Geological faults hold many secrets that may help us answer important questions about the nature of our planet and what really happens deep underground. One of the biggest mysteries lies within the Atotsugawa Fault System in Japan. What makes the area unusual is that, despite
When inorganic nanoparticles come together, their optical, electronic, and magnetic properties depend strongly on how they are arranged. Being able to reorganize these arrangements in a controlled way could therefore provide a powerful method for tuning material properties.
Describing new species can take decades. But scientists are working to identify new ways to speed up our understanding of this hidden biodiversity. By looking at the genetic data of thousands of beetle species, our researchers are able to reveal the true breadth of tropical
Government departments and other public bodies in the UK must consider requests to release information about AI-produced content, regulators have confirmed. The move follows a successful request by New Scientist for the release of a minister's ChatGPT logs
Medications are designed to treat diseased tissues while sparing healthy ones, often by attaching the drug to something that helps guide it directly to its target. But drugs also need time to work, which means they need to stay near the diseased tissues long enough.
More than 500 million years ago, during what is known as the Cambrian period, the seas and oceans on Earth were filled with a myriad of marine animals, many of which have now become extinct. This evolutionary burst in new forms of life, referred to as the Cambrian explosion,
People exposed to the Andes strain of the hantavirus may not develop symptoms for up to 42 days, a delay that makes tracing infections more difficult
With millions of people now using GLP-1 drugs such as Wegovy and Zepbound, scientists are racing to find ways to help people retain their weight loss after they stop taking the medication
Long-held assumptions tell us that atoms with the same number of protons, neutrons and electrons are indistinguishable, but one physicist wants to put this idea to the test
Insulators are materials in which electrons cannot move freely. Past theoretical studies predicted the existence of an unusual insulating state dubbed obstructed atomic insulator (OAI), in which electrons are localized inside a crystal, while their centers of charge lie in
Are we really falling short on protein—or is the high-protein craze overblown?
Tropical forests store more than 60% of the world's vegetation biomass and are among the most important ecosystems for regulating the global carbon cycle and climate. However, their regulatory role is greatly influenced by the forests' carbon residence time—how long carbon
In a forest of pine and eucalyptus trees in central Portugal, chainsaws and diggers hum away clearing paths blocked by trees uprooted in winter storms, but the threat now is a high risk of summer fires.
Micheline Nzonzi cradled a small and sleepy bonobo, an orphan whose life she will try to save over the next three years or so.
More than a decade after the Nagoya Protocol, which aims to fairly share the benefits of utilizing genetic resources, became law, microbiologists and other scientists still face practical challenges and confusion. A new guide published by a team of European microbiologists
The sci-fi film Project Hail Mary, currently in theaters, is capturing the attention of both audiences and the scientific community for its science-based content. It manages to engage viewers with complex, cutting-edge topics—from astrophysics to language—without sacrificing
It's autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, which means it's fog season in the Victorian Alps. NASA's Terra satellite captured this view of morning fog filling valleys in several national parks across the mountains of eastern Victoria in May.
Archaeologists have found something unexpected inside a 1,600-year-old Roman-era Egyptian mummy: a fragment of Homer's Iliad. It wasn't placed beside the body, but inside the mummy's abdomen. But the real surprise isn't just where the fragment was found. It's how it got there.
Scientists at UBC Okanagan have uncovered how plants produce mitraphylline, a rare natural compound with promising anti cancer potential. The team identified two enzymes that work together to build the molecule’s unusual twisted structure, solving a mystery that had puzzled
Scientists at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, have uncovered a crucial trick used by enteroviruses—the group behind diseases like polio, myocarditis, encephalitis, and even the common cold—to reproduce inside human cells. The team captured, in unprecedented
Researchers found a new way to kill harmful “zombie” cells that linger after chemotherapy and help cancers become more aggressive. These senescent cells survive by relying on a protective protein called GPX4, even while sitting on the edge of a deadly iron-triggered collapse.
Iodine deficiency is often seen as a problem of the past, but this isn't entirely true. During the 20th century, the iodization of salt became one of the most effective public health interventions for preventing conditions caused by a lack of this mineral, including goiter
Ganymede, Jupiter's largest moon, is also the solar system's largest satellite, even larger than the planet Mercury. It is also the only celestial body aside from Earth (and the gas giants) to have an intrinsic magnetic field. As if this didn't make the icy body interesting
Gravitational wave researchers working on the world's most sensitive scientific instruments have found a way to tune their detectors using a process akin to the pitch-correction used in music production.
New research in mice is shedding light on this paradox The post Why Do Regular Cannabis Users Tend to Weigh Less? appeared first on Nautilus .
Harbor porpoises were once found across a much wider area of the Baltic Sea than they are today, including regions where they are now rare or absent. This is shown in a new study that uses centuries-old Swedish newspapers to reconstruct past distribution patterns.
As blood stem cells age, their lysosomes become overactive and damaged, triggering inflammation and weakening the body’s ability to regenerate healthy blood and immune cells. By calming this cellular “overdrive,” researchers restored the stem cells’ youthful function,
The largest-ever survey of physicists from around the world—released today—shows a distinct lack of consensus across many of physics's most important questions, from the nature of black holes and dark matter, to the still-incomplete unification of Einstein's theory of gravity
With plastic pollution at an all-time high, the need for biodegradable materials has never been higher. Most packaging is "single use" and is made from sources, like natural gas, that take hundreds of years to decompose in the environment. This is greatly contributing to the
Beneath the tropical trees of southern Mexico, enormous shoals of sulfur mollies blanket the water surface of toxic sulfur springs, where survival depends on collective defense against relentless attacks from predatory birds. The tiny fish survive attacks of birds through
Male primates may be larger than females partly because of pressure from rival groups, not just competition with males inside their own group.
Weak science leads to bad forecasting and poor decision making The post How Trump’s Science Cuts Threaten National Security appeared first on Nautilus .
Technion researchers have developed, for the first time, a comprehensive physical model explaining how the properties of a radiating material, including absorption, emission, and quantum efficiency, affect the fundamental characteristics of the light it emits as a function of
Scientists have discovered that they can eavesdrop on the secret lives of birds using networks of inexpensive microphones, revealing complex behaviors across vast wilderness areas, according to research published in the journal Ecology. Previously, microphone technology that
Different receptors respond to different neurotransmitters or hormones, such as adrenaline involved in the fight-or-flight response, or dopamine linked to reward and motivation. Both the receptors themselves and the substances they recognize are often very similar, but still
If you've ever taken an introductory astronomy class, you've probably seen the Hertzsprung-Russell (HR) diagram. This graph maps out the life cycle of stars by plotting their temperature against their luminosity, and has been a "cheat sheet" for stellar astrophysics for over a
Soils are home to some of the most diverse animal communities on Earth. These animals—including nematodes, springtails, mites, earthworms, spiders and other arthropods—drive decomposition, regulate microbial communities and contribute to nutrient cycling. However, little is
A new study shows that a single radioactive cloud was responsible for a large share of the nuclear fallout during the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster on 11 March 2011. The work is published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.
The signatories, including more than 35 Nobel laureates, decry the “alarming attack on the ability of the US to engage in basic and applied research” The post Thousands of Scientists Sign Letter to Combat Science Board’s Firing appeared first on Nautilus .
NASA's Perseverance Mars rover recently took a self-portrait against a sweeping backdrop of ancient Martian terrain at a location the science team calls Lac de Charmes. Assembled from 61 individual images, the selfie shows Perseverance training its mast on a rocky outcrop on
Oil and natural gas are vital constituents of our energy ecosystem that need to be transported across long distances. Although steel pipelines are the infrastructure used for this purpose, thereby serving as the lifeline for crucial energy distribution, they introduce the added
Human childbirth is commonly viewed as uniquely difficult and dangerous. The reason: The combination of bipedalism and large brains creates a tight fit between the baby and the birth canal. Research at the University of Vienna has now shown that many other mammals—from domestic
Proteins do most of the work in our body's cells. But when a protein is too active or does not function properly, it can lead to disease or other health problems. Researchers from the University of Toronto have discovered a molecule, CLEO4-88, that acts as a "molecular glue,"
Many creams and serums contain artificial ingredients that are harmful to the environment. Natural plant oils would be more sustainable but are difficult to process. ETH researcher Svitlana Mykolenko has developed a way of turning plant oils into stable gels without synthetic
What if fog isn't just misty air, but a living ecosystem? This question hung over cloud researcher Thi Thuong Thuong Cao. As a Ph.D. student at Arizona State University, her curiosity led her from knocking on the doors of microbiologists and chemists, to sampling fog before
Cornell astronomers are deploying a new instrument that grants them, for the first time, a better view of the universe's earliest galaxies, which can't be observed individually with traditional ground- or space-based telescopes.
Educators should teach students how to use AI tools but with an emphasis on the ethics, social impact, and potential biases of the tech, experts said Thursday during a conversation sponsored by Harvard Education Press.
Life leaves a pattern, not just a trace The post A Powerful New Tool to Find Alien Life appeared first on Nautilus .
The widespread hypothesis that climate warming will result in unprecedented agricultural pest populations and cause food insecurity worldwide is oversimplified, according to a new study by a team led by Mia Lippey, an entomologist at the University of California, Davis. But the
Australia is the driest inhabited continent on Earth. Somehow, it feels like it's getting hotter and drier every day.
