In the drylands of Benin, West Africa, livestock farming is under growing pressure. These vast, hot landscapes cover roughly 70% of the country's land area. Their sparse pastures and scattered trees sustain around six million grazing animals, including 2.5 million cattle, one million sheep and 2.4 million goats which walk with herders over long distances in search of food and water. [...]

Parts of India, including the capital Delhi, were once again covered in thick smog recently as toxic pollution from industry and crop-burning engulfed the region. Even though India's National Clean Air Program has advanced clean air action, air pollution remains a reoccurring problem. [...]

Last year, astronomers were fascinated by a runaway asteroid passing through our solar system from somewhere far beyond. It was moving at around 68 kilometers per second, just over double Earth's speed around the sun. [...]

Fungi are the hidden architects of our ecosystems, acting as everything from helpful partners for plants to aggressive decomposers that recycle dead wood. However, many fungi don't stick to just one job; they can switch lifestyles depending on their environment. Understanding this flexibility is vital for predicting how forests and farms will react to climate change. [...]

A new study using advanced artificial intelligence (AI) has revealed that the asteroid strike that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago caused only a modest decline in shark and ray species. The findings, published in the journal Current Biology, challenge previous understandings of how severely this mass extinction affected life in the oceans. [...]

Cells organize their molecules into distinct functional areas. While textbooks usually refer to membrane-bound organelles such as mitochondria and cell nuclei, recent studies have also revealed organelles without membranes. These include stress granules and proteasome storage granules (PSGs). [...]

In Finland, the average age of passenger cars is among the highest in Europe, and the majority of traffic-related particle emissions are produced by ICE vehicles that are more than 15 years old. The worst polluters are old diesel cars without a diesel particulate filter. [...]

No ears, no problem. The tobacco hornworm caterpillar, a common garden pest, can actually detect airborne sound via microscopic hairs on its body, according to a team of faculty and graduate students at Binghamton University. The research could have implications for improving microphone technology. [...]

Thyme, rosemary, and lavender have long been associated with natural medicine. Today, however, these aromatic plants are increasingly being studied by researchers. "In an era of ever-increasing microbial resistance to antibiotics, there is a growing emphasis on the need to introduce antimicrobial products into therapy to which microbes have not yet developed resistance," says Dr. Malwina Brożyna from Wroclaw Medical University. For nearly a decade, she has been researching the properties of essential oils and their therapeutic potential." [...]

In a critical advance for climate resilience, researchers from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) have developed an AI model that can predict dangerous convective storms—including Black Rainstorms, thunderstorms and extreme heavy rainfall like those that have hit Hong Kong—up to four hours before they strike. This world-first technology, developed in collaboration with national meteorological institutions and powered by satellite data and advanced deep diffusion technology, improves forecast accuracy by over 15% at the 48-kilometer spatial scale compared with existing systems. This breakthrough strengthens the overall accuracy of the national weather forecasting system and promises to transform early warning systems for vulnerable communities across Asia. [...]

The pastoralist lifestyle is often depicted as an unchanging dietary reliance on herd animals and mobility. This is particularly the case in eastern Africa, where a dedicated focus on herds, meat and dairy, alongside extreme mobility, is seen as the perfect adaptation to aridity, seasonal climate variability, and political unpredictability. [...]

In the early 1990s, Keith Willmott and a friend, both undergraduate students from the United Kingdom, arrived in Ecuador with impressionable minds and big aspirations. Willmott initially imagined there might be 20 to 30 butterfly species in the region that had yet to be described; once those had been named, writing field guides would be a mere matter of taking a few photos and spelling out where everything lived. [...]

Being in "holiday mode" makes tourists less environmentally responsible, according to a recent University of Queensland study. Researchers found that while tourists' core environmental values don't change, traveling can activate a "vacation place identity" which makes people feel freer and less accountable for sustainable behavior than at home. [...]

SpaceX is targeting a mid-June initial public offering that would coincide with a rare planetary alignment and founder Elon Musk's birthday, the Financial Times reported on Wednesday, as the billionaire entrepreneur seeks to raise a record $50 billion. [...]

Small RNAs are short RNA molecules that help determine which genes in a cell are switched on or off. Until now, it was assumed that the small RNAs necessary for pollen development originate in the pollen itself and in the directly surrounding maternal tissue. However, a new study conducted by the MPI-MP reveals a surprisingly different picture: The crucial signals do not originate in the pollen, but in maternal tissue and can be transported over long distances, for example from the roots. [...]