Top Science News
April 16, 2024
Apr. 15, 2024 — Researchers have made a groundbreaking discovery regarding number sense in animals by confirming the existence of discrete number sense in rats, offering a crucial animal model for investigating the neural basis of numerical ability and disability ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — Over a ten-year period, biobank participants who met recommended levels of physical activity had a 23% lower risk of cardiovascular disease, and the protective effects were even more pronounced in ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — A series of whole genome and gene duplication events that go back hundreds of millions of years have laid the foundations for tissue-specific gene expression, according to a new study. The ...
Apr. 12, 2024 — Chimpanzees and bonobos are often thought to reflect two different sides of human nature -- the conflict-ready chimpanzee versus the peaceful bonobo -- but a new study shows that, within their own communities, male bonobos are more frequently ...
Latest Top Headlines
updated 6:02pm EDT
Apr. 15, 2024 — Researchers have found that microplastics -- are having a significant impact on our digestive pathways, making their way from the gut and into the tissues of the kidney, liver and ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — Researchers have discovered that an FDA-approved epilepsy drug can prevent or slow the growth of NF1-linked optic gliomas in mice, laying the groundwork for a clinical ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — Sports, beyond entertainment, foster community and belonging, benefiting both individuals and society. Despite its recognized positive effects, limited evidence exists on the link between watching sports and well-being. To address this gap, a team of researchers conducted a multi-method research and found that sports viewing activates brain reward circuits, leading to improved well-being. Popular ...
Apr. 9, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a blood protein that could help detect which children will experience ongoing concussion symptoms more than two weeks after an ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — The technology revolution and development of new renewable energy resources is driving demand for lithium to new heights, but it is not a common mineral. Scientists say they have found lithium in an unexpected place; fool's gold, or pyrite, ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — The mystery of how Pluto got a giant heart-shaped feature on its surface has finally been solved by an international team of astrophysicists. The team is the first to successfully reproduce the unusual shape with numerical simulations, attributing it to a giant and slow oblique-angle ...
Apr. 11, 2024 — Star Trek's Holodeck is no longer just science fiction. Using AI, engineers have created a tool that can generate 3D environments, prompted by everyday ...
Apr. 12, 2024 — In 2022, astronomers discovered the brightest gamma-ray burst (GRB) of all time. Now, astronomers confirm that a 'normal' supernova, the telltale sign of a stellar collapse, accompanied the GRB. The team also looked for signatures of heavy elements like gold and platinum in the supernova. They found no evidence of such elements, deepening the ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — A new study charts the family history of Arabica, the world's most popular coffee species, through Earth's heating and cooling periods over the last ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — Researchers have shown that a transition to green wastewater-treatment approaches in the U.S. that leverages the potential of carbon-financing could save a staggering $15.6 billion and just under 30 million tons of CO2-equivalent emissions over 40 ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — Natural forest regeneration is hailed as a cost-effective way to restore biodiversity and sequester carbon. However, the fragmentation of tropical forests has restricted the movement of large birds limiting their capacity to disperse seeds and restore healthy ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — As sea levels rise, coastal groundwater is lifted closer to the ground surface while also becoming saltier and more corrosive. A recent study compiled research from experts worldwide showing that in cities where there are complex networks of buried and partially buried infrastructure, interaction with this shallower and saltier groundwater ...
Health News
April 16, 2024
Apr. 10, 2024 — Cortisone and other related glucocorticoids are extremely effective at curbing excessive immune reactions. But previously, astonishingly little was known about how they exactly do that. Researchers have now explored the molecular mechanism of action ...
Apr. 10, 2024 — A new study reveals the detailed protein structure of the TAS2R14, a bitter taste receptor that allows us to perceive bitter taste. In addition to solving the structure of this taste receptor, the researchers were also able to determine where ...
Apr. 9, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a simple, but effective, strategy to help people reduce their feelings of anger. Disposing of a piece of paper containing your written thoughts on the cause of your anger ...
Apr. 8, 2024 — Pregnancy may carry a cost, reports a new study. The research shows that women who reported having been pregnant looked biologically older than women who had never been pregnant, and women who had been pregnant more often looked biologically older ...
Latest Health Headlines
updated 6:02pm EDT
Apr. 12, 2024 — Drugs that target opioid receptors sometimes have severe side effects. Thousands of people around the world die every day from overdoses involving opioids such as fentanyl. Researchers have taken a closer look at the molecular mechanisms of these active ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — Important differences in how the nasal cells of young and elderly people respond to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, could explain why children typically experience milder COVID-19 symptoms, a new study ...
Apr. 16, 2024 — Researchers have visualized at the molecular level how formins bind to the ends of actin filaments. This allowed them to uncover how formins mediate the addition of new actin molecules to a growing filament. Furthermore, the scientists elucidated the reasons for the different speeds at which the different formins promote this ...
Apr. 16, 2024 — Patients with suspected inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) could benefit from better testing protocols that would reduce the need and lengthy wait for potentially unnecessary colonoscopies, a new study has ...
Apr. 16, 2024 — New research has found that spaces with a diverse range of natural features are associated with stronger improvements in our mental wellbeing compared to spaces with less natural ...
Apr. 16, 2024 — A research team reports that social stress during adolescence in female mice later results in prolonged elevation of the hormone cortisol after they give ...
Apr. 16, 2024 — A new study offers a first look into the complex molecular changes that occur in brain cells with Lewy bodies, which are key pathological hallmarks of Parkinson's disease and some dementias. The findings reveal that brain cells with Lewy bodies exhibit a specific gene expression pattern akin to a disease-related ...
A Third of Women Experience Migraines Associated With Menstruation, Most Commonly When Premenopausal
Apr. 12, 2024 — A third of the nearly 20 million women who participated in a national health survey reports migraines during menstruation, and of them, 11.8 million, or 52.5%, were ...
Apr. 16, 2024 — According to a recent study, either healthier or unhealthier health behaviors cluster among individuals. These health behavior patterns remain relatively stable in middle adulthood and are predicted by several sociodemographic and personality ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — Researchers have developed an AI application using cartoons from The New Yorker to help people be ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — A study on the effects of a junk food diet on rats reinforces scientific understanding about the gut-brain ...
Apr. 9, 2024 — More synchrony between parents and children may not always be better, new research has revealed. For the first time a new study looked at behavioral and brain-to-brain synchrony in 140 families with a special focus on attachment. It looked at how they feel and think about emotional bonds whilst measuring brain activity as mums and dads solved puzzles with their ...
Physical/Tech News
April 16, 2024
Apr. 12, 2024 — An international research team has for the first time directly detected stellar winds from three Sun-like stars by recording the X-ray emission from their astrospheres, and placed constraints on the mass loss rate of the stars via their stellar ...
Apr. 10, 2024 — In a new breakthrough that could revolutionise medical and material engineering, scientists have developed a first-of-its-kind molecular device that controls the release of multiple small molecules ...
Apr. 8, 2024 — Linking analyses of the moon's gravity field with models of its earliest evolution, scientists tell a story of the moon turning itself inside out after it solidified from a primordial magma ocean. The process left behind a vestige of dense, ...
Mar. 27, 2024 — Astronomers have found that a previously quiet black hole, which sits at the center of a galaxy about 800 million light years away, has suddenly erupted, giving off plumes of gas every 8.5 days ...
Latest Physical/Tech Headlines
updated 6:02pm EDT
Apr. 16, 2024 — Researchers adapt a novel force measurement technique to uncover the previously unidentified physics at play at the thin air-film gap between water droplets and superhydrophobic ...
Apr. 16, 2024 — An international research team has demonstrated experimentally that electrons in naturally occurring double-layer graphene move like particles without any mass, in the same way that light travels. Furthermore, they have shown that the current can be 'switched' on and off, which has potential for developing tiny, energy-efficient transistors -- like the light switch in your house but at a ...
Apr. 16, 2024 — In their ongoing quest to develop a range of methods for managing plasma so it can be used to generate electricity in a process known as fusion, researchers have shown how two old methods can be combined to provide greater ...
Apr. 16, 2024 — International shipping does not want to be a climate bad guy and is aiming to be emission-free by 2050. A new tool can help shipowners who are searching for green ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — Physicists solve a puzzle linked to JWST-ER1g, a massive ancient galaxy that formed when the universe was just a quarter of its current ...
Apr. 12, 2024 — A star's magnetic field must be considered in order to correctly determine the characteristics of exoplanets from observations by space telescopes such as Kepler, James Webb, or PLATO. Researchers show that the distribution of the star's brightness over its disk depends on the star's level of magnetic activity. This, in turn, affects the signature of an exoplanet in observational data. The new ...
Apr. 11, 2024 — When astronomers looked at a stellar pair at the heart of a stunning cloud of gas and dust, they were in for a surprise. Star pairs are typically very similar, like twins, but in HD 148937, one star appears younger and, unlike the other, is magnetic. New data suggest there were originally three stars in the system, until two of them clashed and merged. This violent event created the surrounding ...
Apr. 11, 2024 — Researchers have found that baby stars discharge plumes of gas, dust, and magnetic flux from their protostellar disk. The protostellar disk that surrounds developing stars are constantly penetrated by magnetic flux, and if too much magnetic flux remained, the resulting object would generate a magnetic field stronger than any observed protostar. These newly discovered discharges of magnetic flux, ...
Apr. 16, 2024 — Researchers have produced, stored, and retrieved quantum information for the first time, a critical step in quantum ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — A study shows that AI enhances physician-patient ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — 4.5 million gamers around the world have advanced medical science by helping to reconstruct microbial evolutionary histories using a minigame included inside the critically and commercially successful video game, Borderlands 3. Their playing has led to a significantly refined estimate of the relationships of microbes in the human gut. The results of this collaboration will both substantially ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — Researchers have developed a method that can improve the performance of quantum resistance standards. It's based on a quantum phenomenon called Quantum Anomalous Hall ...
Environment News
April 16, 2024
Apr. 11, 2024 — Meandering ocean currents play an important role in the melting of Antarctic ice shelves, threatening a significant rise in sea ...
Apr. 9, 2024 — Swimming in schools makes fish surprisingly stealthy underwater, with a group able to sound like a single fish. Engineers working with a high-tech simulation of schooling mackerel offer new insight into why fish swim in schools and promise for the ...
Apr. 1, 2024 — Genomic anamolies dating back to the time of the dinosaurs misled scientists about the evolutionary history of ...
Mar. 27, 2024 — Researchers have recovered remarkably preserved microbiomes from two teeth dating back 4,000 years, found in an Irish limestone cave. Genetic analyses of these microbiomes reveal major changes in the ...
Latest Environment Headlines
updated 6:02pm EDT
Apr. 12, 2024 — In the sun-scorched Pilbara region of north-western Australia, scientists have unearthed a mysterious creature from the shadows -- a new ant species called Leptanilla ...
Apr. 16, 2024 — According to a research team led by palaeontologists, the net-like leaf veining typical for today's flowering plants developed much earlier than previously thought, but died out again several times. Using new methods, the fossilized plant Furcula granulifer was identified as such an early forerunner. The leaves of this seed fern species already ...
Apr. 16, 2024 — Plants with multiple sets of chromosomes, known as polyploids, are salt-tolerant or drought-resistant and often achieve higher yields. However, newly formed polyploid plants are often sterile or have reduced fertility and are unsuitable for breeding resistant lines. The reason is that the pollen tube in these plants grows incorrectly, which keeps fertilization from taking place. Pollen tube ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — An international team of scientists has published a single-cell atlas for Pristina leidyi (Pristina), the water nymph worm, a segmented annelid with extraordinary regenerative abilities that has fascinated biologists for more than a ...
Apr. 16, 2024 — Nineteen out of 34 countries surveyed failed to fully meet their 2020 climate commitments set 15 years ago in Copenhagen, according to a new study by UCL ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — From heatwaves to pandemic diseases, the urban environments of the world face numerous challenges. Researchers are harnessing artificial intelligence (AI) and informatics to address emerging concerns related to environmental changes and urban ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — Bacterial infections pose significant challenges to agriculture and medicine, especially as cases of antibiotic-resistant bacteria continue to rise. In response, scientists are elucidating the ways that bacteria-infecting viruses disarm these pathogens and ushering in the possibility of novel treatment ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — Researchers have developed a way to use radar to detect open water zones and other changes in Alaska's frozen rivers in the early winter. The approach can be automated to provide current hazard maps and is applicable across the Arctic and ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — Palaeontologists have described three unusual new species of giant fossil kangaroo from Australia and New Guinea, finding them more diverse in shape, range and hopping method than previously thought. The three new species are of the extinct genus Protemnodon, which lived from around 5 million to 40,000 years ago -- with one about double the size of the largest red kangaroo living ...
Apr. 15, 2024 — Sport junkie or couch potato? Always on time or often late? The animal kingdom, too, is home to a range of personalities, each with its own lifestyle. Biologists report on a surprising discovery: even simple marine polychaete worms shape their day-to-day lives on the basis of highly individual rhythms. This diversity is of interest not just for the future of species and populations in a changing ...
Apr. 12, 2024 — A deep dive into macroalgae genetics has uncovered the genetic underpinnings that enabled macroalgae, or 'seaweed,' to evolve multicellularity. Three lineages of macroalgae developed multicellularity independently and during very different time periods by acquiring genes that enable cell adhesion, extracellular matrix formation, and cell differentiation, researchers report. Surprisingly, many of ...
Apr. 11, 2024 — Traces of DNA in the stomachs of predatory snails give a team og geobiologists new insights into the ecology of ...
Society/Education News
April 16, 2024
Mar. 6, 2024 — A new study provides a new comprehensive look at the potential for flooding in a combined 32 cities along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts. It predicts as many as 500,000 people will be affected by flooding alongside 1 in 35 privately owned ...
Feb. 5, 2024 — For more than 50 years, the National Hurricane Center has used the Saffir-Simpson Windscale to communicate the risk of property damage; it labels a hurricane on a scale from Category 1 (wind speeds between 74 -- 95 mph) to Category 5 (wind speeds of ...
Jan. 24, 2024 — Groundwater is rapidly declining across the globe, often at accelerating rates. Researchers now present the largest assessment of groundwater levels around the world, spanning nearly 1,700 aquifers. In addition to raising the alarm over declining ...
Dec. 21, 2023 — An artificial intelligence-driven system has autonomously learned about certain Nobel Prize-winning chemical reactions and designed a successful laboratory procedure to make them. The AI did so in just a few minutes and correctly on its first ...
Latest Society/Education Headlines
updated 6:02pm EDT
Apr. 12, 2024 — Marine researchers have mapped the density of one of the most endangered large whale species worldwide, the North Atlantic right whale, using new data to help avoid right whales' harmful exposure to commercial fisheries and vessel strikes. The resulting maps, spanning 20 years of whale observations, are publicly available to inform risk assessments, estimations of whale harm/disturbance, marine ...
Apr. 11, 2024 — Are we missing the forest for the trees? More than timber grows in forests -- including products worth many tens of billions of dollars. Because these goods go unrecorded in official trade statistics, their economic value escapes our attention. As a result, clear opportunities to combat poverty are being missed, according to an ...
Apr. 11, 2024 — So far, biodiversity and agricultural productivity could not be reconciled because the socio-ecological system of agriculture is highly complex, and the interactions between humans and the environment are difficult to capture using conventional methods. A research team now shows a promising way to achieve both goals at the same time. They focus on further developing artificial intelligence in ...
Apr. 11, 2024 — A study has found that market forces have provided good food price stability over the past half century, despite extreme weather ...
Apr. 10, 2024 — As the centennial of the Scopes Monkey Trial of 1925 approaches, a new study illustrates that the attitudes of Americans in Generation X toward evolution shifted as they ...
Apr. 8, 2024 — Researchers found that when the adult talked and played socially with a 5-month-old baby, the baby's brain activity particularly increased in regions responsible for attention -- and the level of this type of activity predicted enhanced language development at later ...
Apr. 3, 2024 — Forming a long-term recreational exercise habit as a young person has a beneficial impact on physical and mental health later in life, but some groups, such as females and academic high-achievers, miss out on these benefits ...
Apr. 3, 2024 — A new study finds that universities scoring strongly on measures of sustainability are associated with innovation and economic growth in their surrounding communities. However, the study did not find similar connections between university sustainability performance and environmental sustainability in their home ...
Apr. 4, 2024 — A recent study suggests that active workstations incorporating a walking pad, bike, stepper and/or standing desk are successful strategies for reducing sedentary time and improving mental cognition at work without reducing job performance. Extended sedentary behavior, whether at work or home, increases a person's risk of preventable chronic ...
Mar. 28, 2024 — New research shows that trying to stifle boredom at work prolongs its effects and that alternating boring and meaningful tasks helps to prevent the effects of one boring task from spilling over to reduce productivity on ...
Mar. 25, 2024 — Pairing cryptocurrency mining -- notable for its outsize consumption of carbon-based fuel -- with green hydrogen could provide the foundation for wider deployment of renewable energy, such as solar and wind power, according to a new ...
Mar. 18, 2024 — A new method that aims to help people develop grit looks ...