Top Science News
July 26, 2024
July 24, 2024 — A study looks at the maximum possible sizes of dinosaurs, using the carnivore, Tyrannosaurus rex, as an example. Using computer modelling, experts produced estimates that T. Rex might have been 70% heavier than what the fossil evidence ...
July 22, 2024 — When people are having a conversation, they rapidly take turns speaking and sometimes even interrupt. Now, researchers who have collected the largest ever dataset of chimpanzee 'conversations' have found that they communicate back and forth using ...
July 21, 2024 — Europa and Enceladus, icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn respectively, have evidence of oceans beneath their crusts. A NASA experiment suggests -- if these oceans support life -- signatures of that life in the form of organic molecules (like amino ...
July 16, 2024 — Researchers have discovered that a single-celled organism, a close relative of animals, harbors the remnants of ancient giant viruses woven into its own genetic code. This finding sheds light on how complex organisms may have acquired some of their ...
Latest Top Headlines
updated 10:47pm EDT
July 26, 2024 — New therapy uses synthetic nanofibers to mimic the natural signaling of a protein that is crucial for cartilage formation and maintenance. Researchers found that intensifying the motion of molecules within the nanofibers led to more components needed for regeneration. After just four hours, the treatment activated the gene expression necessary to generate cartilage. Therapy could be used to treat ...
July 25, 2024 — An experimental drug originally developed to treat cancer may help clear HIV from infected cells in the brain, according to a new study. By targeting infected cells in the brain, drug may clear virus from hidden areas that have been a major challenge in HIV ...
July 25, 2024 — A noninvasive colorectal cancer screening test that can be done at home could reduce the risk of colorectal cancer death by 33%, according to a new ...
July 25, 2024 — Over the last century, a once-deadly mosquito-borne virus has evolved so that it no longer sickens humans. New research shows that changes in the virus's ability to target human cells paralleled the decline in illness and death. The findings offer important lessons in virology that may help guide better preparedness for future outbreaks of other viral ...
July 26, 2024 — Engineering researchers have demonstrated a state-of-the-art hardware device that could reduce energy consumption for artificial intelligent (AI) computing applications by a factor of at least ...
July 25, 2024 — Danish Tycho Brahe was most famous for his contributions to astronomy. However, he also had a well-equipped alchemical laboratory where he produced secret medicines for Europe's ...
July 25, 2024 — Engineers discovered that when the aluminum in soda cans is purified and mixed with seawater, the solution produces hydrogen -- which can power an engine or fuel cell without generating carbon emissions. The reaction can be sped up by adding ...
July 22, 2024 — Researchers are calling for regulation to guide the responsible and ethical development of bio-hybrid robotics -- a ground-breaking science which fuses artificial components with living tissue and ...
July 26, 2024 — Scientists have identified an automatic behavior in flies that helps them assess wind conditions -- its presence and direction -- before deploying a strategy to follow a scent to its source. The fact that they can do this is surprising -- can you tell if there's a gentle breeze if you stick your head out of a moving car? Flies aren't just reacting ...
July 26, 2024 — Lampreys are one of only two living jawless vertebrates Jaws are formed by a key stem cell population called the neural crest New research reveals the gene regulatory changes that may explain morphological differences between jawed and jawless ...
July 22, 2024 — Researchers have found a new way to identify genetic targets useful for control of mosquito populations, potentially offering an alternative to insecticides. Their study focused on the genetic basis of species incompatibility. They crossed Ae. aegypti, a major global arboviral disease vector, and its sibling species, Ae. mascarensis, from the Indian Ocean. When offspring is crossed back with one ...
July 25, 2024 — An international team of researchers has found that nitrogen emissions from fertilizers and fossil fuels have a net cooling effect on the climate. But they warn increasing atmospheric nitrogen has further damaging effects on the environment, calling for an urgent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions to halt global ...
Health News
July 26, 2024
July 17, 2024 — Scientists have discovered that 'switching off' a protein called IL-11 can significantly increase the healthy lifespan of mice by almost 25 ...
July 17, 2024 — Biology researchers have developed a new antibody therapy that can neutralize a wide variety of HIV-1 strains. They found success in an unlikely source -- ...
July 8, 2024 — The largest animals do not have proportionally bigger brains -- with humans bucking this trend -- a new study has ...
July 1, 2024 — With a new surgical intervention and neuroprosthetic interface, researchers restored a natural walking gait in people with amputations below the knee. Seven patients were able to walk faster, avoid ...
Latest Health Headlines
updated 10:47pm EDT
July 26, 2024 — Spinal muscular atrophy (SMA) is a severe neurological disease for which there is presently no cure, although current therapies can alleviate symptoms. In the search for better treatment options, scientists are now drawing attention to previously unnoticed abnormalities in embryonic development. They base their argument on studies of so-called ...
July 26, 2024 — The brain contains many cell types, from the prominent neurons to the lesser-known microglia. The latter are integral to the brain's immune system and play a crucial role as the brain's cleanup crew. A recent study highlights that microglia establish connections with neurons through tunneling nanotubes. The researchers observed that microglia utilize these tubes to facilitate the clearance of ...
July 26, 2024 — When doctors sit at hospitalized patients' bedsides, it can have a more positive impact than if they stand, a review of data suggests -- but a new study seeks to find out for ...
July 25, 2024 — Findings from a small, proof-of-concept clinical trial have suggested that fecal microbiota transplants (FMTs) can boost the effectiveness of immunotherapy in a range of gastrointestinal cancers. In the study, six of 13 patients who had previously shown resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors benefited from receiving FMTs from donors who had ...
July 25, 2024 — In an important study for understanding how memories are made, cientists show that the flexibility of chromatin -- packaged DNA inside the cell -- plays a crucial role in 'deciding' which neurons are involved in forming a specific ...
July 23, 2024 — Years of high systolic blood pressure are linked to a greater risk for the two most common types of stroke. The results suggest that early diagnosis and sustained control of high blood pressure over the lifespan are critical to preventing stroke, especially in Black and Hispanic patients who are more likely to have uncontrolled ...
July 25, 2024 — Mammals that have evolved more developed brains tend to have a smaller size difference between males and females of that species, according to new ...
July 22, 2024 — Scientists created new tools to study brain messenger proteins called neuropeptides in the brains of behaving animals, discovering they are the primary messengers in the fear circuit in mouse brains, and that multiple neuropeptides work together to achieve this--explaining why some clinical trials that target just one neuropeptide have failed. The ...
July 24, 2024 — Tweaking the numbers of receptors in a key brain area changes the daily rhythms of rest and wake in ...
July 24, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a novel pain control pathway that links the cingulate cortex in the front of the brain, through the pons region of the brainstem, to cerebellum in the back of the ...
July 24, 2024 — There's a lot that goes into an Olympic athlete's quest for gold -- years of training and rigor -- but also, an athlete's age. A team used statistics to figure out when an Olympic track-and-field athletes' peak performance will ...
July 24, 2024 — Ultrafine particles, UFPs, the smallest contributors to air pollution, hinder the function of mitochondria in human olfactory mucosa cells, a new study shows. The study showed that traffic-related UFPs impair mitochondrial functions in primary human olfactory mucosa cells by hampering oxidative phosphorylation and redox ...
Physical/Tech News
July 26, 2024
July 17, 2024 — Have you ever wondered how insects are able to go so far beyond their home and still find their way? The answer to this question is not only relevant to biology but also to making the AI for tiny, autonomous robots. Drone-researchers felt inspired ...
July 16, 2024 — A strange 'garden sprinkler-like' jet coming from a neutron star has been pictured for the first time. The S-shaped structure is created as the jet changes direction due to the wobbling of the disc of hot gas around the star -- a process called ...
July 15, 2024 — Researchers using NASA's James Webb Space Telescope have finally confirmed what models have previously predicted: An exoplanet has differences between its eternal morning and eternal evening atmosphere. WASP-39 b, a giant planet with a diameter 1.3 ...
July 11, 2024 — The qualities and behavior of dark matter, the invisible 'glue' of the universe, continue to be shrouded in mystery. Though galaxies are mostly made of dark matter, understanding how it is distributed within a galaxy offers clues to what this ...
Latest Physical/Tech Headlines
updated 10:47pm EDT
July 26, 2024 — Researchers explain a new mechanism for ice formation. Ice can form near the free surface of a water droplet via small precursors with a structure resembling ice 0. These are readily formed by negative pressure effects due to surface tension, creating ring-like structures with the same characteristics as ice 0, which act as seeds for nucleation, ...
July 25, 2024 — The key to developing quantum electronics may have a few kinks. According to researchers, that's not a bad thing when it comes to the precise control needed to fabricate and operate such devices, including advanced sensors and lasers. The researchers fabricated a switch to turn on and off the presence of kink states, which are electrical conduction pathways at the edge of semiconducting ...
July 25, 2024 — Chemists have synthesized materials that can improve solar elements for indoor use. Such photovoltaic cells, which can also be integrated into various electronic devices, generate electricity even in low-light ...
July 25, 2024 — Non-reciprocal interactions allow the design of more efficient molecular systems. Scientists now propose a mechanism on how energy barriers in complex systems can be overcome. These findings can help to engineer molecular machines and to understand the self-organization of active ...
July 25, 2024 — A gentle rumble ran under a researcher's feet as a rocket carrying her research -- live, human muscle cells grown on scaffolds fixed on tiny chips -- lifted off, climbed, and disappeared into the sky to the International Space Station National Laboratory. These chips would help her better understand muscle impairment, often seen in astronauts and ...
July 22, 2024 — A study extends the definition of a habitable zone for planets to include their star's magnetic ...
July 24, 2024 — Astronomers have untangled a messy collision between two massive clusters of galaxies in which the clusters' vast clouds of dark matter have decoupled from the so-called normal ...
July 24, 2024 — Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), astronomers imaged a new exoplanet that orbits a star in the nearby triple system Epsilon Indi. The planet is a cold super-Jupiter exhibiting a temperature of around 0 degrees Celsius and a wide orbit comparable to that of Neptune around the Sun. This measurement was only possible thanks to JWST's unprecedented imaging capabilities in the thermal ...
July 25, 2024 — What puts the electronic pep in peptides? A folded structure, according to a new study. Researchers combined single-molecule experiments, molecular dynamics simulations and quantum mechanics to validate the ...
July 25, 2024 — In a scientific breakthrough, an international research team has developed a quantum sensor capable of detecting minute magnetic fields at the atomic length scale. This pioneering work realizes a long-held dream of scientists: an MRI-like tool for quantum ...
July 25, 2024 — Artificial intelligence (AI) is hot right now. Also hot: the data centers that power the technology. And keeping those centers cool requires a tremendous amount of energy. The problem is only going to grow as high-powered AI-based computers and devices become commonplace. That's why researchers are devising a new type of cooling system that promises to dramatically reduce energy ...
July 25, 2024 — Tackling a long-time mystery, scientists have found that the turbulent movements of air in clouds play a key role in the growth of water droplets and the initiation of rain. The research can improve computer model simulations of weather and climate and ultimately lead to better ...
Environment News
July 26, 2024
July 15, 2024 — One of the most important controversies about human evolution and expansion is when and by what route the first hominids arrived in Europe from the African continent. Now, geological dating ...
July 11, 2024 — Using genomes from 2,000 living humans as well as three Neanderthals and one Denisovan, an international team mapped the gene flow between the hominin groups over the past quarter-million ...
July 12, 2024 — Researchers have shed light on Earth's earliest ecosystem, showing that within a few hundred million years of planetary formation, life on Earth was already ...
July 11, 2024 — An international research team has assembled the genome and 3D chromosomal structures of a 52,000-year-old woolly mammoth -- the first time such a feat has been achieved for any ancient DNA sample. ...
Latest Environment Headlines
updated 10:47pm EDT
July 26, 2024 — Using data from 6,645 camera traps across the United States, researchers mapped populations of 25 mammal species. They determined that climate, not human activity, was the primary factor in mammals deciding where to ...
July 23, 2024 — The eyes of the male dragonfish grow larger for mate seeking, a sexual dimorphism that makes the dragonfish an anomaly in vertebrate evolution, researchers ...
July 25, 2024 — Researchers have found New Zealand's endangered flightless birds are seeking refuge in the locations where six species of moa last lived before going ...
July 25, 2024 — Scientists have discovered a new evasion strategy used by the varicella zoster virus, which causes chickenpox and shingles, that may allow it to affect tissues far from the original site of ...
July 25, 2024 — A new study finds disproportionate effects of temperature shifts on an icy glacier ...
July 25, 2024 — Aerosol scientists quantify the extent of light absorption by black carbon in fire clouds to better model climate impacts of extreme wildfire ...
July 25, 2024 — Newly announced research examining greenhouse gas emissions from the drying lake bed of Great Salt Lake, Utah, calculates that 4.1 million tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases were released in 2020. This research suggests that drying lake beds are an overlooked but potentially significant source of greenhouse gases, which may further increase due to climate ...
July 25, 2024 — Coffee beans consumed across the globe come from two species: Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora. By 2050, about 80% of Arabica production is predicted to decrease because of climate change. Researchers are investigating to see if they can find alternative coffee ...
July 24, 2024 — Scientists have discovered that the serrated edges of Komodo dragons' teeth are tipped with iron. The study gives new insight into how Komodo dragons keep their teeth razor-sharp and may provide clues to how dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex killed and ate their ...
July 24, 2024 — Chemists have for the first time established how Rembrandt applied special arsenic sulfide pigments to create a 'golden' ...
July 24, 2024 — A new analysis of rocks thought to be at least 2.5 billion years old helps clarify the chemical history of Earth's mantle -- the geologic layer beneath the planet's crust. The findings hone scientists' understanding of Earth's earliest geologic processes, and they provide new evidence in a decades-long scientific debate about the geologic history ...
July 23, 2024 — Palaeontologists are helping resolve the evolution and ecology of Odaraia, a taco-shaped marine animal that lived during the Cambrian period. Fossils reveal Odaraia had mandibles. Palaeontologists are finally able to place it as belonging to the mandibulates, ending its long enigmatic classification among the arthropods since it was first ...
Society/Education News
July 26, 2024
June 12, 2024 — Rising to power in the wake of the Classic Maya collapse, Chichen Itz was among the largest and most influential cities of the ancient Maya, but much about its political connections and ritual life remain poorly understood. Close kin relationships, ...
May 20, 2024 — Glaciologists show evidence of warm ocean water intruding kilometers beneath grounded ice at Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica. The findings suggest that existing climate models are underestimating the impact of ocean and ice interactions in ...
Apr. 18, 2024 — Land subsidence is overlooked as a hazard in cities, according to new research. Scientists used satellite data that accurately and consistently maps land movement across ...
Apr. 17, 2024 — Even if CO2 emissions were to be drastically cut down starting today, the world economy is already committed to an income reduction of 19% until 2050 due to climate change, a new study finds. These ...
Latest Society/Education Headlines
updated 10:47pm EDT
July 25, 2024 — A new method to measure the continuous spectrum of light is set to improve thermal imaging and infrared ...
July 22, 2024 — Forests can reduce hunger in rural households while also capturing carbon and advancing sustainability goals for low- and middle-income countries, according to new ...
July 22, 2024 — A new study identifies key patterns and factors influencing insect pest establishment and detection across the U.S. and suggests public surveillance awareness and involvement is a critical component of efforts to protect agriculture and our ecosystems from harmful pests. The findings can be used to improve strategies for early detection and ...
July 23, 2024 — People generalize to form beliefs about a large language model's performance based on what they've seen from past interactions. When an LLM is misaligned with a person's beliefs, even an extremely capable model may fail unexpectedly when deployed in a real-world ...
July 12, 2024 — A new study finds that AI enhances creativity by boosting the novelty of story ideas as well as the 'usefulness' of stories -- their ability to engage the target audience and potential for publication. However, AI was not judged to enhance the work produced by more creative writers and the study also warns that while AI may enhance individual ...
July 11, 2024 — Toddlers engage more regions of their brains around 16-months to help them develop important cognitive skills enabling them to follow simple instructions and control impulses. Findings from the study suggests 16 months is a critical period for brain ...
July 10, 2024 — Artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots have frequently shown signs of an 'empathy gap' that puts young users at risk of distress or harm, raising the urgent need for 'child-safe AI', according to a new study. The research urges developers and policy actors to prioritize AI design that take greater account of children's needs. It provides evidence ...
July 11, 2024 — The human brain is remarkably adept at adjusting what we hear based on contexts, like our current environment or priorities, but it's still unknown how exactly the brain helps us detect, filter and react to sounds. Now, biologists are a step closer to solving that mystery. Using an animal model, the researchers found that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC), a brain region associated with ...
July 23, 2024 — A research team has been exploring how mass layoffs and data breaches could be connected. Their theory: since layoffs create conditions where disgruntled employees face added stress or job insecurity, they are more likely to engage in risky behaviors that heighten the company's vulnerability to data ...
July 12, 2024 — A new technique enables huge machine-learning models to efficiently generate more accurate quantifications of their uncertainty about certain predictions. This could help practitioners determine whether to trust the model when it is deployed in real-world ...
July 8, 2024 — Organizations using AI to monitor employees' behavior and productivity can expect them to complain more, be less productive and want to quit more -- unless the technology can be framed as supporting their development, research ...
July 2, 2024 — A new study shows how the global economy could claw back billions of dollars lost each year due to workplace injuries and ...