Standardizing calculations of the helium byproducts generated in advanced fission and fusion energy system materials can increase reactor safety and longevity, according to a study led by University of Michigan Engineering with collaborators at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and
Juvenile Chinook salmon in the Lower Fraser River estuary are feeding and growing in a slurry of contaminants from pharmaceuticals, personal care products to industrial chemicals, according to a new Simon Fraser University study.
It’s been 36 years since it beamed back the first glimpses of our universe from space The post A Look Back at Hubble’s Most Breathtaking Images appeared first on Nautilus .
Like so much else in nature, the human visual system has both a complex structure and functional efficiency that is difficult for scientists to replicate. The system is both a sensor and a processor, with the eyes and the brain working together to resolve images with less
For decades, environmental debates have been framed around a stark trade-off: economic growth lifts people out of poverty but comes at the expense of forests, wildlife, and climate stability. More people and richer diets mean more farmland and less nature.
Severe droughts, intense floods, and heat waves are pushing river ecosystems beyond their natural limits of resilience. A review of data on river systems across several continents published in the journal Nature Reviews Biodiversity shows that, in most cases, nature is unable
Scientists have uncovered new evidence that Earth's continents are continuously reworked deep beneath the surface, offering fresh insight into how continents have evolved over billions of years.
Cities don't just change the landscape, they change the weather. According to a new study analyzing tens of thousands of rain events in Texas, whether urban areas make rain worse, lighter or simply different depends strongly on the type of storm.
New research shows, for the first time, an unprecedented and significant warming of equatorial Atlantic upper intermediate waters during the mid- to late Holocene. The paper is published in the journal Geology.
Fish who display dominant traits are more at risk of consuming microplastic pollution than others in their social group, according to new research. The study, led by the University of Glasgow and published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, details the
The classic image of an archaeologist is of someone unearthing a potsherd in Pompeii or opening a Viking grave to better understand the distant past. Yet the same methods can also be applied to our own time—a field known as contemporary archaeology.
Aerosols and clouds play a key role in Earth's climate budget. However, the extent to which they reflect solar energy depends heavily on how much water the particles can absorb. This so-called hygroscopicity has so far been represented in a simplified manner in climate models.
In a 1930 essay, British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that in 100 years time, technological advances would have displaced so much human labor that people would be working 15-hour weeks—if they worked at all.
Neptune's far-flung moon Nereid may be the last of the planet's original companions that managed to survive a cosmic crash, scientists reported Wednesday.
How come our universe is full of disorder, when all elementary particles appear to follow strictly ordered laws of physics? And are there organizing principles behind disorder and apparent chaos?
In a silent war that has raged for millions of years, plants have evolved a sophisticated chemical arsenal to fight back against invading pathogens. Now, a team of researchers from Peking University and Tsinghua University has finally mapped out the blueprints for one of
People who smile empathically at someone's happiness or frown at their suffering become more attractive. Conversely, smiling out of schadenfreude does not make someone any less attractive. Roujia Feng will defend her Ph.D. thesis on May 26, based on research into the social
By combining demand-driven life cycle assessment with a multi-objective optimization framework, researchers identified potential optimal solutions for reusable bubble tea packaging systems under actual market demand conditions. The results show that material selection and low
The vulnerability of a shark population to losing even small numbers to fishing has been highlighted by researchers from the University of Chester and partners in the Philippines using a remote stereo camera system. The team has found that pelagic thresher sharks in the Central
A new paper calls for ecologists and evolutionary biologists to consider how organisms experience climate rather than how weather stations record it when doing climate–biology research. The paper, "Matching climate to biological scales," is published in the April 2026 edition
Academic success at university could depend on the changing interaction between students' habits over time rather than fixed traits such as intelligence or total study hours. This conclusion is discussed in the International Journal of Computational Systems Engineering in a
The sight of a saltwater crocodile basking on a mudbank is one of the most iconic and intimidating images of northern Australia. Yet the crocodiles that inhabit the region today are just the survivors of a much richer and stranger lost world.
Imagine taking out a 12-inch ruler and finding that the number 12 is on the left side and the number 1 is on the right side. For most native English speakers, this would be disorienting. We are used to seeing the numbers move from smallest to largest, from left to right. When
New research from Singapore University of Technology and Design and the Singapore-ETH Centre finds that private cooling may protect people from heat while reducing the perceived urgency of broader urban climate solutions—a pattern the researchers call "behavioral insulation."
Researchers from the Institut des NanoSciences de Paris, the Kastler Brossel Laboratory and the University of Glasgow have developed an innovative method that renders a scattering medium transparent solely for information carried by entangled photon pairs, while the same medium
Azara's owl monkeys, a small primate species found in South America, are heavier today than those that lived a quarter-century ago, and evidence suggests that rising temperatures might have driven the weight gain, according to a Yale-led study of a wild population.
Experiments hint that quantum mechanisms are vital to the machinery of life. Now researchers are exploring if these effects help to explain the success of an array of puzzling health treatments
Researchers have uncovered a remarkable fossil site in a remote part of Canada's Northwest Territories, offering unprecedented insight into the earliest evolution of complex animal life on Earth. Findings from the site represent life from the Ediacaran biota—soft-bodied
Cows show a visual preference for new human faces over a familiar one and can match a known handler's voice to their face, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS One by Océane Amichaud of INRAE in Nouzilly, France, and colleagues.
Sea level rise is a direct consequence of human-induced climate change: global warming. It is relentless and very hard to stop. It arises from human-induced warming and the consequential expansion of the ocean, plus the addition of more and more water from melting glaciers and
Beekeepers and their honeybees can be invaluable participants in environmental surveys, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS One by Jennifer Shelton of the UK Center for Ecology & Hydrology and colleagues.
Climate change is rapidly destroying cultural heritage sites across the Arctic, as exemplified in a 17th century "whalers' graveyard" which provides invaluable insights into early whalers' way of life, according to a study published in PLOS One by Lise Loktu of the Norwegian
Tropical coral reefs support the highest levels of biodiversity in the ocean. This vital ecosystem depends on reef-building corals, which form colonies of thousands of tiny coral animals that secrete calcium carbonate skeletons, creating the reef's complex structure. While
The dark side of pollinators The post Why These Bees May Be Killing the Plants They Feed From appeared first on Nautilus .
New trove of fossils reveals that ancestral animals likely emerged in the deep sea
Neptune’s oddball moon Nereid may be the sole remnant of an earlier system, formed near the planet rather than being pulled in from afar.
Justice-impacted individuals with disabilities (JIID) are nearly 11 percentage points less likely to be employed than people with disabilities who have not interacted with the criminal justice system, according to a study out of Cornell's Yang-Tan Institute on Employment and
What renders a city garden attractive to insects such as solitary bees, bumblebees and hoverflies? And how well do they pollinate plants in urban areas? A study by the Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape shows that insects can pollinate plants in the
Many pilots and cabin crew members go to work despite suffering from mental or physical health issues. This is shown in a new doctoral thesis by Filippa Folke at Karolinska Institutet.
A team of scientists has recorded one of the most detailed views ever of a failed solar eruption, a powerful blast from the sun that never broke free. Their work is published in the journal Nature Astronomy.
NIMS discovered a phenomenon in which droplets on a single solid surface exhibit both a "sticky" and "repellent" state simultaneously. Namely, the wetting behavior branches into two states. This is a discovery that overturns interface chemistry scientists' belief held for over
Millions of voters deliberately back one party in national elections and another in European elections to better match their views, according to new research from the University of Surrey. In a study published in Politics and Governance, researchers argue that this behavior is
The human hand is an evolutionary marvel. While other primates rely on their hands for locomotion and basic grasping, ours can shape tools, manipulate objects, and perform detailed tasks requiring great dexterity and precision. The evolutionary basis of this unique ability has
Storing carbon dioxide in rocks while producing hydrogen from them - and perhaps even geothermal power too - could be a double win on the climate front, and several groups are trying to make it happen
LSU researchers helped uncover what may be the first clear detection of gamma rays from a superluminous supernova, using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope—a breakthrough that offers new insight into the powerful magnetars believed to drive some of the universe's
Investors looking for higher returns may want to focus on a company's location instead of its growth potential, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State. They found that portfolios built to consider company headquarter location and the housing market together
Their migrations may be a “tail” of mating opportunities The post These World-Record Humpbacks Crossed 9,000 Miles of Open Ocean appeared first on Nautilus .
Best practices, including checking public E. coli reports and keeping your head above water can keep you safe while swimming.
Old oil and gas wells may continue to affect the environment long after they have stopped producing, with new field evidence showing that their leakage footprint can be broader and more persistent than surface methane measurements alone reveal. A study led by researchers at The
Urbanization is rapidly transforming natural habitats and poses growing challenges for wildlife. One lesser-known consequence is its potential impact on bird song, which plays a crucial role in communication, reproduction, and survival.
