Using self-developed drones and advanced sensors, researchers can now see both under the snow and into the ground. The scientists' goal is to reduce societal risk and environmental encroachment. [...]
Red foxes and birds regularly cross between human-dominated and natural ecosystems. For this reason, they may be heralds of spreading antibiotic resistance into ecosystems unexposed to antibiotic pressures, a study done in Italy showed. Results indicated that the share of K. pneumoniae isolates resistant to third-generation cephalosporins—a key group of hospital antibiotics—was about five times higher in wildlife than in isolates from human hospital patients. This shows that studying wildlife resistance can be an effective tool to monitor antimicrobial resistance in natural environments, the researchers said, and called for improved wastewater management, a reduction of antibiotic pollution of water, and a restriction of clinically important antibiotics to human medicine. [...]
When lightning strikes a paddock, it does more than scorch grass and scare the cows. The electrical discharge breaks apart nitrogen molecules in the atmosphere, converting them into a form that falls to Earth in rain and becomes available to plants. It is a natural process, primordial and efficient, which has been fixing nitrogen into soils long before humans began to farm them. [...]
What happens inside the lungs before COVID-19 symptoms appear? Research in mink offers a rare window into the early stages of the disease. These insights matter for both animal and human health. Researchers and veterinary pathologists from Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (WBVR, part of Wageningen University & Research), together with Royal GD and Utrecht University, followed the course of SARS-CoV-2 infection in mink. [...]
Conflicts of interest and unclear responsibilities are hampering efforts to recover lost and illegally discarded fishing gear in the Baltic Sea. Despite EU and regional measures, progress on tackling "ghost gear" pollution has stalled, according to a new study published in Maritime Studies. The authors, including RIFS researcher Ben Boteler, call for stronger cross-sectoral coordination and clearer mandates. [...]
Researchers at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have developed a new approach to secure optical communication that hides information in the physical structure of light, making it difficult for unauthorized parties to intercept or decode. The study addresses a growing challenge: advances in quantum computing are expected to weaken many of today's encryption methods. While most security solutions rely on complex mathematical algorithms, this research adds protection earlier in the process—during the transmission of the signal itself. [...]
Prescribed burning, when combined with tree retention, can effectively support natural regeneration in managed boreal forests, new research shows. The study demonstrates that post-fire seedling establishment remains strong across key commercial species, Scots pine and birch, suggesting that integrating these practices may help reconcile biodiversity goals with sustainable forest management. [...]
Economic instability—including job loss, food insecurity, eviction and homelessness—is strongly associated with higher rates of violence among California adults, according to a new statewide survey led by the University of California San Diego. The findings come from the 2025 California Violence Experiences Survey (CalVEX). The new report provides a comprehensive picture of how violence is experienced across the state, including forms of violence that often go unreported in official data. [...]
Walk across a mudflat at low tide and you might notice small, neat mounds of sediment scattered across the surface. [...]
Sequencing the DNA of all complex life in the UK and Ireland could generate up to almost £3 billion for the economy across agriculture, conservation, and research over the next 30 years, according to a new report. [...]
Quantum technologies like quantum computers are built from quantum materials. These types of materials exhibit quantum properties when exposed to the right conditions. Curiously, engineers can also trigger quantum behavior by manipulating a material's structure; for example, by stacking layers of graphene on top of each other and twisting them to create a moiré pattern, which suddenly turns them into a superconductor. [...]
Gravity, as most people understand it, is the familiar force that pulls a falling apple toward Earth. But for astronomers and theoretical physicists, it is also a vexing invisible architect that guides the shape and evolution of the largest cosmic structures across the universe. [...]
How can public spaces remain safe when large crowds move through them? Engineers and researchers who study these environments often rely on physical models borrowed from fluid dynamics—a branch of physics that describes the collective motion of fluids, whose behavior emerges from the interactions of many particles. But a new study published in the Journal of Statistical Physics: Theory and Experiment highlights a crucial issue: The way data are collected and measured within these models lacks standardization and may overlook important features of human collective behavior. Unlike particles, people are living agents with individual decisions and complex interactions, making their movement harder to capture with traditional approaches. [...]
Egyptian mummy remains were examined at Semmelweis University's Medical Imaging Center (OKK). The archaeological finds arriving from the Semmelweis Museum of Medical History, Hungarian National Museum Public Collection Center (MNMKK) were analyzed using the institution's newest CT scanner equipped with a photon-counting detector. Thanks to state-of-the-art imaging technology, highly detailed images have been captured that were previously unavailable, and the initial results promise significant scientific advances. [...]
NASA's SPHEREx (Spectro-Photometer for the History of the Universe, Epoch of Reionization, and Ices Explorer) mission has mapped interstellar ice at an unprecedented scale. Covering regions in our Milky Way galaxy more than 600 light-years across, the ice was found inside giant molecular clouds—vast regions of gas and dust where dense clumps of matter collapse under gravity, giving birth to stars. A study describing these findings was published Wednesday in The Astrophysical Journal. [...]
Coral reefs hide "scientific treasures" that have survived for centuries, yet many of these giant, ancient organisms remain largely unknown to science. A new study published in the journal Nature Conservation introduces "Map the Giants," a pioneering citizen-science initiative launched by researchers from the University of Milano-Bicocca to find these giant coral colonies before they are lost to escalating global pressures. [...]
The exact location of William Shakespeare's only London property can now be pinpointed to a quiet Blackfriars street, thanks to the discovery of a previously unknown floorplan. The discovery, made by Shakespeare expert Professor Lucy Munro from King's College London, not only identifies the exact place of the property Shakespeare bought in 1613 but also the layout and size. It also paints a different picture of where Shakespeare may have spent some of his time in his later years. [...]
The molecular structure of an enzyme from a marine bacterium with potential industrial uses has been determined by RIKEN researchers. The insights they have gained could help make a range of useful compounds through genetic modification. The research is published in the journal Chemical Science. [...]
A new artificial intelligence (AI) tool could make it much easier to discover better materials for clean energy technologies. The system, called StableOx-Cat, helps scientists identify stable metal oxide electrocatalysts—materials that play a key role in processes such as water splitting and fuel production. The findings are published in the journal AI Agent. [...]
How do organic solar cells work on the inside? The answer lies in structures far too small to see—and difficult to access even with advanced techniques. So far, researchers have relied mainly on X-ray methods to understand how molecules are arranged within these materials and how this order can be optimized for high efficiency. While powerful, X-rays provide only a spatially averaged picture. Electrons, in contrast, offer a local view at the nanoscale, revealing both structure and chemical composition. [...]
Unfortunately for science fiction fans, desert worlds outside our solar system are unlikely to host life, according to new research from the University of Washington. Scientists show that an Earth-sized planet needs at least 20 to 50% of the water in Earth's oceans to maintain a critical natural cycle that keeps water on the surface. [...]
In efforts to better understand how plant photosynthesis is regulated, scientists are studying how Rubisco activity responds to light. In a new meta-analysis study, a team from the Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE) project at Lancaster University have identified a potential link between photosynthetic pathway type and rates of dark inhibition. The findings are published in the Journal of Experimental Botany. [...]
Afforestation—establishing forests on previously non-forested land, or where forests have not existed for a long time—is one of the nature-based and cost-effective solutions for climate change mitigation because it offsets carbon emissions through carbon storage and can help reduce the effects of flooding. The European Union's Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 targets converting at least 10% of agricultural land into forest. [...]
Inside every cell, a cleanup operation runs around the clock. Proteins are constantly damaged by wear and tear. Some can be repaired, while others must be dismantled and recycled. When this system fails, damaged proteins accumulate in clumps associated with diseases such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and frontotemporal dementia. A study published in The EMBO Journal by Nirbhik Acharya (postdoc) and Carlos Castañeda, associate professor of biology and chemistry at Syracuse University's College of Arts & Sciences, reveals a key part of how that cleanup system works and what goes wrong in disease. [...]
An international team led by Dr. Indrani Das of Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASIAA) has shown, for the first time, how infalling gas from star-forming cores gradually transitions into planet-forming disks. Their findings, combining numerical simulations with Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations, are published today in The Astrophysical Journal. [...]
A growing mystery in astronomy is the presence of gargantuan black holes—some weighing as much as a billion suns—existing less than a billion years after the Big Bang. According to the standard theory of black hole formation, these black holes simply should not have had enough time to grow so large. A study led by University of California, Riverside graduate student Yash Aggarwal shows that dark matter decays could be the key to understanding the origin of these cosmic behemoths. Published in the Journal of Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, the research shows that the energy released from dark matter decay could alter the chemistry of early galaxies enough to cause some of them to directly collapse into black holes rather than forming stars. [...]
The Easter holidays are over and many people have once again experienced firsthand how easily sweets can be converted into fat. Parasitic wasps are also capable of converting sugar into fat—a capability that long was thought to be lost in these insects. Researchers at the Universities of Regensburg and Münster now show in a new study how important this metabolic pathway is for these insects: when so-called lipogenesis—the conversion of sugar into fatty acids and fat—is silenced, the wasps can no longer produce offspring. [...]
A research paper led by William Paterson University environmental science professor Nicole Davi finds that coastal forests demonstrate incredible resiliency following major hurricane events, but these forests are increasingly at risk from storm damage and surges and continued sea-level rise. [...]
New research led by James Cook University shows huge differences in fish biomass and fish productivity between Caribbean and Indo-Pacific coral reefs, driven by the consumption of jelly-like gelatinous plankton. For their study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution, the JCU-led team of Australian scientists analyzed 2.5 million plankton-eating fish observations, revealing fundamental differences in fish size, quantity, and growth between the two reef realms. [...]
Sea ice is not just solid frozen water. It's riddled with tiny pockets and channels of liquid brine. Whether those pockets connect to form pathways determines whether seawater, nutrients and gases can move through the ice, according to decades of research by University of Utah mathematician Ken Golden. [...]