Most people think of microbes in simple terms: Some make you sick, while others help keep you healthy. But microbes' influence stretches far beyond human bodies. These astonishingly complex organisms regulate the health of forests, oceans and grasslands and determine how ecosystems respond to environmental change. [...]
It's difficult to forget standing in front of a glacier that is advancing toward you, towering ice pillars constantly cracking as they inch forward. The motion is too slow to see in real time but is obvious from one day to the next. [...]
As millions of visitors prepare to descend on North Texas for the FIFA World Cup, city of Dallas officials say the global spotlight also brings local environmental responsibility. [...]
Quantum physics may sound abstract, but Ph.D. candidates Kirsten Kanneworff and David Dechant show that quantum research can also be very concrete. Together, they are investigating how quantum technology can change the world. While Kanneworff worked in the lab to study how quantum optics can be used to prove someone's location, Dechant focused on quantum computing for dynamic systems, such as the financial world. The two researchers are defending their doctoral theses this week. [...]
A new study suggests that young men overwhelmingly support affirmative sexual consent in principle—yet often find its verbal implementation difficult in practice. The research, led by scholars at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health and Melbourne University's Department of General Practice and Primary Care, explores how young heterosexual men interpret and navigate consent during real-world sexual encounters. [...]
Cold air and frigid waters have caused more than 600 young green sea turtles to wash ashore on Florida's beaches this month—and more are turning up every day. [...]
G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are one of the largest families of cell surface proteins in the human body that recognize hormones, neurotransmitters, and drugs. These receptors regulate a wide range of physiological processes and are the targets of more than 30% of currently marketed drugs. The histamine H1 receptor (H1R) is one such GPCR subtype that plays a key role in mediating allergic reactions, inflammation, vascular permeability, airway constriction, wakefulness, and cognitive functions in the human body. While antihistamines primarily target H1R, current drugs can exhibit limited therapeutic efficacy, prompting researchers to look at H1R ligands from new perspectives. [...]
The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework states that plastic pollution must be eliminated by 2030. So why haven't we enacted measures that make a real difference? [...]
Though superbloom is not a scientific term, that doesn't stop legions from hoping for a giant display of wildflowers come springtime. UC Riverside plant ecologist Loralee Larios weighs in here on the outlook for such a show this year, where one might see it, and how flower lovers can protect the blooms for years to come. [...]
When she was growing up, Sophie Adenot plastered her childhood bedroom with posters of rockets launching from Cape Canaveral. [...]
The name "IceCube" not only serves as the title of the experiment, but also describes its appearance. Embedded in the transparent ice of the South Pole, a three-dimensional grid of more than 5,000 extremely sensitive light sensors forms a giant cube with a volume of one cubic kilometer. This unique arrangement serves as an observatory for detecting neutrinos, the most difficult elementary particles to detect. [...]
Since the pandemic, more children have been starting school without being "school-ready." In 2022–23, 33% of all children starting reception in England did not have the skills needed for success in school, rising to 45% of children receiving free school meals. [...]
The oldest human remains ever found in Northern Britain have been identified as a young female three years after being discovered in a Cumbrian cave. Excavated at Heaning Wood Bone Cave in Cumbria's Great Urswick by local archaeologist Martin Stables, the 11,000-year-old bones provide clear evidence of Mesolithic burials in the North. [...]
Voters might think less taxes would equate to more money in their pockets, but a new study shows that at the local level, the opposite may actually be true. Economists and politicians have weighed the benefits of different theoretical models for years, but a lack of direct, empirical evidence showing the macroeconomic effects of fiscal policy has made it difficult to argue for or against government funding at the local level. [...]
High-entropy alloys are promising advanced materials for demanding applications, but discovering useful compositions is difficult and expensive due to the vast number of possible element combinations. Now, researchers have developed a novel AI-driven framework that integrates experimental data, computational modeling, and cross-disciplinary expert knowledge extracted from scientific literature. By combining these sources in a way that accounts for uncertainty, their approach can make reliable predictions even for poorly studied alloy compositions, outperforming conventional data-driven machine learning methods that rely on training data alone. [...]
Some fungi are wasteful, while others recycle—and this can determine how much carbon is stored in a forest. Researchers at Lund University have now revealed how fungi manage their mycelium, the network that builds the structure of fungus. Using microfluidic chips—units that handle and analyze extremely small volumes of fluid through microscopic channels—the researchers could show that the availability of nutrients among fungi affects how much of the mycelium is recycled. The results could provide new insights into the carbon cycle and climate. [...]
Environmental pollutant analysis typically requires complex sample pretreatment steps such as filtration, separation, and preconcentration. When solid materials such as sand, soil, or food residues are present in water samples, analytical accuracy often decreases, and filtration can unintentionally remove trace-level target pollutants along with the solids. [...]
The next-generation spacesuit for NASA's Artemis III mission continues to advance by passing a contractor-led technical review, as the agency prepares to send humans to the moon's South Pole for the first time. Testing is also underway for the new suits, built by Axiom Space, with NASA astronauts and spacesuit engineers recently simulating surface operations and tasks underwater to demonstrate safety and mobility. [...]
Humans develop sharp vision during early fetal development thanks to an interplay between a vitamin A derivative and thyroid hormones in the retina, Johns Hopkins University scientists have found. The findings could upend decades of conventional understanding of how the eye grows light-sensing cells and could inform new research into treatments for macular degeneration, glaucoma, and other age-related vision disorders. Details of the study, which used lab-grown retinal tissue, are published today in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [...]
With a few minutes of searching, anyone can find videos online of chatty birds: macaws talk to their keepers, cockatoos sing to the camera, corvids mimic the jarring sounds of construction sites. Research has shown that some birds can understand and use words in context—so, when Polly speaks up from inside her cage, she may really want a cracker—but scientists know far less about how birds use their vocal abilities in the wild. Christine Dahlin, professor of biology at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, is working to change that. [...]
Some lobster mothers produce offspring that are far more likely to survive—in findings that could help safeguard lobster diversity. University of Exeter researchers, working in partnership with the National Lobster Hatchery (NLH) in Cornwall, studied European lobsters that survived the first few weeks of life. The paper, published in the journal Aquaculture, is titled "Hatchery lobster releases risk genetic bottlenecking via survival skews with maternal effects." [...]
Gray wolves adapt their diets as a result of climate change, eating harder foods such as bones to extract nutrition during warmer climates, new research has found. The study, led by the University of Bristol in collaboration with the Natural History Museum, and published in Ecology Letters, has implications for wolf conservation across Europe and beyond. [...]
Brazilian scientists have made advances in an area recognized by the 2025 Nobel Prize in Chemistry: the development and application of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs). These are porous crystalline materials that have the potential to revolutionize environmental and energy technologies. The study involved researchers affiliated with the Center for Development of Functional Materials based at the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar). [...]
Researchers from the University of Tartu Institute of Physics have developed a novel method for enhancing the quality of three-dimensional images by increasing the depth of focus in holograms fivefold after recording, using computational imaging techniques. The technology enables improved performance of 3D holographic microscopy under challenging imaging conditions and facilitates the study of complex biological structures. [...]
Recently, a research team led by Prof. Kong Lingtao at the Institute of Solid State Physics, the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences developed a new metal-organic framework (MOF)-based material capable of efficiently removing fluoride ions from water while providing real-time visual detection. This breakthrough addresses key limitations of conventional defluoridation methods, which often suffer from low efficiency and separate processes for removal and monitoring. [...]
Controlled manipulation of fibers that are as thin as or even thinner than human hair is a real challenge. Despite technological development, the precise and reversible change of the microfibers' orientation is not easy. The interdisciplinary team of researchers from the Institute of Physical Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, has recently developed a way to control the shape of microfibers with electricity. This brings us closer to a novel technical solution in micromechanics and soft robotics. [...]
Hypothetical dark matter stars known as "boson stars" could leave telltale ripples across the cosmos, offering researchers a new way to probe the invisible forces shaping the universe. In 2019, a strange event was observed in the depths of space. Called GW190521, the event sent out gravitational waves—invisible ripples in the universe—that were picked up on Earth. These waves appeared to mark the moment when two massive black holes, dozens of times the mass of our sun, collided and merged. Or at least, that was the initial theory. [...]
Time crystals could one day provide a reliable foundation for ultra-precise quantum clocks, new mathematical analysis has revealed. Published in Physical Review Letters, the research was led by Ludmila Viotti at the Abdus Salam International Center for Theoretical Physics in Italy. The team shows that these exotic systems could, in principle, offer higher timekeeping precision than more conventional designs, which rely on external excitations to generate reliably repeating oscillations. [...]
With extreme weather events, fires and floods growing increasingly common, general warnings are no longer adequate. Researchers at Uppsala University, in collaboration with the World Meteorological Organization and others, now call for change—from mass mailings to personalized warnings that actually persuade people to act. [...]
A study led by Francisco Vallés Morán, a researcher at the Institute of Water and Environmental Engineering (IIAMA) at the Universitat Politècnica de València, has analyzed in detail the flooding caused by the DANA on 29 October 2024 in l'Horta Sud (Valencia) using advanced two-dimensional hydraulic modeling techniques. The study (in Spanish), published in Cuadernos de Geografía of the University of Valencia, accurately reproduces the dynamics of the event, the extent of the flooding and the overflowing flows that caused serious material and human damage. [...]
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