue reading
The retail sector's efforts to entice holiday gift purchases builds to a crescendo this weekend with the annual "Black Friday" shopping day followed by the newer "Cyber Monday." | Continue reading
Brazil's emissions surged under far-right ex-president Jair Bolsonaro, erasing recent progress to return to the levels of more than 15 years ago, a report said Thursday, urging the country to increase its carbon-cutting targets. | Continue reading
Venice announced on Thursday that it would introduce a fee for day tourists to enter the city's overcrowded historic center on 29 days next year as it seeks to come to grips with overtourism. | Continue reading
While humanity's efforts to curb planet-warming emissions are nowhere near enough to avoid heating the world to catastrophic levels, tentative improvements show that progress is possible. | Continue reading
"Thirty years I've been in cocoa—and this is the worst season yet," said Siaka Sylla as he contemplated an almost empty warehouse at his cooperative in Ivory Coast, the world's top producer of the bean. | Continue reading
The European Space Agency's Ariane 6 rocket successfully completed a dress rehearsal on Thursday, test-firing its engine in preparation for a maiden voyage scheduled for 2024. | Continue reading
The Fens of eastern England, a low-lying, extremely flat landscape dominated by agricultural fields, was once a vast woodland filled with huge yew trees, according to new research. | Continue reading
Almost 80 years ago, Florence Bell quietly laid the foundations for one of the biggest landmarks in 20th century science: the discovery of the structure of DNA. But when she died on November 23 2000, her occupation on her death certificate was recorded as "housewife." | Continue reading
Scientists have solved the mystery of one of the animal kingdom's most disproportionately large penises thanks to a Dutch retiree recording bat sex in a church attic. | Continue reading
A seasoned deer hunter is shocked when his hound dog trots up with a human femur clenched between its teeth. A woman veers off her normal urban walking path and happens upon a human skull. New property owners commission a land survey that reveals a set of human remains just below … | Continue reading
E. coli bacteria may be far more capable of evolving antibiotic resistance than scientists previously thought, according to a new study published in Science on November 24. | Continue reading
Human society is founded on our ability to cooperate with others beyond our immediate family and social groups. | Continue reading
Blame it on plate tectonics. The deep ocean is never preserved, but instead is lost to time as the seafloor is subducted. Geologists are mostly left with shallower rocks from closer to the shoreline to inform their studies of Earth history. | Continue reading
Plants have no visual organs, so how do they know where light comes from? In an original study combining expertise in biology and engineering, the team led by Prof Christian Fankhauser at UNIL, in collaboration with colleagues at EPFL, has uncovered that a light-sensitive plant t … | Continue reading
In 1991, the University of Utah Fly's Eye experiment detected the highest-energy cosmic ray ever observed. Later dubbed the Oh-My-God particle, the cosmic ray's energy shocked astrophysicists. Nothing in our galaxy had the power to produce it, and the particle had more energy tha … | Continue reading
Exposure to fine particulate air pollutants from coal-fired power plants (coal PM2.5) is associated with a risk of mortality more than double that of exposure to PM2.5 from other sources, according to a new study led by George Mason University, The University of Texas at Austin, … | Continue reading
For 200 years, scientists have failed to grow a common mineral in the laboratory under the conditions believed to have formed it naturally. Now, a team of researchers from the University of Michigan and Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan have finally succeeded, thanks to a new … | Continue reading
True to form, a "strange metal" quantum material proved strangely quiet in recent quantum noise experiments at Rice University. Published this week in Science, the measurements of quantum charge fluctuations known as "shot noise" provide the first direct evidence that electricity … | Continue reading
The Amazon is facing an unprecedented drought that is projected to continue affecting the region at least until mid-2024. The lowest water levels in 121 years of river-level records have been recorded in the city of Manaus. Vast areas of the Amazon River's bed have been exposed, … | Continue reading
Using NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an international team of astronomers has discovered two new "hot Jupiter" exoplanets. The newfound alien worlds, designated TOI-4377 b and TOI-4551 b, both orbit distant red-giant stars. The finding was reported November … | Continue reading
Over 4 million hectares of tree cover—an area equivalent to the size of Switzerland—may have been cleared to make space for rubber plantations since the 1990s. Out of all the rubber planted, 1 million hectares may have been established in key biodiversity areas—sites that contrib … | Continue reading
In recent years, physicists have been trying to better understand how quantum information spreads in systems of interacting particles—a phenomenon often referred to as "scrambling." Scrambling in closed systems, physical systems that can only exchange energy with degrees of freed … | Continue reading
Baristas who work in specialty coffee shops, along with hipsters more generally, have been referred to as the "shock troops" of urban gentrification—and it's no different in Philadelphia. These servers of artisanal coffee contribute to economic and demographic changes in neighbor … | Continue reading
Climate modeling based upon Earth's current greenhouse gas emissions trajectory predicts a worst-case scenario of 4.3°C warming of the planet by 2100 if sufficient measures are not implemented. While the Paris Climate Agreement has been adopted by 195 countries and states, aiming … | Continue reading
Animal embryos go through a series of characteristic developmental stages on their journey from a fertilized egg cell to a functional organism. This biological process is largely genetically controlled and follows a similar pattern across different animal species. | Continue reading
Active matter systems feature unique behaviors that include collective self-assembly structures and collective migration. However, the efforts to realize collective entities in spaces without wall-adhered support, in order to conduct three-dimensional locomotion without dispersio … | Continue reading
A team of environmental scientists at the University of Wollongong Faculty of Science Medicine and Health's School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, working with a colleague from the University of New South Wales, has found that sea level rise is encouraging mangrove expan … | Continue reading
A behavioral economist at the University of Bath in the U.K. has found evidence linking higher levels of unwarranted financial optimism with lower levels of cognitive ability. In his study, published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Chris Dawson surveyed … | Continue reading
A team of Zaira Rangers, a mammalogist with The University of Melbourne and a college professor with Solomon Islands National University have taken the first and only pictures of the rare Vangunu giant rat. In their project, reported in the journal Ecology and Evolution, the grou … | Continue reading
A team of paleontologists and biologists from Hokkaido University, Hokkaido University Museum, North Carolina State University and the Mongolian Academy of Sciences, has uncovered a previously unknown species of dinosaur that appears to have slept in the same position as modern b … | Continue reading