New research shows that short periods of extreme heat and drought during flowering could become one of the biggest threats to global wheat production in the coming decades. As the climate changes, farmers around the world are facing more frequent and intense weather extremes.
An international research team, including VUB data scientist Yannick Jadoul, has shed new light on the rhythmic nature of sexual behavior in bonobos. By precisely analyzing the tempo of movements during sex, researchers aim to better understand which building blocks of rhythm
On a cool spring morning in a northern forest, the ground feels soft underfoot. Mist hangs between the trunks, and the air smells of wet leaves and old humus; the slow alchemy that keeps a forest alive. Beneath the surface, billions of microbes break down organic matter and
For years, consumers have quietly edited themselves online. A harsh review softened. A detail left out. A complaint never posted at all. New research shows that when the legal threat behind that silence disappears, the internet gets more honest, and more useful, almost
Some sound baffling could give birds the reprieve they need from our noise pollution The post The World Is Becoming Too Loud for Birds appeared first on Nautilus .
Rutgers researchers have made a discovery that could change the future of seafood farming in New Jersey. A study led by marine scientist Daphne Munroe has shown that Atlantic surfclams can be successfully farmed in the open ocean. Her research, published in the North American
A newly examined prehistoric shark from the age of dinosaurs provides surprising insights into the early evolution of modern sharks. It cannot be confidently assigned to any shark order that exists today and thus calls into question previous assumptions about the evolution of
Chinese chatbots may be censored by the state, according to a study published in PNAS Nexus. China has a robust program of censorship and all China-originating LLMs must be approved by the Chinese government before release.
The new moon on Feb. 17 marks the start of the Lunar New Year, a celebration originating in China that today is celebrated around the world. According to the Chinese zodiac, 2026 is the year of the Fire Horse, symbolizing energy and passion.
An ultrastable laser could enable extremely precise timing and navigation on the moon, and the cold, dark craters near the lunar poles would be the ideal location for it
Just how small can a QR code be? Small enough that it can only be recognized with an electron microscope. A research team at TU Wien, working together with the data storage technology company Cerabyte, has now demonstrated exactly that. The QR code covers an area of just 1.98
The complex biology of ghrelin, the hunger hormone, has researchers wondering how its absence helps snakes last a long time with no food, if at all.
For 40 years, scientists have been monitoring the Neotropical otter (Lontra longicaudis) along the southern coast of Brazil. A study published in Estuarine Management and Technologies reveals that these charismatic mammals are far more than just inhabitants of the coast; they
Understanding what complex chemical measurements reveal about materials and reactions can take weeks or months of analysis. But now, an AI-powered platform developed by researchers at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) could reduce
Common seal pups communicate in ways that are more similar to humans than previously thought. For instance, they take turns when "speaking" and their calls become increasingly alike when they spend time around each other. This is shown by research conducted by biologist Koen de
There is much debate about the role of social media in young people's lives. But what do adolescents themselves think about it? In any case, they feel they are not being listened to enough, according to a new study by Radboud University. The report outlines how young people
Fairy wrens are everywhere. Go anywhere in Australia and there will be at least one local fairy wren. They're not endangered. In fact, it would be hard to imagine an animal less endangered than fairy wrens. So what do we gain from researching them? Quite a lot actually.
Imagine a "smart fluid" whose internal structure can be rearranged just by changing temperature. In a new study published in Matter, researchers report a way to overcome a long-standing limitation in a class of "smart fluids" called nematic liquid crystal microcolloids,
The International Mathematical Olympiad (IMO) is a prestigious competition featuring talented high school students from around the world, in which competitors solve complicated mathematical problems. Geometry problems from these kinds of competitions—in particular, the formal
Technology is making the ride-hail industry more accessible than ever, according to new research published in the Strategic Management Journal. The study, conducted by academics at the National University of Singapore (NUS), shows that navigation apps are not just a
Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory, working with international partners, have uncovered surprising behavior in a specially engineered crystal. Composed of tantalum, tungsten and selenium—elements often studied for their potential in advanced
New research reveals the evolutionary accident that is the human chin The post Chins: The Evolutionary Accident Unique to Homo Sapiens appeared first on Nautilus .
What's the key to growing resilient crops that can survive tough conditions? Researchers at the University of Missouri are getting to the root of it—literally. Researchers in the Walter Gassmann lab at Mizzou's Bond Life Sciences Center have discovered how a specific protein
When an electron travels through a polar crystalline solid, its negative charge attracts the positively charged atomic cores, causing the surrounding crystal lattice to deform. The electron and lattice distortion then move together through the material—like a single object.
A mystery novel, a history book, and a fantasy epic may have little in common in plot or style. But count the words inside them and a strange regularity appears: many new words show up early, then fewer and fewer as the author reuses what has already been introduced. That
Adjusting the size and chemistry of nanocrystals within an ultrathin surface can speed up light-driven chemical reactions, according to a University of Michigan Engineering study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. The new method works by matching the
Canine cancer patients receiving a new form of immunotherapy lived longer or shorter depending on the composition of their microbiome, the community of organisms living in their gut. Results of the clinical trial led by Oregon State University scientists were published in
NASA will attempt a second ‘wet dress rehearsal’ and simulated launch of its upcoming moon mission on Thursday
Astrophysicists from the University of Waterloo have observed a new jellyfish galaxy, the most distant one of its kind ever captured. Jellyfish galaxies are named for the long, tentacle-like streams that trail behind them. They move quickly through their hot, dense galaxy
Humans have climbed to the top of the food chain by skillfully hunting, trapping, and fishing for other animals at scales that far exceed other predators, altering how the animals behave and earning the tag of a "super-predator." But a new study led by the Center for Ecological
Jessica Allen crunched through fallen leaves among Manzanita trees hunting for something few have spotted before: the Manzanita butter clump—a rare and little-known yellow mushroom found, so far, only along North America's Western coastlines.
A global study has revealed the conditions under which non-native plants thrive in the world's many dryland regions and the factors that limit their spread. Using data from 98 study sites across 25 countries on six continents, researchers found that non-native plants often grow
Extreme heat can have a devastating effect on seagrass, but new research from Edith Cowan University (ECU) could shape how these vitally important marine ecosystems are managed and restored. In separate studies carried out on both the west and east coasts of Australia,
Survival of the fittest. Nature red in tooth and claw. The common view of natural selection is based solely on the individual: A trait allows an organism to out-compete its rivals and is thus passed down to its offspring. To suggest otherwise can provoke the ire of certain
A stunning “ring of fire” eclipse was totally visible to a lucky few in the Southern Hemisphere. Here’s how to see the next one
Scientists have long seen a puzzling pattern in tokamaks, the doughnut-shaped machines that could one day reliably generate electricity from fusing atoms. When plasma particles escape the core of the magnetic fields that hold the plasma in its doughnut shape, they stream down
Religious “nones” may be less socially liberal than they used to be The post Does Belief in God, not Political Party, Drive Conservatism? appeared first on Nautilus .
The low-noise, high-gain properties needed for high-performance quantum computing can be realized in a microwave photonic circuit device called a Josephson traveling-wave parametric amplifier (JTWPA), RIKEN researchers have shown experimentally. This advance stands to speed up
The evolution of human hands is one of the most important – and overlooked – stories of our origin. Now, new fossil evidence is revealing their pivotal role
A giant virus encodes part of the protein-making toolkit of cells that gives it greater control over its amoeba host, raising questions about how it evolved and how such beings relate to living organisms
A team from the University of Freiburg led by neurobiologist and behavioral biologist Prof. Dr. Andrew Straw studied the flight behavior of honey bees. Using a drone, the researchers tracked honey bees as they flew between their hive and a food source about 120 meters away in
In The Story of Stories , technologist Kevin Ashton explores how storytelling has evolved and why stories matter.
Dark energy is one of those cosmological features that we are still learning about. While we can't see it directly, we can most famously observe its effects on the universe—primarily how it is causing the expansion of the universe to speed up. But recently, physicists have
Deep inside the Greenland ice sheet are giant swirling plume-like structures. These have puzzled scientists for over a decade, but UiB researchers now believe they have cracked the mystery by applying the same mathematics used to understand how continents drift apart.
Scientists have produced the first global map and analysis of small mare ridges (SMRs) on the moon, a characteristic geological feature of tectonic activity. Published in The Planetary Science Journal Dec. 24, 2025, the analysis performed by scientists at the National Air and
The United Arab Emirates announced on Tuesday that it would extend its Mars probe mission, now in its fifth year, for an additional three, underlining the oil-rich state's space ambitions.
Fifteen years ago, Beijing's Liangma riverbanks would have been smog-choked and deserted in winter, but these days they are dotted with families and exercising pensioners most mornings.
Singapore was a thriving trading hub hundreds of years before popular narratives depicted it as a quiet fishing village, according to a study of the cargo of a centuries-old shipwreck. Sometime during the middle of the 14th century, a merchant ship sank off the coast of
Triceratops and similar horned dinosaurs had unusually large nasal cavities compared to most animals. Researchers, including those from the University of Tokyo, used CT scans of fossilized Triceratops skulls and compared their structures with modern animals such as birds and
Henry Yuen is developing a new mathematical language to describe problems whose inputs and outputs aren’t ordinary numbers. The post A New Complexity Theory for the Quantum Age first appeared on Quanta Magazine
