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Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research and the University of Texas at Austin have identified a form of molecular motion that has not previously been observed. When what are known as ‘guest molecules’ – molecules that are accommodated within a host molecule…
A new study has revealed for the first time that ancient carbon, stored in landscapes for thousands of years or more, can find its way back to the atmosphere as CO2 released from the surfaces of rivers. The findings, led by scientists at the University of Bristol and the cover…
Astronomers have surveyed massive, dense star factories, unlike any found in the Milky Way, in a large number of galaxies across the local universe. The findings provide a rare glimpse into processes shaping galaxies in the very early universe and possibly the Milky Way a few billion years from now.…
Weight loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy are used by over 15 million adults in the U.S., or 4.5% of the population. Despite their effectiveness, they have drawbacks. Their effect may not last after discontinuing use, and side effects including osteoporosis and muscle loss have raised concerns about long-term harms.…
Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have developed an investigational brain-computer interface that holds promise for restoring the voices of people who have lost the ability to speak due to neurological conditions. In a new study published in the scientific journal Nature, the researchers demonstrate how this new technology…
A group of bat viruses closely related to the deadly Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) could be one small mutation away from being capable of spilling over into human populations and potentially causing the next pandemic. A recent study published in the journal Nature Communicationsexamined an understudied group of…
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Silicon is king in the semiconductor technology that underpins smartphones, computers, electric vehicles and more, but its crown may be slipping according to a team led by researchers at Penn State. In a world first, they used two-dimensional (2D) materials, which are only an atom thick…
Where do you go when you’re a fish and you need a skincare treatment? Coral reefs contain natural “beauty salons,” lively social hubs of activity where fish “clients” swim up and wait to be serviced by smaller fish cleaners. The little cleaners dart under and around their much bigger clients…
Scientists have made a key breakthrough for treating respiratory diseases by developing a new drug delivery system that transports genetic therapies directly to the lungs, opening promising possibilities for patients with conditions like lung cancer and cystic fibrosis. The research, led by Gaurav Sahay of Oregon State University’s College of…
New research from the University of Georgia’s Odum School of Ecology and Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant suggests there may be elevated levels of mercury in Georgia and South Carolina waters. In studying alligators from the Okefenokee Swamp, Jekyll Island and Yawkey Wildlife Center, UGA researchers found high levels…
No more hunger after cooking? A newly identified network of nerve cells is responsible, a research group at the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research has discovered in mice. They discovered a direct connection from the nose to a group of nerve cells in the brain that are activated by…
A Danish-German research collaboration with participation of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) aims to develop new quantum light sources and technology for scalable quantum networks based on the rare-earth element erbium. The project EQUAL (Erbium-based silicon quantum light sources) is funded by the Innovation Fund Denmark with 40 million Danish crowns…
Scientists analyzing data from NASA’s CODEX (Coronal Diagnostic Experiment) investigation have successfully evaluated the instrument’s first images, revealing the speed and temperature of material flowing out from the Sun. These images, shared at a press event Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Anchorage, Alaska, illustrate the Sun’s outer…
A new study from Toho University reveals that female earwigs exhibit a similar pattern of exaggerated forceps growth as males, suggesting that both sexes may have evolved these traits through sexual selection. Do larger male elk have proportionally larger antlers? The answer is no. In fact, larger individuals tend to…
Star TOI-6894 is just like many in our galaxy, a small red dwarf, and only ~20% of the mass of our Sun. Like many small stars, it is not expected to provide suitable conditions for the formation and hosting of a large planet. However, as published today in Nature Astronomy,…
Researchers identify “meal memory” neurons in laboratory rats that could explain why forgetting lunch leads to overeating. Scientists have discovered a specific group of brain cells that create memories of meals, encoding not just what food was eaten but when it was eaten. The findings, published today in Nature Communications,…
Eating a high-fat diet containing a large amount of oleic acid – a type of fatty acid commonly found in olive oil – could drive obesity more than other types of dietary fats, according to a study published in the journal Cell Reports. The study found that oleic acid, a…
Sea cucumbers are the ocean’s janitors, cleaning the seabed and recycling nutrients back into the water. But this humble marine invertebrate could also hold the key to stopping the spread of cancer. A sugar compound found in sea cucumbers can effectively block Sulf-2, an enzyme that plays a major role…
Solar power is growing by leaps and bounds in the United States, propelled by climate mitigation policies and carbon-free energy goals — and California is leading the way as the nation’s top producer of solar electricity. A new study in Energy Strategy Reviews has revealed a dark side to the…
For the first time, scientists have used Earth-based telescopes to look back over 13 billion years to see how the first stars in the universe affect light emitted from the Big Bang. Using telescopes high in the Andes mountains of northern Chile, astrophysicists have measured this polarized microwave light to…
How can the strange properties of quantum particles be exploited to perform extremely accurate measurements? This question is at the heart of the research field of quantum metrology. One example is the atomic clock, which uses the quantum properties of atoms to measure time much more accurately than would be…
Cells taken from the lungs of people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) have a larger accumulation of soot-like carbon deposits compared to cells taken from people who smoke but do not have COPD, according to a study published today, June 10, in ERJ Open Research. Carbon can enter the…
A simple rule that seems to govern how life is organized on Earth is described in a new study published on June 4 in Nature Ecology & Evolution. The research team led, by Umeå University and involving the University of Reading, believe this rule helps explain why species are spread…
Looking to nature for answers to complex questions can reveal new and unprecedented results that can even affect cells on molecular levels. For instance, human cells oxidize glucose to produce ATP (adenosine triphosphate), an energy source necessary for life. Cancer cells produce ATP through glycolysis, which does not utilize oxygen…
Astrophysicists have gained precious new insights into how distant “exoplanets” form and what their atmospheres can look like, after using the James Webb Telescope to image two young exoplanets in extraordinary detail. Among the headline findings were the presence of silicate clouds in one of the planet’s atmospheres, and a…
No image is infinitely sharp. For 150 years, it has been known that no matter how ingeniously you build a microscope or a camera, there are always fundamental resolution limits that cannot be exceeded in principle. The position of a particle can never be measured with infinite precision; a certain…
Plant fossils found in the abdomen of a sauropod support the long-standing hypothesis that these dinosaurs were herbivores, finds a study published on June 9 in the Cell Press journal Current Biology. The dinosaur, which was alive an estimated 94 to 101 million years ago, ate a variety of plants…
When volcanoes are preparing to erupt, scientists rely on typical signs to warn people living nearby: deformation of the ground and earthquakes, caused by underground chambers filling up with magma and volcanic gas. But some volcanoes, called ‘stealthy’ volcanoes, don’t give obvious warning signs. Now scientists studying Veniaminof, Alaska, have…
Physicists at the University of Oxford have set a new global benchmark for the accuracy of controlling a single quantum bit, achieving the lowest-ever error rate for a quantum logic operation — just 0.000015%, or one error in 6.7 million operations. This record-breaking result represents nearly an order of magnitude…
Local weather alerts are familiar warnings for potentially dangerous conditions, but an alert that puts all of Earth on warning is rare. On May 31, U.S. Naval Research Laboratory’s (NRL) space-based instrumentation captured real-time observations of a powerful Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) that erupted from the Sun initiating a “severe…
