The world is undergoing a fundamental change to how money works, and New Zealand should choose its response wisely, an Otago researcher cautions. New University of Otago—Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka research co-authored by Dr. Murat Ungor from the Department of Economics, and his former Masters student Jack Buchan, has been published in the International Journal of Political Economy. [...]
Chiang Mai, Thailand's second-largest city, lies within a network of narrow valleys in the country's northern highlands. Though the historic city is known for panoramic views of the surrounding mountains, clear skies have become less common. In recent decades, smoke has increasingly darkened the skies during the dry season, particularly in March and April. [...]
Michigan and parts of Wisconsin are in the midst of a historic flooding event in spring 2026. Days of heavy rainfall on top of snow have sent lakes and rivers over their banks and threatened several dams in both states, forcing people to evacuate homes downstream. By April 20, 2026, nearly half of Michigan's counties were under a state of emergency. In Cheboygan, Michigan, large pumps were brought in to lower pressure on a century-old dam in the city. [...]
Thousands of slips in Tairāwhiti in January. The loss of eight lives in the Bay of Plenty later that month. And, days ago, landslides that damaged homes, forced evacuations and blocked roads across the North Island. [...]
Researchers at Hannover Medical School (MHH) have developed a method for the efficient production of human immune cells, such as macrophages, in medium-sized bioreactors. These immune cells can be derived from induced pluripotent stem cells and are important for disease research and the development of new therapeutic approaches. The method has now been published in the journal Nature Protocols. [...]
In everyday life, our genetic material is constantly under attack from many factors. Environmental influences such as light, along with internal processes like inflammation, can generate oxidative stress that damages DNA and its downstream partner, RNA, which can lead to faster aging and diseases such as cancer. [...]
Ultra-faint dwarf galaxies—tiny satellite galaxies orbiting the Milky Way—have long been seen as cosmic fossils. Now, a new study published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society uses an unprecedented set of simulations to show just how powerfully these faint systems can reflect the conditions of the early universe and tell us why some galaxies grew and others did not. [...]
Featuring gory attacks by bloodthirsty vampires, one may be quick to categorize "Sinners" as a horror movie. That classification, however, may not be fair to the artists who created it. In "Sinners," the creators cleverly use horror as a metaphor for violent racism in the Deep South during the early 20th century, making the film just as much a period drama as a horror film. [...]
As space agencies and private companies look toward a sustained human presence on the moon, a fundamental challenge centers on how to build strong, durable infrastructure without hauling every material from Earth. New research from Rice University points to an unexpected solution—transforming one of the moon's most stubborn obstacles, its abrasive dust, into a valuable building resource. The study demonstrates that lunar regolith simulant, a terrestrial stand-in for the moon's fine, abrasive dust, can be used to strengthen advanced composite materials. The work, published in Advanced Engineering Materials, was also selected for the cover of the journal's latest issue. [...]
The South Asian summer monsoon sustains billions of people today. For a long time, the prevailing scientific view has held that the formation and intensification of the South Asian summer monsoon were primarily controlled by the rapid uplift of the Tibetan Plateau. However, geological records present a long-standing puzzle from the Early to Middle Miocene (25 to 15 million years ago): the South Asian monsoon rainfall was remarkably strong, even though the Somali Jet—the primary wind system transporting moisture—was relatively weak. [...]
Researchers have developed a new methodology that uses artificial intelligence tools to identify and count target viruses more efficiently than previous techniques. The new approach can be used in applications such as pharmaceutical biomanufacturing. [...]
Today's octopuses are intelligent, remarkably flexible animals that lurk in reefs, hide in crevices, or drift through the deep sea. But new research suggests that their earliest relatives may have played a far more predatory role in ocean ecosystems. A study led by researchers at Hokkaido University has found that the earliest known octopuses were giant predators that hunted at the very top of the food web, alongside large marine vertebrates. The study is published in Science. [...]
How did the earliest life on Earth build complex biological machinery with so few tools? A new study explores how the simplest building blocks of proteins—once limited to just half of today's amino acids—could still form the sophisticated structures life depends on. [...]
Short-chain perfluorinated and polyfluorinated alkyl compounds (PFAS) such as perfluorobutanoic acid (PFBA) are increasingly entering the environment via various pathways and contaminating groundwater and drinking water. Because PFAS are highly mobile, removing them has so far required a great deal of effort. But a research team at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) has developed a new technology to do so. According to an article recently published in Chemical Engineering Journal, the new process is more environmentally friendly and less energy-intensive. [...]
A paper appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences offers a strikingly simple answer to a longstanding question: How do people learn and settle on shared social conventions, from everyday habits to workplace norms? Researchers from the CUNY Graduate Center, the University of Pennsylvania, and Stanford University have found that people do not primarily learn by copying others or by calculating the most likely choice. Instead, they follow a two-stage process—sampling behaviors at first, then committing once enough evidence accumulates. [...]
The most demanding calculations in quantum chemistry can now be solved with graphics processing unit (GPU) supercomputers. A recently published study shows that software adapted to use GPU hardware can provide not just speed, but also the accuracy needed to solve complex chemistry problems. The work solved the two chemical structures often seen as too complex and expensive to tackle. The advance, published in the Journal of Chemical Theory and Computation, could allow researchers to make meaningful progress in designing new catalysts and improve predicted behaviors of magnetic and electronic materials. [...]
Semiconductor spin qubits are a promising candidate for the building blocks of next-generation quantum computers due to their high potential for integration and compatibility with existing semiconductor technologies. Qubits—like the 0s and 1s of a traditional computer—serve as a basic unit of information for quantum computers. However, the practical realization of these computers requires a massive number of qubits, making the development of more efficient adjustment methods a critical challenge for the field. [...]
Central Mongolia's Hangay Mountains rise more than four kilometers above sea level, forming a dramatic dome that shapes the region's climate. But for decades, geologists have been puzzled: What caused this massive mountain range to form so far from any active plate boundary? Unlike the linear Himalayas, which are still rising from the collision of India and Asia, the dome-shaped Hangay Mountains show little internal deformation, suggesting a different and previously unknown mechanism. [...]
Serious fungal infections are on the rise, and many hospital-acquired cases are becoming harder to treat as fungi become resistant to available medications. One of the most widely used therapies, caspofungin, combats Candida infections that can turn deadly in people with weakened immune systems. Despite the drug's importance, scientists have never fully understood how it works at the molecular level—or why it sometimes stops working. [...]
Reed, an invasive alien plant that is abundant on the banks of many rivers, ponds and canals, can encourage the growth of common mosquito populations in the absence of natural predators. When the plant's litter accumulates, the chemical properties of the water and the composition of the biological communities in the environment change radically, and this facilitates the development of mosquito larvae in freshwater ecosystems. [...]
Individuals in a morally diverse community tend to believe that the community's norms are looser. In turn, norm violations are more accepted, and there is a reduced willingness to police transgressions, according to research by Merrick Osborne, assistant professor of organizational behavior at the ILR School. [...]
Flinders University researchers have taken a revealing look inside the head of one of the first animals to crawl from the water to live on land more than 380 million years ago. Using high-tech neutron imaging, they scanned the skull and braincase of the only known specimen of Koharalepis jarviki, a large fossil fish found in freshwater rivers in the vast Lashly Mountains region of Antarctica which lived during the Devonian Period or "Age of Fishes." [...]
The Centre for Research in Robotics and Underwater Technologies (CIRTESU) at the Universitat Jaume I in Castelló has developed an experimental modular, bio-inspired robotic fish prototype (UJIFISH) for inspection, hybrid teleoperation and sensor deployment in aquaculture. Its innovation lies in a functional design that eliminates stress factors such as propellers and high-intensity lighting, while maintaining high standards of modularity and interoperability. The study is published in the journal Ocean Engineering. [...]
Scientists have discovered a Jurassic tectonic plate boundary that could help to predict what the planet might look like millions of years into the future. Dr. Jordan Phethean, Senior Lecturer in Earth Sciences at the University of Derby, is part of a team of researchers that has unveiled a previously unrecognized, major tectonic feature of Earth, in East Africa. The new structure, which has been likened to an ancient version of the San Andreas fault in California, was partially responsible for the breakup of the supercontinent Gondwana 180 million years ago in the Jurassic period. [...]
Researchers at McMaster University have developed a new generative artificial intelligence (AI) model capable of drastically speeding up drug discovery—and, in early tests, it has already designed a brand-new antibiotic. The discovery is a demonstration of how AI could dramatically improve the slow and costly search for new antimicrobial medicines, as bacteria and other microbes continue to evolve resistance to our current suite of drugs. [...]
Academia isn't strong on gender equality. Women are underrepresented throughout, in the research workforce and even more so as leaders in scientific organizations. This is true for science academies (prestigious bodies within national science systems) and scientific unions (international organizations representing disciplinary communities). [...]
Proteins are essential molecules in living systems. They move, interact and organize themselves to carry out a wide range of functions, from helping cells communicate to forming structures inside the cell. In many cases, proteins do not remain isolated, but instead spontaneously group together, forming assemblies made of many individual molecules. This process, known as self-assembly, is driven by interactions between the proteins themselves. [...]
Researchers from the University of Liverpool, Japan, and Argentina have captured atomic-resolution images of an important copper-containing enzyme using advanced X-ray Free Electron Laser (XFEL) technology at SACLA in Japan. XFEL technology generates ultra-bright, ultra-short X-ray pulses, enabling atomic-scale imaging and real-time observation of chemical, biological, and physical processes. [...]
Results recently published in the journal Plant and Soil by the researchers of the Leibniz Institute of Vegetable and Ornamental Crops (IGZ) show that strip tillage combined with rye mulch can maintain stable yields of white cabbage and celeriac under varying site conditions. In systems with clover as living mulch, however, significant yield declines occurred. The decisive factors are changes in soil nitrogen content, water balance and temperature regime. The findings provide a nuanced basis for the evaluation of mulch cropping systems in vegetable production. [...]
The ability to precisely edit the genomes of bacteria has long been a goal of microbiologists. Such technology would enable scientists to make new inroads into studying disease, developing sustainable materials, and fighting drug-resistant infections. But for years, the most powerful tools for bacterial genome editing have only been available in Escherichia coli (E. coli), the most common laboratory bacteria. [...]