In Finland, Lapland's tourism has grown so rapidly that Rovaniemi, the region's capital and number‑one destination, where Santa Claus has his office, is already operating at full capacity. There is very little room left to welcome more tourists to the city located in the Arctic Circle. Attention has therefore turned to the next rising destinations in Lapland—one of which has been found along the Swedish border in Torne Valley, an area with a long and rich but largely forgotten tourism history. [...]
Wildfires may disappear from the landscape within weeks, but their hidden effects on the soil can persist for decades. An international research team led by the University of Göttingen, together with partners in Tübingen, Berlin and Chile, has shown how wildfires in humid temperate rainforests and Mediterranean woodlands of central Chile lead to very different pathways of soil recovery and ecosystem resilience. The study shows that soil structure and nutrients continue to change for more than a decade after a fire. The results are published in the journal Catena. [...]
Researchers at ETH Zurich recently explained the role of a molecular complex that orchestrates the production of proteins in our cells. They now show that this complex also controls the processing of proteins that compact DNA. These new insights could form the basis for new approaches in cancer treatment, but they also critically extend the current understanding of protein biosynthesis. [...]
University of Leicester engineers have unveiled a concept for a device designed to magnetically "cloak" sensitive components, making them invisible to detection. [...]
Would you rather fight a horse-sized duck or 100 duck-sized horses? The famous question, though implausible, reflects a ubiquitous tradeoff between quantity and quality. Now, a study shows that this dilemma operates in biology at the evolutionary scale. [...]
In a study published in Science Advances on December 19, researchers from Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with collaborators from international institutions, explored the impact of mountain building and climate cooling over 30 million years across five major mountain systems in the Northern Hemisphere and revealed that these processes are key drivers of the rich plant diversity found in Earth's alpine biome. [...]
A new study from the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS) in London, UK reveals how ancient viral DNA once written off as "junk" plays a crucial role in the earliest moments of life. The research, published in Science Advances, begins to untangle the role of an ancient viral DNA element called MERVL in mouse embryonic development and provides new insights into a human muscle wasting disease. [...]
Would you pay more for a car just to skip the negotiation process? According to new research by David Hunsaker, clinical associate professor of management at the IU Kelley School of Business Indianapolis, many Americans would—and do. [...]
Four years after the Fundão dam collapse—the world's largest mining disaster, which occurred in 2015 in the city of Mariana in the state of Minas Gerais, Brazil—a study found that fish in the Doce River were still highly contaminated by metals and other toxic substances. [...]
Scientists specializing in soil geochemistry, environmental engineering, and health affiliated with the University of São Paulo (USP) and the Federal University of Espírito Santo (UFES) in Brazil and the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain assessed the risks of consuming bananas, cassava, and the pulp of cocoa grown in soils impacted by iron mining waste in the Doce River estuary in Linhares in the Brazilian state of Espírito Santo. The region has received the material since the Fundão tailings dam collapsed in the neighboring state of Minas Gerais in November 2015. [...]
Antibiotic resistance is a growing global health crisis that makes common infections harder to treat and puts many medical procedures at risk. Now, Carnegie Mellon University researchers have uncovered a vulnerability in bacteria that could pave the way for an entirely new class of treatments. [...]
From floods and forest fires to earthquakes—the frequency and intensity of natural disasters is increasing. This also means an increase in the number of people affected and damage to infrastructure, with serious economic consequences. What are the needs of first responders, and which technologies offer options to support them? [...]
Researchers at University of Tsukuba have, for the first time, recorded the songs of the Chinese hwamei Garrulax canorus (designated as an invasive alien species) in the alpine zone of Mt. Kisokoma in the Central Alps (approximately 2,770 m above sea level). These songs, produced by males during the breeding season, serve to establish territories and attract females. This finding, published in Bird Research, raises concerns that the breeding range of Chinese hwamei may be expanding from lowland habitats into the alpine zone. [...]
Several hundred volcanoes lie dormant beneath the Eifel in western Germany. They are typical examples of what is known as distributed volcanic fields. To better understand their formation and activity, researchers from the GFZ Helmholtz Center for Geosciences and partner institutions conducted Germany's largest seismological volcano experiment in this region between September 2022 and August 2023. [...]
Humans have it. So does Drosophila. But not yeast. That "it" is a small pause at the start of gene activity—a brief molecular halt that may have helped life evolve from simple cells to complex animals. [...]
Formaldehyde is a common chemical used in various industries as a disinfectant, resin precursor, and synthetic intermediate. It is volatile, highly toxic, and a key environmental pollutant with genotoxic and carcinogenic effects, harming both human health and the environment. Therefore, there is an urgent need to come up with useful strategies to convert formaldehyde into non-toxic value-added products, ensuring environmental protection as well as chemical sustainability. [...]
An interdisciplinary team of University of Tennessee, Knoxville researchers recently published in Biophysical Journal on their development of a new statistical method that improves analysis in single-molecule fluorescence experiments, which are used to study important protein complexes in cells. [...]
Marine bacteria are key to determining whether carbon is recycled near the ocean surface or transported to deeper waters, but many operate in constant threat of being infected by viruses called phages, and mutate to fend off those infections. [...]
Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed an electrochemical reaction manifold that promotes efficient nitrogen atom insertion into saturated carbocycles to access either functionalized quinolines or N-alkylated saturated N heterocycles, both of which are privileged scaffolds in synthetic chemistry and pharmaceutical science. [...]
The final ESA/Webb Picture of the Month feature for 2025 showcases a festive-looking region filled with glowing clouds of gas and thousands of sparkling stars. This star cluster, known as Westerlund 2, resides in a stellar breeding ground known as Gum 29, located 20,000 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Carina (the Keel). [...]
When people reach for the same object, walk through a narrow doorway, forage for food, or work together on a shared task, they continuously negotiate—often without noticing—how much to cooperate or compete. Unlike classical laboratory games that force players to choose between fixed options in advance, real-life interactions unfold dynamically, with movement timing and subtle cues shaping social behavior from one moment to the next. [...]
When disease begins forming inside the human body, something subtle happens long before symptoms appear. Individual molecules such as DNA, RNA, peptides, or proteins begin shifting in quantity or shape. Detecting these tiny molecular changes early could dramatically change how cancer, infections, and other conditions are diagnosed. [...]
Parasitic plants are notorious agricultural pests that drain nutrients from crops and cause economic losses of more than USD 1 billion due to yield losses every year. Yet these plants almost never attack themselves or closely related plants. Scientists have long suspected that parasitic plants can recognize "kin," but the molecular basis for this self-protection has remained unclear. [...]
Researchers at University of Tsukuba have decoded the nuclear genome of Amorphochlora amoebiformis, a unicellular marine alga belonging to the chlorarachniophyte group. [...]
In recent years, the global climate has become increasingly extreme, with intensifying alternations of droughts and floods—particularly in ecologically vulnerable mid-latitude regions. But what is driving this hydroclimatic variability? Scientists have long debated the underlying mechanisms. [...]
Prof. An Tao from the Shanghai Astronomical Observatory (SHAO) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has proposed a novel "precessing magnetic jet engine" model to explain the peculiar gamma-ray burst (GRB) 250702B, a rare cosmic explosion discovered on July 2, 2025. [...]
Filoviruses get their name from the Latin word "filum," meaning thread—a reference to their long, filamentous shape. This virus family contains some of the most dangerous pathogens known to science, including Ebola, Sudan, Bundibugyo and Marburg viruses. [...]
Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered how molecular "traffic controllers" in cells influence aging and cellular senescence—a state where cells stop dividing but remain metabolically active. The study, published in Molecular Cell, sheds light on the process of transcribing DNA into RNA, a critical step in gene expression, and how it is tightly regulated and connected to age-related changes. [...]
A breakthrough development in nanofabrication could help support the development of new wireless, flexible, high-performance transparent electronic devices. [...]
A team of researchers at UNIST, in collaboration with the University of Cologne and Purdue University, has unveiled a rapid, sustainable method to create complex nanomaterials containing up to 30 different metals in just one minute at room temperature. [...]