Top Science News
May 18, 2024
May 15, 2024 — What makes the oldfield mouse steadfastly monogamous throughout its life while its closest rodent relatives are promiscuous? The answer may be a previously unknown hormone-generating cell. Scientists discover the cells and hormones that inspire mice ...
May 15, 2024 — Astronomers have just discovered a new Earth-sized exoplanet around SPECULOOS-3, an 'ultracool dwarf' star as small as Jupiter, twice as cold as our Sun, and located 55 light-years from Earth. After ...
May 15, 2024 — It's one thing to dream up a quantum internet that could send hacker-proof information around the world via photons superimposed in different quantum states. It's quite another to physically show it's possible. That's exactly what physicists have ...
May 15, 2024 — The ability to regulate body temperature, a trait all mammals and birds have today, may have evolved among some dinosaurs early in the Jurassic period about 180 million years ago. The new study looked at the spread of dinosaurs across different ...
Latest Top Headlines
updated 8:47pm EDT
May 17, 2024 — The latest findings forecast that global life expectancy will increase by 4.9 years in males and 4.2 years in females between 2022 and 2050. Increases are expected to be largest in countries where life expectancy is lower, contributing to a convergence of increased life expectancy across geographies. The trend is largely driven by public health ...
May 17, 2024 — An HIV vaccine candidate triggered low levels of an elusive type of broadly neutralizing HIV antibodies among a small group of people enrolled in a 2019 clinical ...
May 16, 2024 — In an important step toward more effective gene therapies for brain diseases, researchers have engineered a gene-delivery vehicle that uses a human protein to efficiently cross the blood-brain barrier and deliver a disease-relevant gene to the brain in mice expressing the human protein. Because the vehicle binds to a well-studied protein in the blood-brain barrier, the scientists say it has a ...
May 14, 2024 — Artificial intelligence (AI) computer programs that process MRI results show differences in how the brains of men and women are organized at a cellular level, a new study shows. These variations were spotted in white matter, tissue primarily located in the human brain's innermost layer, which fosters communication between ...
May 8, 2024 — Researchers have developed scalable photonic integrated circuits, based on lithium tantalate, marking a significant advancement in optical technologies with potential to widespread commercial ...
May 16, 2024 — Thermoelectric materials could play an important role in the clean energy transition, as they can produce electricity from sources of heat that would otherwise go to waste. Researchers report a new approach to efficiently predict when thermoelectric materials will have improved performance in converting heat into ...
May 16, 2024 — Researchers used generative AI to develop a physics-informed technique to classify phase transitions in materials or physical systems that is much more efficient than existing machine-learning ...
May 15, 2024 — Semiconductors are the foundation of all modern electronics. Now, researchers have developed a new method where organic semiconductors can become more conductive with the help of air as a dopant. The study is a significant step towards future cheap and sustainable organic ...
May 16, 2024 — Researchers have developed a method to investigate sperm whale communication by determining their vocal style, finding that groups living in close proximity can develop similar styles to each ...
May 16, 2024 — Sea otters are one of the few animals that use tools to access their food, and a new study has found that individual sea otters that use tools -- most of whom are female -- are able to eat larger prey and reduce tooth damage when their preferred prey becomes ...
May 10, 2024 — The discovery of how a critical enzyme 'hidden in nature's blueprint' works sheds new light on how cells control key processes in carbon fixation, a process fundamental for life on Earth. The discovery could help engineer climate resilient crops capable of sucking carbon dioxide from the atmosphere more efficiently, helping to produce more food in ...
May 16, 2024 — In a groundbreaking study an international team of scientists has investigated the evolutionary patterns behind the development of sabre teeth, with some unexpected results along the ...
Health News
May 18, 2024
May 9, 2024 — Researchers have created the largest synaptic-resolution, 3D reconstruction of a piece of human brain to date, showing in vivid detail each cell and its web of neural connections in a piece of human temporal cortex about half the size of a rice ...
May 6, 2024 — About 79% of clinical trial participants experienced measurable improvement after receiving experimental, CRISPR-based gene editing that is designed to fix a rare form of blindness, according to a new ...
May 1, 2024 — The health benefits of exercise are well known but new research shows that the body's response to exercise is more complex and far-reaching than previously thought. In a study on rats, a team of scientists has found that physical activity causes ...
May 1, 2024 — With recent studies having established the presence of nano and microplastic particles in the respiratory systems of both human and bird populations, new research has modeled what happens when people ...
Latest Health Headlines
updated 8:47pm EDT
May 17, 2024 — Stroke is the leading cause of disability worldwide and the second leading cause of death, but the right early intervention can prevent severe consequences. Scientists developed a new test by combining blood-based biomarkers with a clinical score to identify patients experiencing large vessel occlusion (LVO) stroke with high ...
May 16, 2024 — B cells can control responses of myeloid cells through the release of particular cytokines (small proteins that control the growth and activity of cells in the immune system), challenging the prevailing view that T cells are the principle orchestrators of immune responses. In individuals with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), abnormally active respiration ...
May 14, 2024 — Technology alone can't replace the human touch to produce meaningful weight loss in obesity treatment, reports a new study. Giving people technology alone for the initial phase of obesity treatment produces unacceptably worse weight loss than giving them treatment that combines technology with a human coach. The need for low cost but effective obesity treatments delivered by technology has become ...
May 9, 2024 — New cells discovered in human omental adipose tissue inhibit fat cell formation, revealing why 'apple' body shapes may pose higher metabolic health ...
May 15, 2024 — Access to gardens and citizen science projects at school can help promote pro-conservation behaviour among pupils, a new study ...
May 15, 2024 — Are acoustic features of music and spoken language shared across cultures? Researchers recorded themselves performing traditional music and speaking in their native language. In all 50+ languages, the rhythms of songs and instrumental melodies were slower than those of speech, while the pitches were higher and more ...
May 14, 2024 — Asking young adults to advise their younger selves could have a positive impact on their self-esteem, resilience and mental ...
May 13, 2024 — Researchers have made a significant discovery, identifying genetic connections between inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and Parkinson's disease (PD). Their study highlights the potential for joint therapeutic strategies to target these two challenging disorders. The team used advanced genomic analysis techniques to investigate the genetic overlap ...
May 16, 2024 — The treatment of animals rates higher than green issues when consumers choose meat and dairy products. That's according to a new study, which suggests that while consumers consider sustainability important, other factors such as taste, quality, and animal welfare take precedence in their purchasing ...
May 15, 2024 — Vegetarian and vegan diets are generally associated with better status on various medical factors linked to cardiovascular health and cancer risk, as well as lower risk of cardiovascular diseases, cancer, and death, according to a new review of 49 previously published ...
May 17, 2024 — A lack of detailed record-keeping in clinics and emergency departments may be getting in the way of reducing the inappropriate use of antibiotics, a pair of new studies suggests. In one of the studies, about 10% of children and 35% of adults who got an antibiotic prescription during an office visit had no specific reason for the antibiotic in their ...
May 13, 2024 — Chatbots share limited information, reinforce ideologies, and, as a result, can lead to more polarized thinking when it comes to controversial issues, according to new research. The study challenges perceptions that chatbots are impartial and provides insight into how using conversational search systems could widen the public divide on hot-button issues and leave people vulnerable to ...
Physical/Tech News
May 18, 2024
May 14, 2024 — Astronomers discovered three of the oldest stars in the universe, and they live in our own galactic neighborhood. The stars are in the Milky Way's 'halo' -- the cloud of stars that envelopes the ...
May 8, 2024 — Researchers may have detected atmospheric gases surrounding 55 Cancri e, a hot rocky exoplanet 41 light-years from Earth. This is the best evidence to date for the existence of any rocky planet atmosphere outside our solar ...
May 6, 2024 — Engineers created a catapillar-shaped robot that splits into segments and reassembles, hauls cargo, and crawls through twisting ...
May 6, 2024 — Billions of years ago, Venus may have harbored as much water as Earth. Today, almost all of it has disappeared. A new study may help to explain ...
Latest Physical/Tech Headlines
updated 8:47pm EDT
May 16, 2024 — Researchers have investigated how spiders listen to their environments through webs and found that the webs match the acoustic particle velocity for a wide range of sound frequencies. Playing sound ranging from 1 Hz to 50 kHz for the spiders and measuring the spider silk motion with a laser vibrometer, they found the sound-induced velocity of the silk was the same as the particles in the air ...
May 17, 2024 — Two-dimensional materials such as graphene promise to form the basis of incredibly small and fast technologies, but this requires a detailed understanding of their electronic properties. New research demonstrates that fast electronic processes can be probed by irradiating the materials with ions ...
May 17, 2024 — The deep-sea Venus flower basket sponge can filter feed using only the faint ambient currents of the ocean depths, no pumping required, new research reveals. This discovery of natural 'zero energy' flow control could help engineers design more efficient chemical reactors, air purification systems, heat exchangers, hydraulic systems, and ...
May 16, 2024 — A team of chemists has achieved a significant breakthrough in the field of chemical synthesis, developing a novel method for manipulating carbon-hydrogen bonds. This groundbreaking discovery provides new insights into the molecular interactions of positively charged carbon atoms. By selectively targeting a specific C--H bond, they open doors to synthetic pathways that were previously closed -- ...
May 15, 2024 — Looking like a glittering cosmic geode, a trio of dazzling stars blaze from the hollowed-out cavity of a reflection nebula in a new image from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The triple-star system is made up of the variable star HP Tau, HP Tau G2, and HP Tau G3. HP Tau is known as a T Tauri star, a type of young variable star that hasn't begun nuclear fusion yet but is beginning to evolve into a ...
May 15, 2024 — SuperLimbs, a system of wearable robotic limbs, can physically support an astronaut and lift them back on their feet after a fall, helping them conserve energy for other essential ...
May 14, 2024 — Astronomers have just discovered WASP-193b, an extraordinarily low-density giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like ...
May 8, 2024 — In the quest for life beyond our solar system, a new study delves into the atmospheric dynamics of planet Proxima Centauri b, illuminating ozone's pivotal role in shaping planetary climates. This research signifies a significant leap forward in our understanding of habitable ...
May 16, 2024 — Sarcasm is notoriously tricky to convey through text, and the subtle changes in tone that convey sarcasm often confuse computer algorithms as well, limiting virtual assistants and content analysis tools. So researchers have now developed a multimodal algorithm for improved sarcasm detection that examines multiple aspects of audio recordings for increased accuracy. They used two complementary ...
May 14, 2024 — Using interference between two lasers, a research group has created an 'optical conveyor belt' that can move polaritons -- a type of light-matter hybrid particle -- in semiconductor-based microcavities. This work could lead to the development of new devices with applications in areas such as quantum metrology and quantum ...
May 10, 2024 — Engineers have demonstrated a simple computational approach for improving the linearization of power amplifiers (PA), such as those used in mmWave systems and other telecommunication systems. The proposed technique involves training small neural networks to directly estimate the coefficients of a polynomial for digital pre-distortion (DPD) based ...
May 17, 2024 — Physicists revealed a microscopic phenomenon that could greatly improve the performance of soft devices, such as agile flexible robots or microscopic capsules for drug ...
Environment News
May 18, 2024
May 14, 2024 — Researchers have found that 2023 was the hottest summer in the Northern Hemisphere in the past two thousand years, almost four degrees warmer than the coldest summer during the same ...
May 2, 2024 — A wild orangutan was observed applying a plant with known medicinal properties to a wound, a first for a wild ...
Apr. 29, 2024 — It has long been thought that meat played an important role in the diet of hunter-gatherers before the Neolithic transition. However, due to the scarcity of well-preserved human remains from Paleolithic sites, little information exists about the ...
Apr. 29, 2024 — Dinosaurs were likely as smart as reptiles but not as intelligent as ...
Latest Environment Headlines
updated 8:47pm EDT
May 15, 2024 — In the emperor penguin courtship call, male vocalizations are composed of long, slow bursts with lower frequency tones than the female version. But calls of SeaWorld San Diego male penguin E-79 defied this binary. Also unusual was this penguin's male companion, E-81. The pair 'kept company' and sometimes exhibited ritual courtship displays. Researchers studied the courtship calls of E-79 and ...
May 16, 2024 — A molecular biologist may have found a new 'rule of biology.' The rule challenges long-held notions that most living organisms prefer stability over instability because stability requires less energy and fewer ...
May 16, 2024 — Researchers have found that persimmon tannin, known for its antioxidant properties, improves the growth of yeast in the presence of ...
May 14, 2024 — Heavily-used shipping lanes that pass through whale shark feeding grounds pose a threat to the species, according to scientists who have revealed areas where the creatures are at the highest ...
May 14, 2024 — Polystyrene is made from styrene building blocks and is the most widely used plastic in terms of volume, for example in packaging. Unlike PET, which can now be produced and recycled using biotechnological methods, the production of polystyrene has so far been a purely chemical process. The plastic can't be broken down by biotechnological means, either. Researchers are looking for ways to rectify ...
May 15, 2024 — In a warmer climate, summers warm much faster than winters, according to research into fossil shells. With this knowledge we can better map the consequences of current global warming in the North Sea ...
May 14, 2024 — Between 1990 and 2019, more than 150,000 deaths around the globe were associated with heatwaves each year, according to a new ...
May 15, 2024 — Bee and butterfly populations are in decline in major regions of North America due to ongoing environmental change, and significant gaps in pollinator research limit our ability to protect these species, according to a new ...
May 17, 2024 — The spiny legged 308-million-year-old arachnid Douglassarachne acanthopoda was discovered the famous Mazon Creek ...
May 14, 2024 — A special review examines highly-cited papers in statistical ecology. The review, which covers a century of research, details how models and concepts have evolved alongside increasing computational ...
May 15, 2024 — The research cracks the code on the iconic baobab tree's origin story, revealing their surprising origins in Madagascar and incredible long-distance dispersals to Africa and Australia. The study unveils how baobabs developed unique pollination mechanisms -- some attracting hawkmoths, others lemurs, and even bats -- showcasing remarkable evolutionary adaptations. The research sheds light on how ...
May 13, 2024 — Today's rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide increase is 10 times faster than at any other point in the past 50,000 years, researchers have found through a detailed chemical analysis of ancient Antarctic ...
Society/Education News
May 18, 2024
Apr. 18, 2024 — Land subsidence is overlooked as a hazard in cities, according to new research. Scientists used satellite data that accurately and consistently maps land movement across ...
Apr. 17, 2024 — Even if CO2 emissions were to be drastically cut down starting today, the world economy is already committed to an income reduction of 19% until 2050 due to climate change, a new study finds. These ...
Mar. 6, 2024 — A new study provides a new comprehensive look at the potential for flooding in a combined 32 cities along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts. It predicts as many as 500,000 people will be affected by flooding alongside 1 in 35 privately owned ...
Feb. 5, 2024 — For more than 50 years, the National Hurricane Center has used the Saffir-Simpson Windscale to communicate the risk of property damage; it labels a hurricane on a scale from Category 1 (wind speeds between 74 -- 95 mph) to Category 5 (wind speeds of ...
Latest Society/Education Headlines
updated 8:47pm EDT
May 17, 2024 — Recognizing and respecting the different ways nature is valued can enable better environmental decision-making, according to new ...
May 17, 2024 — A new commentary paper puts forth a transformative solution to the unsustainable reliance on fossil resources by the chemical industry: catalysis to leverage sustainable waste resources, ushering the industry from a linear to a circular ...
May 15, 2024 — PES programs are currently structured in ways that could limit their participation or create incentives to drop out before the full environmental benefits are ...
May 14, 2024 — A research team assessed the impact of a train station's opening on health expenditures. The natural experiment study revealed that a new mass transit station is significantly associated with decreased average health expenditures per ...
May 15, 2024 — A new study has shown that repetitive practice not only is helpful in improving skills but also leads to profound changes in the brain's memory ...
May 14, 2024 — The vast majority of people have an ongoing conversation with themselves, an inner voice, that plays an important role in their daily lives. But between 5-10 per cent of the population do not have the same experience of an inner voice, and they find it more difficult to perform certain verbal memory tasks, new research ...
May 10, 2024 — Employers are significantly more likely to offer job interviews and higher salaries to graduates with experience of artificial intelligence, according to new ...
May 9, 2024 — A 'crazy idea' hatched during a walk in the woods and first tested by a high school student is now an innovative research tool used by scientists worldwide to predict neurotransmitters in fruit fly ...
Apr. 24, 2024 — Countries with limited potential for renewables could save up to 20 percent of costs for green steel and up to 40 percent for green chemicals from green hydrogen if they relocated their energy-intensive production and would import from countries where renewable energy is ...
Apr. 23, 2024 — Sure, ChatGPT can write a poem about your pet in the style of T.S Eliot, but generative artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots have a potentially more useful role to play in idea generation according to a new ...
Apr. 22, 2024 — A sensing technology that can assess the quality of components in fields such as aerospace could transform UK ...
Apr. 18, 2024 — The EU wants to ensure greater sustainability in agricultural trade with the Global South -- with the aim of minimizing the environmental and climate-damaging effects of importing crops such as soya, palm oil, coffee, and cocoa. However, this aspiration is often not fulfilled in practice. Researchers have developed a new approach to identifying options for the sustainable trade of agricultural ...