The study of an assemblage of Neanderthal human bones discovered in the Troisième caverne of Goyet (Belgium) has brought to light selective cannibalistic behavior primarily targeting female adults and children between 41,000 and 45,000 years ago. [...]
Hydrogenases catalyze the reversible splitting and production of hydrogen gas (H2), using complex catalytic cofactors comprising Earth-abundant nickel and/or iron ions. These enzymes, especially the [NiFe]-hydrogenases (fig. 1), are remarkably efficient, making them inspiring models for clean-energy technologies. Yet despite extensive study by many groups worldwide, key steps in their catalytic cycle have remained difficult to observe. [...]
Centuries before Monopoly, there was Patolli, a high-stakes Mesoamerican game of strategy and luck where players wagered crops and wealth as they raced their opponents around a cross-shaped board. [...]
Quantum ground states are the states at which quantum systems have the minimum possible energy. Quantum computers are increasingly being used to analyze the ground states of interesting systems, which could in turn inform the design of new materials, chemical compounds, pharmaceutical drugs and other valuable goods. [...]
A new analysis published in the journal BioScience challenges conventional conservation approaches by demonstrating that traditional livestock grazing on rangelands represents a crucial but often overlooked strategy for protecting global biodiversity. [...]
Wild hogs were spotted in Coppell and in two neighborhoods in Roanoke last week, officials said. [...]
A company dumps toxic chemicals into a river to save money. Around the same time, a major storm strikes and causes damage to that same company. Is it just a coincidence? According to new research from Andrew Gershoff, professor of marketing at Texas McCombs, the answer might depend on how strongly a consumer believes in divine intervention. [...]
Researchers at Northern Arizona University and the Smithsonian found an unconventional method to understand how rainforests will survive with climate change—making tea with living leaves at the top of the rainforest canopy. [...]
As this month's string of powerful X-class solar flares sparked brilliant auroras that lit up skies across an unusually wide swath of the globe—from northern Europe to Florida—researchers at NJIT's Center for Solar-Terrestrial Research (CSTR) captured a less visible, but crucial, record of the storm's impact on Earth's upper atmosphere. [...]
When militia attacks disrupted shipping lanes in the Red Sea, few imagined the ripple effects would reach the clouds over the South Atlantic. But for Florida State University atmospheric scientist Michael Diamond, the rerouting of cargo ships offered a rare opportunity to clarify a pressing climate question—How much do cleaner fuels change how clouds form? [...]
The varied topography of the Western United States—a patchwork of valleys and mountains, basins and plateaus—results in minutely localized weather. Accordingly, snowfall forecasts for the mountain West often suffer from a lack of precision, with predictions provided as broad ranges of inch depths for a given day or storm cycle. [...]
In January, a team led by Jim Schuck, professor of mechanical engineering at Columbia Engineering, developed a method for creating entangled photon pairs, a critical component of emerging quantum technologies, using a crystalline device just 3.4 micrometers thick. [...]
A new study reveals that most U.S. home buyers are overpaying mortgage fees, a market totaling more than $13 billion a year. [...]
In industrial pipes, mineral deposits build up the way limescale collects inside a kettle ⎯ only on a far larger and more expensive scale. Mineral scaling is a major issue in water and energy systems, where it slows flow, strains equipment and drives up costs. [...]
New research from FIU Business shows that well-intended presents like weight-loss teas or gym memberships can unintentionally send the wrong message—and ultimately trigger negative online reviews that hurt brands. [...]
The information needed to decipher the last remaining unsolved secret message embedded within a sculpture at CIA headquarters in Virginia sold at auction for nearly $1 million, the auction house announced Friday. [...]
Choking during sex has moved from the margins to the mainstream for many young adults, but the risks have not changed. New research shows how common the practice has become, and how confused many people are about what makes it dangerous. [...]
A yearslong effort to purchase two of the most powerful water rights on the Colorado River has cleared another hurdle after the state water board agreed to manage the rights alongside Western Slope water officials. [...]
When climate change is discussed, whether at UN climate summits, in company boardrooms or in the media, the focus is often on mitigation (cutting greenhouse gas emissions to achieve net zero). Adaptation, the practical steps to prepare for the consequences of a changing climate, receives far less attention in the UK and globally. [...]
ACM, the Association for Computing Machinery, today presented a 26-member team with the ACM Gordon Bell Prize for Climate Modeling in recognition of their project "Computing the Full Earth System at 1 km Resolution." The award honors innovative contributions to parallel computing toward solving the global climate crisis. [...]
When designing membranes that separate industrial gases, scientists often incorporate structures that attract the gas they want to obtain. This attraction can enhance the membrane's permeability, and help isolate the desired gas more efficiently. [...]
The understanding of complex many-body dynamics in laser-driven polyatomic molecules is crucial for any attempt to steer chemical reactions by means of intense light fields. Ultrashort and intense X-ray pulses from accelerator-based free electron lasers (FELs) now open the door to directly watch the strong reshaping of molecules by laser fields. [...]
A vast region of our solar system, called the Kuiper belt, stretches from the orbit of Neptune out to 50 or so astronomical units (AU), where an AU is the distance between Earth and the sun. This region consists mostly of icy objects and small rocky bodies, like Pluto. Scientists believe Kuiper belt objects (KPOs) are remnants left over from the formation of the solar system. [...]
At low temperatures, hydrogen atoms move less like particles and more like waves. This characteristic enables quantum tunneling, the passage of an atom through a barrier with a higher potential energy than the energy of the atom. Understanding how hydrogen atoms move through potential barriers has important industrial applications. However, the small size of hydrogen atoms makes direct observation of their motion extremely challenging. [...]
Researchers from the Institute of Applied Ecology (IAE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) have uncovered how soil food webs promote the transformation and storage of photosynthetic carbon in farmlands. Their results were published in the Journal of Cleaner Production. [...]
Every function in a cell is associated with a particular protein or group of proteins, typically in a well-defined three-dimensional structure. However, intrinsically disordered regions of proteins defy this structure-function paradigm. [...]
In 2017, a new global treaty was meant to bring mercury pollution under control. But three decades of data from UK harbor porpoises show mercury is still increasing, and is linked to a higher risk of dying from infectious disease. [...]
Over the last two decades, homemade diets have seen a rise in popularity among dog owners. However, new research from the Dog Aging Project (DAP) reveals that most homemade diets are missing important nutrients that dogs need to lead healthy lives. [...]
Let's get one thing out of the way: All hummingbirds fight. Most species fight for food, using their tiny bodies and sharp bills to force competitors away from flowers. But the green hermit hummingbird, which lives primarily in mountain forests of Central and South America, fights to win a mate. [...]
Ancient Mars boasted abundant water, but the cold and dry conditions of today make liquid water on the Red Planet seem far less probable. However, the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding (MARSIS) detected strong radar reflections from a 20-kilometer-wide area over the base of Mars's southern polar ice cap, hinting at the possibility of liquid water below the icy surface. Such a finding would have major implications for the planet's possible habitability. [...]