Home Depot is leveraging artificial intelligence to help professional contractors with a complex task—measuring and quantifying all the materials needed for residential projects. [...]
In one of the most important state environmental decisions this year, California air regulators adopted new rules designed to reduce methane leaks and better respond to disastrous underground fires at landfills statewide. [...]
Politics can be a stressful discussion topic, but when the holiday season arrives, political chatter is difficult to avoid, especially in a world that feels polarized and divided. A Baylor College of Medicine psychiatrist explains how to discuss politics in a calm manner among family, friends and colleagues. [...]
November marks the start of the busiest time of year for retailers and shoppers alike. But how will recent developments like tariffs and the government shutdown impact the winter shopping season? [...]
As ecosystems in coastal British Columbia disappear due to long-term browsing pressures from overabundant black-tailed deer, a new study led by UBC with Coast Salish Nations and regional research partners identifies the most effective solutions to address deer overabundance on the Southern Gulf Islands. [...]
At an eel restaurant near Tokyo, four friends sit down to eat a Japanese delicacy now the subject of a heated international debate as its numbers decline. [...]
A breach, a blockade, and a blaze: tumultuous UN climate talks head into their final day Friday in the Brazilian Amazon, with countries still sharply split over fossil fuels. [...]
One of North America's longest rivers, the Rio Grande—or Rio Bravo as it's called in Mexico—has a history as deep as it is long. Indigenous people have tapped it for countless generations, and it was a key artery for Spanish conquistadors centuries ago. [...]
One of the great mysteries in plant biology is how, given the clouds of pollen released by dozens of plant species all at the same time, an individual plant can recognize which particular species' pollen grains will induce fertility and which to reject. We are now one step closer to solving the mystery thanks to research recently published in Science by an international team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and China's Shandong Agricultural University. [...]
Across Europe, scientists and citizens are uncovering a hidden legacy of contamination beneath their feet. From Denmark's first PFAS crisis to a new generation of soil-mapping initiatives, a continent is learning to see—and stop—the pollution it once ignored [...]
Political systems become polarized when internal unity within groups strengthens and the divide between them deepens. As polarization intensifies, societal tensions can grow, making it difficult to find compromises. The intensity of polarization has been measured in research, but until now its structural roots in social media have remained obscure. [...]
Influencers use oppression, manipulation and weaponization to police Black women on social media, according to new research uncovering the entrenched nature of digital racism. [...]
Retroviruses are viruses that have evolved the ability to write their genetic code into a cell's own DNA. The most ancient known lineage of retroviruses, foamy viruses, emerged around 450 million years ago, before animal life moved onto land or even the evolution of trees. [...]
Most people can recall a favorite class or teacher who left an indelible mark on their lives. While subject matter plays a role, the deeper connection often stems from how that teacher made students feel. [...]
Richard Weissbourd and Kiran Bhai are part of the leadership team at Making Caring Common, a Harvard Ed School initiative focused on making moral and social development a priority in child-raising. In this article, they answer this question: [...]
During the first COVID-19 lockdown, we were both mothers trying to stay sane. Our chats often revolved around diapers, feeding, sleep deprivation and motherhood chaos. Between laughter and exhaustion, cloth diapers kept coming up in conversation. [...]
Potential treatments for one of the world's most dangerous hospital superbugs have been found in a surprising location—hospital toilets. [...]
Violence against women remains one of the world's most persistent and under-addressed human rights crises, with very little progress in two decades, according to a landmark report released today by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UN partners. [...]
A new study has found African lions produce not one, but two distinct types of roars—a discovery set to transform wildlife monitoring and conservation efforts. [...]
Life can put strain on any couple's relationship. But mindfulness could help keep it strong, according to a recent study from the University of Georgia published in Child & Family Social Work. [...]
Loggerhead turtles are able to sense Earth's magnetic field in two ways, but it wasn't clear which sense the animals use to detect the magnetic field when navigating using the magnetic map they are born with. Now researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill reveal in the Journal of Experimental Biology that hatchling loggerhead turtles feel Earth's magnetic map to tell them where they are on their epic migration routes. [...]
Making new friends has its challenges, even for birds. Researchers at the University of Cincinnati found that monk parakeets introduced to new birds will "test the waters" with potential friends to avoid increasingly dangerous close encounters that could lead to injury. They gradually approach a stranger, taking time to get familiar before ramping up increasingly risky interactions. [...]
When ultraviolet light hits ice—whether in Earth's polar regions or on distant planets—it triggers a cascade of chemical reactions that have puzzled scientists for decades. [...]
The European Space Agency's Euclid mission—designed to map the geometry of the dark universe with unprecedented precision—continues to deliver its first scientific insights. The Euclid Consortium has published a fresh set of seven scientific papers based on data from the Euclid Quick Data Release and also unveiled a new Euclid-derived visual collage illustrating the classical "Tuning Fork" of galaxy morphologies. [...]
Imagine trying to predict wind patterns as air flows across a landscape. It's a straightforward task over a flat plain—but becomes more complex when the terrain shifts to jagged mountain ranges. Here, wind does not simply sweep over peaks; it is deflected, slowed, and forced into gravity waves. [...]
Only two weeks after fertilization, the first sign of the formation of the three axes of the human body (head/tail, ventral/dorsal, and right/left) begins to appear. At this stage, known as gastrulation, a flat and featureless sheet of cells folds into a living blueprint for the body, a fleeting transformation into axes and layers that will determine how every tissue develops. This all-important moment has, however, long stood beyond the reach of science, occurring too early and deeply within the uterus to study directly. [...]
Personalized learning is a very effective teaching method, but its potential is limited due to resource constraints. In a small, in-person class, instructors can walk around, engage with students individually, adjust lessons and adapt their teaching to match each learner's needs. However, as class sizes grow—or in online courses with hundreds or even thousands of learners—this level of personalization becomes difficult or impossible. [...]
A new study challenges the idea that language stems from a single evolutionary root. Instead, it proposes that our ability to communicate evolved through the interaction of biology and culture, and involves multiple capacities, each with different evolutionary histories. The framework, published in Science, unites discoveries across disciplines to explain how the ability to learn to speak, develop grammar, and share meaning converged to create complex communication. [...]
An international study, involving researchers from the University of Tartu Institute of Chemistry, was recently published in Chemical Society Reviews. It provides the most comprehensive theoretical description to date of electrocatalysis and how its current limitations can be addressed. The research establishes a framework that helps design more efficient fuel cells, electrolyzers, and other clean energy conversion devices. [...]
Bioelectronics, such as implantable health monitors or devices that stimulate brain cells, are not as soft as the surrounding tissues due to their metal electronic circuits. A team of scientists from the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, led by associate professor Ranjita Bose, have now developed a soft polymer hydrogel that can conduct electricity as well as metal can. As the material is both flexible and soft, it is more compatible with sensitive tissues. This finding has the potential for a large number of applications, for example, in biocompatible sensors and in wound healing. [...]
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