Beans of the cacao plant, Theobroma cacao, are used in chocolates, pharmaceuticals and other products, but they're under threat. Increased drought associated with climate change has already begun to stress cacao-growing regions of Colombia and other countries, and models predict it will get worse. [...]
The small talk you try to avoid because you think it will be boring may actually be more enjoyable than you think, and good for you as well, according to research published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. [...]
While stopped in heavy Melbourne traffic recently, I noticed that what looked like a shadow under a row of spotted gums (Corymbia maculata) along a major road was actually a stain on the concrete curb. [...]
A large-scale experiment shows that warmth brings bees and wasps out of hibernation earlier—leaving some of them with poorer starting conditions. This is particularly true for species in cooler regions that emerge during spring. [...]
New research from the University of St Andrews has shown that an important group of peatlands in the western Amazonia region of Peru developed more recently than many other peatlands in the tropics. Published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, the study analyzed more than 150 new and previously published radiocarbon dates from peats from the Pastaza-Marañón Basin in northern Peru. This is the largest known peatland complex in Amazonia, covering an area about the size of Belgium. [...]
A guaranteed income program for artists led to improvement in financial stability and reduced debt, but also improved their motivation and artistic output, finds a new study from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. [...]
Tiny particles bubbling up from the tops of melting sea ice into the Arctic sky may be a key, understudied element of cloud formation in that climate-sensitive region. [...]
Scientists have developed a new method to measure ocean surface currents over large areas in greater detail than ever before. Called GOFLOW (Geostationary Ocean Flow), the approach applies deep learning to thermal images from weather satellites already in orbit, requiring no new hardware to achieve what the researchers describe as a major advancement in ocean observation. [...]
For years, scientists have dreamed of using atomically thin van der Waals (vdW) materials to build faster, more efficient photonic chips. These materials can be stacked and tuned with extraordinary precision, opening possibilities far beyond those of conventional technologies. The challenge is that they are extremely fragile, making them notoriously difficult to shape with standard nanofabrication tools. [...]
Scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, World Forest ID, University of Sheffield and international collaborators have developed a new technique that can identify where soybeans—the third largest driver of tropical deforestation—are grown to within roughly 200 kilometers, a breakthrough that could transform efforts to stop deforestation linked to global food supply chains. [...]
Worsening wildfires, soaring heat waves and rising water levels have prompted Greek officials to take a closer look at protecting priceless archaeological sites that draw hundreds of thousands of visitors each year. [...]
Never-before-glimpsed views of the moon's far side. Check. Total solar eclipse gracing the lunar scene. Check. New distance record for humanity. Check. [...]
Gray whales migrate from Arctic waters full of food to the lagoons of Baja Mexico—but as the climate crisis gathers pace, they have been sighted foraging in unexpected places. Recently, some have begun to explore the dangerously busy waters of San Francisco Bay. Scientists at the Marine Mammal Center and the California Academy of Sciences investigating an unexpectedly high death toll among gray whales have found that almost 20% of individuals seen entering the Bay died there, in large part due to boat strikes. The team's study appears in Frontiers in Marine Science. [...]
The relationship between science and pop culture often looks like a one-way street: scientific discoveries inspire films, television and novels, particularly in science fiction. But the relationship really goes both ways, and extends beyond sci-fi. [...]
As NASA's Artemis II mission completed its lunar flyby, the astronauts sent back a stunning image of the colorful Earth setting behind the moon. This breathtaking photo, called Earthset, draws inevitable comparisons with the original Earthrise photo from the Apollo 8 flight in 1968. [...]
Rhodium is one of the most powerful catalytic metals known to chemistry. Small amounts of it can drive reactions that produce millions of tons of useful chemicals every year. But getting rhodium to work well—quickly, selectively, and without degrading—depends heavily on the ligands surrounding it. [...]
Spiders are among Earth's most resourceful predators, nabbing prey by any means necessary. Orb weavers spin webs for capture. Wolf spiders ambush on the ground at night. Almost all spiders use venom when they hunt. [...]
Between 280 and 200 million years ago, a group of animals evolved which would eventually give rise to mammals, including humans: the therapsids. They were first described more than 150 years ago, based on fossils from South Africa. Since then, many more fossils have been discovered. [...]
Scientists in Japan have developed a high-resolution X-ray telescope sharp enough to distinguish an object just 3.5 mm wide from one kilometer away, by combining precision mirror-making technology with space astronomy. To test its performance, they built a first-of-its-kind evaluation system, capable of simulating starlight on the ground to measure the telescope's sharpness before its launch on the US-Japan FOXSI sounding rocket mission. The findings, published in Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, represent a landmark achievement for Japanese X-ray astronomy and pave the way for high-resolution X-ray observations on future smaller satellites. [...]
Japan's space agency, JAXA, has been knocking it out of the park with small-body exploration missions for decades. They had historic successes with both Hayabusa and Hayabusa2, and they are going to visit the Martian moons soon with the Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission. But after that, they are aiming for something much more pristine and arguably more difficult—a comet. The Next Generation Small-Body Return (NGSR) was recently described in a paper presented at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC), and is under assessment as a large-class mission for the 2030s. [...]
A recent study by Dr. John Moretti of the University of Texas and local caver John Young uncovered the remains of Ice Age megafauna, revealing an entirely new ecosystem that once thrived on the Edwards Plateau. Among the finds were a genus of giant tortoise (Hesperotestudo) and a large armadillo-like pampathere (Holmesina septentrionalis). The work is published in the journal Quaternary Research. [...]
On August 19, 2022, solar astronomers using the Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope (DKIST) on the Hawaiian island of Maui caught the fading remnants of a C-class solar flare. Their observations showed something unusual: very strong spectral fingerprints of calcium II H and hydrogen-epsilon lines. [...]
For decades, astronomers were only able to study the universe's very first stars using theoretical models. Now, observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed what may be the most compelling evidence to date for these ancient "Population III" stars, finding them clustered around a small companion object that formed just 400 million years after the Big Bang. [...]
Going by the headlines, the matter seems to be settled. El País announces that Neanderthal men "chose" sapiens women. Science journal speaks of a "partner preference." National Geographic is already imagining the "Romeos" of prehistory. The Telegraph suggests that Neanderthals "had designs on" sapiens women. [...]
DNA studies of 1,500-year-old skeletons have revealed that ancient Koreans lived in tightly knit family networks where marrying close relatives was common in some cases, from powerful elites to individuals chosen for human sacrifice. [...]
Artificial intelligence is rapidly learning to autonomously design and run biological experiments, but the systems intended to govern those capabilities are struggling to keep pace. [...]
In the process of converting carbon dioxide into useful chemicals such as ethylene—a key precursor for plastics—a major challenge has been the flooding of electrodes, where electrolyte penetrates the electrode structure and reduces performance. KAIST researchers have developed a new electrode design that blocks water while maintaining efficient electrical conduction and catalytic reactions, thereby improving both efficiency and stability. [...]
Mutations in a key protein make a yeast found in dogs with common outer ear infections more resistant to the topical antifungals used to treat it, veterinarians and pathobiologists at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found in a new study. The work is published in the journal Veterinary Dermatology. [...]
We've spent decades scratching the surface of Mars trying to uncover life there. But we've been searching a barren wasteland bombarded by radiation and bathed in toxic perchlorates. The entire time, it's likely that it's been too hostile to harbor extant life. So if we want a better shot at finding currently living life on Mars, we need to go underground. That is exactly the purpose of Orpheus, a proposed Mars vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) hopper mission put forth in a paper presented by Connor Bunn and Pascal Lee of the SETI Institute at the 57th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC). [...]
By analyzing the data from various space observatories, Chinese astronomers have inspected a nearby quasar designated SDSS J000532.84+200717.4. Results of the new study, published April 1 on the arXiv preprint server, shed more light on the X-ray variability of this object. [...]