Stay informed about scientific discoveries, research developments and new findings from around the world.
The EU Nature Restoration Regulation adopted in 2024 establishes the restoration of ecosystem functions as an objective of stream restoration. But can conventional measures that focus primarily on restoring the physical structure of rivers and streams fulfill this task?
The COVID-19 pandemic was a public health crisis that affected more than the public's health. It brought complex changes across many aspects of society, including having an influence on suburban arrest patterns, according to a study co-authored by University at Buffalo researchers.
A new study led by researchers in the Eco-Evo-Devo lab at the University of Ottawa finds that ants can decouple antenna size from both head and body size as they develop into different social castes, revealing how social signals and hormones help shape traits for specialized colony roles.
In a review article recently published in the journal Earth-Science Reviews, researchers from the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW), in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Leicester (United Kingdom), report on how human activity has altered Earth's sediments over the decades.
Flemish people are very attached to their homes and generally wish to stay there for as long as possible. However, many homes were not designed to be lived in for a lifetime. Architect and researcher Sander Lambrix has analyzed the relationship between our homes and our well-being as we grow older. His conclusion: a home is much more than just a physical environment, whether or not it is suited to an aging body. People and their homes are deeply connected on an emotional level.
A new study underscores the extent to which digital policies cannot be separated from energy policies. The research evaluates the relationship between information communication technologies and carbon dioxide emissions and finds that the variables the researchers used as proxies for digitalization were associated with increased emissions. The paper, "ICT and CO₂ Emissions in the G20: A Channel-Based Mediation Analysis," is published in the journal Sustainability.
A protein discovered in a Virginia Tech–led study may open a gateway to treatments for a parasite responsible for a deadly disease in immunocompromised people. The team led by Raj Gaji, assistant professor of parasitology at the Virginia-Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine working in the Center for One Health Research, identified a protein the team named DDP that helps Toxoplasma gondii build its offspring. When researchers switched it off, the parasites stopped multiplying entirely.
TENERIFE, Spain — The commander of NASA's Artemis II mission briefly feared that he and his crew would never return home from their trip around the moon after overshooting their turn-back point.Commander Reid Wiseman and his three crewmates were supposed to reach 219,667 nautical miles (252,788 standard miles, or 406,823 kilometers) — farther than any humans have ever traveled from their home planet — before turning back toward Earth on the sixth day of their 10-day mission to the moon. But the odometer on the Integrity spacecraft continued to tick upward as they shot past their intended point of return, leading the astronaut to fear that something had gone terribly wrong, he told an audienc...
Means’s views on the COVID vaccine, raw milk and fluoride have all been criticized by health care professionals
A polymer science revelation about how liquid mixtures separate could have major implications for human health, metabolism and disease, new research indicates. In a brief report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) Professor Matthew Tirrell and Freie Universität Berlin Professor Matthias Ballauff revealed previously overlooked factors at play in the separation of charged polyelectrolyte polymers in water, challenging assumptions that have dominated the field since the 1950s.
Crows are intelligent animals that can use tools, hold grudges and even host funerals. Now, new research suggests these birds can make certain decisions faster than humans and monkeys — another potential sign of their smarts, the researchers argue. In a study published Thursday (Oct. 22) in the journal Science, researchers found that two carrion crows (Corvus corone) could distinguish the direction of moving dots on a screen in an average of 235 milliseconds, or less than a quarter of a second. By contrast, historical studies of humans suggest they make decisions in similar tasks six seconds as fast. The birds were highly accurate, and recordings of their brain activity suggested that their ...
An experiment has produced nanoflares similar to those seen on the sun, and shown that they can help explain why the outer layers of the solar atmosphere are so hot
Picture a number line, with the values running from the smallest to the largest. New research shows that the human brain uses a similar system when comparing numbers; in the study, scientists uncovered a "mental map" in which numbers have unique coordinates in the brain, which may help us place them in order of magnitude."Numbers are abstract concepts, but our brains have ways of organizing them that allow us to compare and reason about their values," said study co-authors Daniela Valério, a postdoctoral researcher in the INSERM-CEA Cognitive Neuroimaging Unit (UNICOG) in France, and Stanislas Dehaene, the director of UNICOG. "What is fascinating is that the brain can bring together numbers ...
A new USB-sized device, tested in mice, could help people with type 2 diabetes better manage glucose levels
Cryptic snakes in Southeast Asia have evolved a remarkable trick for evading predators: Instead of slithering, they arch their long bodies and tumble away at high speeds. The dwarf reed snakes (Pseudorabdion) pull off this acrobatic feat by keeping their head in a relatively fixed position while rotating the rest of their body, according to a new study published Monday (Oct. 19) in the journal Current Biology. Researchers filmed the snakes from different angles to better understand the mechanics of the rolling, or cartwheeling, behavior. They found that the snakes were capable of reaching velocities of up to 12.1 feet per second (3.69 meters per second), which is much faster than they can sl...
The force exerted by a gas usually results from many atoms or molecules at once. But scientists isolated the force of a lone particle.
We now have a clearer picture of what happened in the decades following the asteroid impact that led to the extinction of almost all dinosaurs
On Monday (Oct. 19), Japan's space agency launched a first-of-its-kind sample-return mission to Mars. The historic endeavor marks another major step toward humanity's shared goal of understanding — and perhaps eventually colonizing — one of our closest planetary neighbors, experts say. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA) Martian Moons Exploration (MMX) probe is an international effort, constructed with help from NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and others. Over the next few years, it will closely study the Red Planet's twin moons, Phobos and Deimos. The spacecraft will snap close-up photos of the pair before attempting to land on the larger satellite, Phobos, to scoop up roc...
Attacks against data centers in Europe and the Middle East are raising questions as to how we protect the infrastructure on which our digital lives depend
AI’s solution to the Navier-Stokes problem, and the details of how it happened, preview a chaotic future for math—and the world
About 251 million years ago, volcanic eruptions wiped out most life on Earth. For about a million years, the Siberian Traps in Russia spewed huge clouds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, leading to the most severe extinction event in our planet's history.Equatorial temperatures spiked, making much of the land too hot for life. Meanwhile, the oceans became acidic and most of the creatures in them suffocated from lack of oxygen. Known as the Permian-Triassic mass extinction or the "Great Dying," it ultimately destroyed more than 90% of ocean life and 70% of terrestrial species.However, in a corner of what is now China, a refuge of pollen-producing plants avoided that fate and created an o...
A misidentified constellation could revise the timeline for Vincent van Gogh’s creation of his iconic painting
Vincent van Gogh'spainted the iconic work in the summer of 1889. Now researchers claim to have pinned down which night the stars were from.
Shallow-water coral reefs are at high risk of disappearing by 2075, the IUCN has warned at a UN biodiversity conference. The loss would decimate fisheries and speed up coastal erosion