Through the air we breathe and the food we eat, we can't help but inhale and ingest tiny bits of plastic every day. [...]
Using artificial intelligence, engineers at the University of California San Diego have developed a new way to watch the inner workings of living cells in real time. The process both captures images that are twice as sharp as conventional microscopes and is fast enough to play as smooth video. [...]
Astronomers, using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), have confirmed the existence of a close quasar pair housed in a pair of merging galaxies seen when the universe was less than a billion years old, at a redshift of 5.7. The system, designated J2037–4537, is one of only two confirmed quasar pairs at redshift greater than 5 ever found. A paper outlining this work was submitted to the preprint server arXiv on April 7. [...]
Human languages are known to have grown and changed considerably over the course of history, often reflecting technological, cultural, and societal shifts. Studying the evolution of languages can thus offer valuable insight into how human societies and cultures have transformed over time. [...]
You've typed it, deleted it and typed it again. You need to let your colleague know there's a problem with a project at work. Should you use a grinning face—😄—in that Slack message to soften the blow, or an angry face—😠—to show your distress? [...]
For the first time, researchers have mapped how the boundaries of magnetic nanostructures behave on extremely short timescales. The work of physicist Johan Mentink of Radboud University shows that these boundaries are much more stable than previously thought. This insight will aid the development of future ultra-fast and compact data storage. [...]
It takes a moment for the eyes to adjust. A faint spark appears in the darkness; then another, brighter one. Soon, stars, planets and entire constellations emerge. Before long, a whole galaxy stretches across the sky, visible to the naked eye. [...]
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed college writing. As paper drafts are increasingly co-written with AI, professors are left wondering not whether students are using AI, but how. A 2025 AI in Education trend report found that 90% of college students use AI in their coursework, with nearly half using it during the drafting process. As AI becomes embedded in everyday writing, traditional tools like Grammarly or Turnitin for evaluating student learning fall short. If AI is to be expected in most student writing, then merely detecting its presence isn't enough. [...]
Ammonia has been feeding the world for decades as a fertilizer and is now rapidly emerging as a carbon-free fuel for shipping and industry. But if we focus only on CO₂ emissions, we risk creating new nitrogen problems, warns nitrogen expert Jan Willem Erisman in an article published in the journal One Earth. [...]
A detector buried deep in Antarctic ice has captured the first experimental evidence of a predicted but never-before-seen phenomenon: radio pulses generated when high-energy cosmic rays slam into the ice sheet and trigger particle cascades inside it. Through results published in Physical Review Letters, astronomers of the Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) Collaboration have validated a key technique, which they hope will eventually allow them to detect some of the rarest and most energetic particles in the universe. [...]
This year marks the UK's National Year of Reading, which aims to rebuild good reading habits and enjoyment as child and adolescent reading declines year on year. [...]
The internet and social media platforms have given rise to a rising wave of misinformation, with many users now posting fake news, AI-generated photos or videos and other types of misleading content online. Over the past few years, this rise in misinformation has become a heated topic of debate, with some studies suggesting that it could influence voters during political elections. [...]
Quartz crystals are difficult to knap due to size, hardness, and crystalline structure, making them a "low-quality" raw material. However, the Clovis people of North America sometimes made points and other tools from this material despite its drawbacks. To determine whether the quartz crystal points of the Clovis were functionally comparable to those made from higher-quality toolstones, Dr. Briggs Buchanan and his colleagues conducted scaling and geometric morphometric analyses on Clovis crystal points. The study is published in Lithic Technology. [...]
When Rachel Carson wrote the environmental classic "Silent Spring" in 1962, she warned that unchecked human impacts might create a silent future. [...]
Financial bonuses are often used to motivate employees to meet targets and boost productivity. But do they actually work? New research from Tilburg University suggests these incentives can sometimes have the opposite effect. Employees who set their own goals often perform better without a financial bonus. [...]
Researchers from Brown University and their collaborators have developed a new way to measure the properties of cells—an important development, they say, because accurate measurements of changes in cell elasticity can be used to better understand diseases, diagnose patient symptoms and provide more accurate prognoses. [...]
Got a mouse in your house? That thought alone may terrify you. Now imagine if mice were scampering through your house, rummaging in your pantry or even running across your face at night. [...]
In the novel "When There Are Wolves Again" by E.J. Swift, the Chernobyl disaster and its legacy is extrapolated to a near future where natural habitats are depleted and precarious. [...]
Scientists at EPFL have developed CenSpark, a fluorescent probe that makes centrioles and cilia visible inside living cells, helping researchers study cell division, development, and immunity like never before. [...]
You might know the short-tailed shearwater and sable shearwater by the common name "muttonbirds." These two species of seabird breed on islands off southeastern Australia. Both undertake a breathtaking two-week, non-stop flight across the Pacific to the Bering Sea, more than 10,000 km away near Alaska and Russia. Here, they spend the northern summer. [...]
Venice has coexisted with the sea throughout its 1,500-year history, perhaps better than any other city on Earth. Yet over the past century it has flooded increasingly often, as the sea rises and the city itself sinks under its own weight. [...]
On a sweltering August afternoon or in the teeth of a winter storm, New York City subway riders make a quiet calculation: Is the trip worth it? A new study published in npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport takes a detailed look at how those decisions show up in ridership patterns across the system, and how they vary from station to station. [...]
Catalysis—the reduction of activation energy in a chemical reaction by a catalyst—plays a key role in the chemical industry, as well as in the development of sustainable technologies essential for achieving a low-carbon economy. However, the search for high-performance and sustainable catalysts is often costly and time-consuming. It can be accelerated through data-driven catalysis research. Yet experimental data are often not available in machine-readable and standardized formats. [...]
Mammals and dinosaurs coexisted on Earth until a catastrophic event 66 million years ago killed 75% of life on the planet. Despite the devastation, some animals survived, including rodent-like mammals in the Cimolodon genus. These creatures are part of the multituberculates, a group that arose during the Jurassic Period and survived over 100 million years before going extinct. Studying these animals helps researchers better understand how mammals survived the mass extinction event and then diversified into the variety of mammals around today. [...]
The GSI Helmholtzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung and the international accelerator facility FAIR have made an important contribution to the success of the Artemis II moon mission. A camera specially developed for use in space was successfully tested in advance under realistic conditions at the GSI and FAIR particle accelerator. [...]
For some time, researchers have assumed that solid materials could gain more useful properties by making their microscopic components more active. Now, a team led by Jack Binysh at the University of Amsterdam has found that this idea doesn't always hold. [...]
At some highly selective colleges and universities, cohorts of mostly white, wealthy applicants have three to eight times greater odds of admission than other similarly qualified applicants. These beneficiaries are legacy applicants, those who receive an admissions bonus for having alumni relatives. [...]
Scientists have mapped in unprecedented detail the structure of Vibrio bacteria, which can cause life-threatening infections linked to antibiotic resistance. The King's College London team behind the study, published in Nature Communications, say the finding could provide new targets for life-saving treatment. [...]
Around the world, people plan to plant more than 1 trillion trees this decade in an ambitious effort to slow climate change and reduce biodiversity loss. But if the past is prolonged, many of those planted trees won't survive. And if they do, they could end up as biological deserts that lack the richness and resilience of healthy forests. [...]
When humans are moving as a crowd, their movements tend to be highly coordinated, similarly to the collective motions of bird flocks or other groups of animals. These group behaviors can limit collisions in dynamic environments, allowing individuals to reach their destinations safely. [...]