For decades, scientists have understood proteins primarily through two defining features: their amino acid sequence and their three-dimensional structure. This framework has driven major advances in biology, biotechnology and medicine, culminating in recent artificial
Switching to a more sustainable diet could halve food-related emissions in cities such as Amsterdam, while in cities such as Dhaka and Delhi, the focus should be more on making food production more sustainable as they widen food access. A new database by Leiden researchers
The Hammerschmiede clay pit near Pforzen in the eastern Allgäu is famous for its wealth of finds: Besides fossils of two early anthropoid apes, the remains of numerous vertebrate species have been uncovered in 11.6-million-year-old river sediments—but until now, very few birds.
To be or not to be a gentle parent? That is the question. There is so much controversy these days about gentle parenting. What is it, and what is it not?
To monitor the amount and type of nuclear material at power plants and weapons facilities, scientists look for a special signal—the unique pattern of gamma rays emitted by specific radioactive elements. However, some of these elements also emit X-rays in the same energy range
As extreme heat becomes more frequent and severe, many people are turning to informal adaptation strategies—rigging up plastic sheeting overhead for shade, sharing water at a community tap and creating neighborhood cooling areas.
Life in the deep sea is under immense pressure—literally. Such extreme conditions can disrupt the delicate structures of proteins essential to life. Yet somehow, the proteins in deep-sea creatures remain functional. This raises an intriguing question: how?
A quarter-century after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, religious bias in America has not disappeared, but the forces shaping it have changed.
Historical records of the deadliest storms and heat waves may be a poor indicator of the scale and impact future weather disasters could have, scientists at King's College London warn.
UK gardens took a battering this summer as a heat dome settled over western Europe, and much of the green and pleasant land turned a dusty beige.
Even highly antibiotic-resistant bacteria become more vulnerable when their cell wall transport system is disrupted, according to a new study from Umeå University. The discovery reveals a previously overlooked weakness that could help researchers develop new strategies to
Paul K. Piff, UC Irvine associate professor of psychology, has officially been recognized for what millions of frustrated commuters have long suspected: The fancier the car, the worse the driver.
Imagine this. You pick up a contact lens from its container and—yikes!—it falls on the bathroom floor. Before you know it, your cat pounces, claws out. By the time you wrestle it back, the lens looks like a tiny chew toy. And then, just like that—the scratches fade away and the
Learning is often thought to require a brain. But learning is a broad concept that does not necessarily depend on neurons.
Dozens of glacial lakes have formed across northern India in the last three decades, while existing lakes have expanded rapidly, highlighting the need to monitor a landscape reshaped by climate change.
Dear scientists: Follow the ants The post A Natural Solution to the Replication Crisis in Science appeared first on Nautilus .
Editing a plant's genes is only half the battle. Before a new, improved trait can ever reach a farmer's field, scientists must be able to grow a whole plant from just a few edited cells—a process that can be slow, unreliable and, for some plant species, impossible.
A new report from Portland State University's Homelessness Research and Action Collaborative (HRAC) and the OHSU-PSU School of Public Health offers an in-depth examination of how individuals navigate, survive and attempt to exit homelessness in Multnomah County. Titled "Without
An international team of researchers, including CIIMAR, has developed a new tool that could help produce clams that are more resistant to disease and climate change while also strengthening the conservation of these species' genetic diversity. The study, published in the
The nutritional value of aquatic invertebrates such as oysters, mussels and crabs has been significantly overlooked, according to a new study led by researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST). The findings provide one of the most comprehensive
Scientists led by the Universitat Politècnica de Barcelona and the ESRF, the European Synchrotron, have revealed the chemical reactions in nanoparticles that created a unique, shimmering effect in the painting on ninth-century Islamic ceramics. The results are published in
Allowing females to mate with multiple males, rather than just one, could help make species more resistant to extinction, University of East Anglia research shows. A new study reveals that when females have multiple males to mate with, their offspring inherit significantly
Kinesin is a molecular motor responsible for hauling essential cargoes within cells by walking step by step along filamentous tracks known as microtubules. To move efficiently and avoid falling off, the motor's two feet must coordinate their stepping in a precise direction.
The historic droughts of 2023 and 2024 in the Amazon reduced river flows and altered the region's rainfall composition. Daily monitoring in Manaus, the capital of the Brazilian state of Amazonas, revealed these changes through the use of isotopes, which act as a kind of water
On a mostly flat plain an hour north of Stockholm lies a collection of large burial mounds dating from an ancient culture at least 2,500 years old. These people were not Vikings; they were northern Germanic Goths, pagan polytheists worshiping the precursors of Odin, Freyr and
Research underway in the lab of Rebecca Alexander, a professor in Wake Forest University's Department of Chemistry, is shedding light on an unusual human bacterium, Mycoplasma penetrans. Alexander's work to understand how and why this unique pathogen acts as it does could one
Anna Sheinberg, Ph.D. candidate in chemistry, is working with fellow researchers in Trinity College's Chemistry Department and at the Nasher Museum of Art to uncover new information about some of the ancient dyed textiles in the Nasher's collection.
How much more income does a two-person household need than a person living alone? The answer is not simply twice as much. Two people need more food and other necessities, but they can also share expenses such as housing. This means that as a household grows, the income needed
Unlike an animal cell, a plant cell can't crawl or migrate. It's locked inside a rigid wall, cemented to its neighbors for life. A cell born at the center of a young fruit will still be there when that fruit ripens.
More than 171 million students globally—or 1 in 10—from preprimary to upper secondary age had their schooling disrupted by climate hazards in 2025, according to a new analysis released by UNICEF today.
Parents often learn the hard way that to make it anywhere on time, they should calculate how much time they think they need to get ready—and double it.
Within tiny halos of light clinging to a vanishingly thin wisp of optical fiber, scientist Jongmin Lee guides atoms like marbles through a narrow pipe. Rock the fiber and the atoms shift side by side; they just don't fall off. But don't be deceived by the seemingly delicate
An entomologist at the University of Missouri has discovered two saucer bug species previously unknown to science, adding to our understanding of Earth's biodiversity.
Researchers from the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research & Technology's (SMART) Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) interdisciplinary research group, alongside collaborators from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Nanyang Technological University (NTU Singapore), and
During the COVID-19 pandemic, we wore masks and kept 2 meters (6.6 feet) apart in an effort to reduce the spread of the tiny droplets we release into the air with every breath, conversation or cough. The main goal was to reduce the number of virus particles—known as virions—to
Researchers have demonstrated that a naturally occurring mineral can serve as a low-loss optical material for next-generation broadband all–van der Waals nanophotonic components.
Historic data and predictions suggest cases will rise in East Africa and southern regions, while the threat may ease in West and Central Africa.
Light in the mid-infrared (mid-IR) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum plays a key role in modern sensing. Because molecules interact with this kind of light in specific ways, researchers use technologies like mid-IR spectroscopy to identify biological materials, drugs and
If you want to drum up support for environmental action, putting climate change front and center may not always be the best strategy. A new study by Aya Takagi and Ryosuke Nakadai of Yokohama National University suggests that support for policies that emphasize biodiversity
It might be good for the birds—and you The post What Bird Feeding Has to Do with Happiness appeared first on Nautilus .
Some 550 million years ago, Earth looked very different than it does today. The Southern Hemisphere was dominated by an enormous single continent known as Gondwana.
A University of the Basque Country-EHU research group has determined the causes of a 255 m (837 feet) crustal uplift of the Atlantic slope and a 167 m (548 feet) uplift of the Mediterranean slope, as well as the development of rivers in these areas.
England's approach to teaching young people about pornography may be doing more harm than good, according to new research from the University of Surrey. A new study argues that fear-based education is failing to reflect how teenagers actually encounter sexual media.
Quantum technologies are poised to transform fields ranging from medicine and sensing to computing and communications by manipulating the energy states of atoms and molecules. These manipulations are achieved by controlling quantum states with laser pulses.
So far, quantum computers have been held back by their extreme sensitivity to errors and external disturbances. The longer a quantum operation takes, the greater the risk of computational errors.
As tiny as they are, marine plankton play pivotal roles in biogeochemical cycles and sustaining aquatic ecosystems, producing around half of the oxygen on Earth and also acting as carbon sinks. When they die, their decomposing cells produce dissolved organic carbon that can be
Peatlands store large amounts of carbon. However, when they are drained, they can become substantial sources of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO₂).
In the transformation toward sustainability, the interests of societal, economic and political actors often clash, making conflict inevitable. Understanding these dynamics and learning how to engage with them constructively is therefore crucial.
Tiny manufacturing imperfections in optical components normally go unnoticed. Yet they can alter light in surprisingly significant ways. An international research team led by TU Darmstadt has shown that such imperfections can affect not only polarization—the direction in which
A recent study coordinated by the University of Helsinki tracked the populations of 100 bird species across Finnish protected areas. Cold-dwelling species fared better in large protected areas, while the same species saw much steeper declines in smaller ones.
