Stay informed about scientific discoveries, research developments and new findings from around the world.
Software created by University of Queensland scientists could help AI platforms overcome a blind spot limiting their value in plant research. UQ Ph.D. student Tianqi Wei said even advanced vision-language models (VLMs) had difficulty interpreting images of microscopic plant details.
Birds are not only beautiful to look at and listen to; they also play important roles in nature. They eat pests and disperse seeds. They are generally considered indicators of a healthy environment. When birds thrive, soil and water quality often benefit as well. A new study published in the journal Landscape Ecology shows that growing a variety of crops in small field patches creates better habitats for birds.
Researchers have coated mitochondria with innovative materials without compromising their function, according to a study by IRCCS Fondazione Istituto Neurologico Carlo Besta (FINCB) and Politecnico di Milano. The research was conducted as part of the BraiNs joint laboratory, inaugurated in 2023.
More than half of New York City's app-based food delivery workers have been injured on the job, and 40% meet the criteria for severe psychological distress, according to a new study from the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH), in partnership with the Worker's Justice Project (WJP).
Urban heat is more than a matter of temperature. It can affect how people sleep, work, travel through the city and dress, and even how safe or comfortable they feel in public spaces. Yet these everyday consequences often remain invisible in conventional assessments of urban heat.
This summer, exoplanet science—the study of planets orbiting stars beyond our sun—took a big step forward. Reports of helium gas escaping from the atmosphere of LHS 1140b propelled this exoplanet from the pages of scientific journals into the mainstream media.
Fish have "designed" their perfect partners in a new experiment—revealing simple male preferences and more complex female tastes.
Isaac Newton is typically portrayed as a solitary scientist with intense focus who was obsessed with power and deeply egotistical. But a new book by Caltech historians Jed Buchwald and Mordechai Feingold takes a deeper look at Newton's life in the two decades leading up to the 1687 publication of his groundbreaking text, Principia Mathematica, when he was 44. Using newly digitized scans of Newton's early writings, Buchwald and Feingold uncover a portrait of the young polymath as a curious and social scholar whose interests were often fleeting.
Conflicts with our colleagues, loved ones or team members can quickly stifle communication, heighten tensions and undermine relationships. However, a decision or compromise is not always enough to restore cooperation—for a solution to last, we must also repair the bond that will allow people to continue moving forward together.
Liquid hydrogen (LH₂) is attractive for long-distance energy transport because of its high volumetric energy density. But even well-insulated tanks cannot completely prevent heat from entering. As the liquid warms, hydrogen evaporates and pressure builds, leading to boil-off losses during storage and transport.
A new textile used to cover strawberry plants more than tripled fruit yields in tunnel field tests without harming plant health. The technology could also significantly reduce water and pesticide use in strawberry fields.
Modern tomatoes are a breeding success story. Generations of selection have made them bigger, firmer, more productive and easier to ship. But that progress came at a cost. Domestication and breeding reduced much of the crop's genetic diversity, and flavor has proven stubbornly hard to breed back in.
The experimental weight-loss drug is a triple agonist and the first of its kind to reach a phase 3 clinical trial
Pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, and agrochemicals are produced industrially using a wide range of chemical reactions. These processes need to become more efficient, less expensive, and more sustainable.
For centuries, the Romans turned to amulets to protect themselves or their surroundings. Research by Ph.D. candidate Patricia Kret shows that this tradition continued into the early days of Christianity.
A new Irish-language tool developed by researchers at Trinity College Dublin is allowing autistic children from Irish-language communities to participate more fully in school and their communities.
Enzymes are often described as molecular machines that recognize and process specific molecules. However, they are not rigid structures. Their shapes can change, affecting how molecules enter, interact with and remain within their active sites.
A new technique for controlling optical components with light could help usher in a generation of high-efficiency signal-processing technology that could drive futuristic applications such as holographic video.
Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to discover new materials, but conventional data-driven approaches can struggle to explain their predictions, work reliably beyond their training data and remain consistent with physical laws. A new perspective proposes a framework called Physics-Grounded Materials AI (PhysMat AI), which integrates fundamental physical knowledge into the materials discovery process. The research is published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.
Spiny lobster larvae spend six to nine months drifting in the open ocean, feeding within the plankton community, before eventually settling into shallow-water habitats such as mangroves, seagrass beds or coral reefs. This means the number of young lobsters reaching Bermuda is strongly influenced by ocean conditions across the wider North Atlantic and Caribbean region.
Cell division is a complex process. At the heart of this complexity is a membraneless organelle called the centrosome, which is made up of more than 200 components. It is responsible for clustering mitotic spindles, threadlike structures needed to separate genetic material. It has long remained unclear which parts of the centrosome are necessary and sufficient for spindle assembly.
A team at the University of Córdoba (UCO) has reviewed and updated the catalog of versions of the wheat gene GLU-B1, which is responsible for a protein that makes up gluten. The team has also made a collection of wheat representing the gene's true variability available to the research community.
Plants cannot run away when the wind picks up, rain lashes down or a hungry herbivore begins chewing on their leaves. Instead, they must sense their surroundings and adapt. Now, researchers have uncovered an important piece of the puzzle of what happens inside plants when they are exposed to touch, injury or other physical stimuli.
Researchers at AIST have developed a device that measures the absolute surface profile of curved optical elements with high precision without touching them.