The mammalian gut microbiome teems with a delicate balance of bacteria and the viruses that keep them in check, called bacteriophages, or phages. Each bacterial species usually has its own set of phage partners.
Soft materials such as colloidal suspensions, emulsions, foams and gels often display complex and unusual behaviors compared with ordinary solids or liquids. From a mechanical point of view, for instance, they can resist deformation like solids, but they can also start to flow
Astronomers have confirmed that one of the fastest-changing stars ever observed has entered a new stage of its evolution, offering a rare opportunity to watch a star's life unfold on human timescales.
The longest satellite record ever assembled shows that Greenland and Antarctica have lost 11.3 trillion metric tons of ice since the 1970s, raising global sea level by more than 3 centimeters (1.2 inches)—and that most of the loss has come from glaciers flowing faster into the
Laser scanning, often referred to as lidar, has rapidly transformed how tropical forest regions are studied, monitored and understood across academic disciplines. The technology enables researchers to peer through dense forest canopies, rapidly providing high-resolution scans
Critically endangered Sumatran elephants are being pushed closer to the brink as wildfires raze vast swaths of their habitat on the western island of Sumatra, Indonesian conservation group Geopix told AFP on Wednesday.
SpaceX announced Tuesday that it was planning to send its flagship rocket, Starship, into orbit, a key step in its project to one day reach the moon or Mars.
The United States has confirmed for the first time that it has deployed weapons in space, a remarkable revelation after previous warnings about countries such as Russia possibly weaponizing a global frontier long agreed in treaties to be used for only peaceful purposes.
Brigid Lynch was working along a wooded creek in a mountainous part of the San Francisco Bay Area when something that didn't look like the rocks she'd been studying caught her eye. It turned out to be the fossilized tooth of a Pacific mastodon.
Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have developed a way to unravel changing weather patterns on distant worlds. Using this approach, they discovered that the weather on a well-studied brown dwarf, SIMP 0136, previously linked to northern lights-like phenomena, is largely
A new national study reveals the widespread reach of violence across the United States, finding that more than half of U.S. adults have experienced physical violence and nearly half have experienced sexual violence in their lifetimes. The U.S. National Study on Violence
Two-thirds of a century after Jane Goodall observed "David Greybeard" break off a twig to fashion a fishing rod for termites, researchers following in her footsteps have found that adult chimpanzees in Senegal literally hand youngsters the tools for learning.
According to research by the IfM Bonn, strengthening research collaboration between universities and businesses requires regional technology transfer networks in which technology transfer offices at universities and research institutions, as well as chambers of commerce and
Smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa adopt agricultural inputs, including fertilizer, at low rates, contributing to low agricultural productivity. Previous research has shown that insufficient information and distrust in the quality of products for sale in local markets
Neurons in humans and other mammals express many exceptionally long genes, ranging from more than 100 kbp to more than 2 Mbp, that are important for forming synapses and neural circuits. In general, genetic information is read from DNA into RNA. This process is called
Climate change, driven by humans, is making extreme weather more commonplace
Light is traditionally described by properties such as wavelength, amplitude, phase and polarization. Advances in optics have shown that light can also be shaped into complex spatial patterns known as structured light, enabling new ways to carry information and interact with
Older adults who changed the balance of fat, carbohydrates, and animal protein in their diets showed signs of reduced biological age after just four weeks. The strongest result appeared in participants eating an omnivorous, lower-fat, higher-carbohydrate diet.
The way a product is labeled can change how consumers think about it. "No added sugar" or "99% fat-free" can make food sound healthier than it really is.
This year, greyhound racing in Britain turns 100 years old. The first race took place on July 24, 1926, in Manchester, where six dogs chased a mechanical hare around a track.
Introducing the “natural kiln hypothesis” The post Did Wildfires Spark the Invention of Pottery? appeared first on Nautilus .
Heat stress is a leading cause of weather-related deaths and can be especially dangerous in cities, where phenomena like urban heat islands drive temperatures higher than in surrounding rural areas. Now, a new dataset developed by the U.S. National Science Foundation National
A new prehistoric animal species from Tanzania dating to around 240 million years ago, during the Triassic period, has been described by an international team of researchers. Led by the University of Bristol, the new species, named Dinodontosaurus isiyavamanda, could help
Carbon dioxide (CO₂) can be harmful to the environment in large amounts but can be used in the production of fuels and other useful chemicals. Doing so isn't easy, though. Now, Yale researchers have developed a new way to combine electrocatalysis and plasma to efficiently and
Weather forecasts inform countless everyday decisions—from farmers deciding when to sow crops and energy companies anticipating demand to public authorities preparing for heat waves. But how useful those forecasts are depends considerably on where people live.
The tolerance of individual Canadians for radical forms of environmental activism depends on several factors. Overall, however, Canadians do not support vandalism or violence as forms of protest. Those are the key findings of a new study by researchers from McGill University
In the hills of northwestern Morocco, overlooking the river that gives the site its name, research at Oued Beht is bringing to light a previously unknown chapter of the region's past. The discovery of a substantial built structure suggests that, during the second millennium BC,
There’s simply not enough water The post Why Elon Musk’s “Self-Growing” Moon Cities Are Tragically Flawed appeared first on Nautilus .
New cases of New World screwworm have recently surfaced in the United States, highlighting the critical need to track its paths to determine where future infestations may occur. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS) are
No, President Joe Biden did not engineer Hurricane Milton. No, the ice crystal contrails left behind by high-altitude aircraft are not "chemtrails" sprayed by governments to control the weather or manipulate populations. No, state-run cloud seeding did not cause the record
A new collaborative report from University of Utah researchers and coordinated by the Wilkes Center for Climate Science & Policy provides Utah Department of Natural Resources, Department of Environmental Quality and policymakers with a comprehensive analysis of the growing
This starry view of the nearby star-forming region IC 348 is one of the largest images released to date from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope. Using Webb, astronomers searched IC 348 for brown dwarfs, which are less massive than the smallest stars. The researchers discovered
A research team at the Institute of Applied Physics at TU Darmstadt has shown for the first time that atoms that are completely disordered and in constant motion can nevertheless emit jointly directed light preferentially in one direction—even though neither the atoms nor their
Across parts of the internet where young men trade tips on self-improvement, the latest project is scent. Deodorant is out, and washing less is in.
The same amount of rain falling on the same landscape at different times can send very different amounts of water into its rivers, according to a new study in Nature Water. The research offers a global picture of how catchments behave—not where rivers are or how much water they
Amid renewed calls to slow frontier AI, experts are considering what an emergency stop would entail—and who would decide when to use it
Scientists have found how a protein produced by bacteria disrupts the mechanism that controls flower development in plants, turning reproductive organs into leaf-like structures. These findings shed light on a plant disease that is expected to spread as climate change expands
Helicobacter pylori bacteria infect around half the global population and are a leading cause of stomach ulcers and gastric cancer. While antibiotics remain the standard treatment, they often fail to reach bacteria hidden beneath the stomach's protective mucus layer and deep
Chemical separation can be energy-intensive when molecules have similar sizes and properties. Researchers from Shibaura Institute of Technology, Japan, have now developed an interlayer adaptive crystal that changes its spacing to recognize specific molecules.
Xufeng Zhang is using magnets to make computers more power efficient at the quantum level. The Northeastern professor of electrical and computer engineering recently published two papers highlighting small-scale magnetic systems he and his team developed that could help make
Shorebirds are capable of some of the longest migrations on Earth, yet most return year after year to the same area to breed. Coming back has distinct advantages, including knowing the best spots to feed or roost, having information about where predators lurk,
From a mountainside overlooking Utah's Great Salt Lake, a time traveler turning back the clock 20,000 years would watch a dramatic transformation of the landscape. The shallow, salty lake below would swell into an immense body of fresh water, at one point reaching nearly 1,000
An international team that includes researchers from Murdoch University's Centre for Crop and Food Innovation (CCFI) has built the most comprehensive genetic map of the peanut yet and used this new genomic resource to breed a higher-yielding dwarf peanut line.
A multidisciplinary team of researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark, Queen Mary University of London and other European institutions analyzed a data set representing almost 300,000 kilometers (186,000 miles) of Roman roads across the former empire, creating the most
Climate change is increasing the frequency of both droughts and floods, meaning back-to-back extreme events are also on the rise. These rapidly alternating crises can harm people in complex ways. For example, back-to-back climate extremes can stress crops, reducing yields.
Inside each human cell, about 2 meters (6.6 feet) of genomic DNA must be accurately copied and equally transmitted to two daughter cells during cell division. To achieve this, the copied DNA is condensed into thick, short structures called mitotic chromosomes. However, how
When two popular science magazines—out of about 17 in circulation—ceased publication in the same year, one commentator said, "The science magazines didn't shake out. They fell apart." The general manager of one of the failed magazines said, "There was a perception that they
For more than a decade, it was thought that the world's most plastic-polluted birds couldn't get any more contaminated by the man-made material. But then, from 2023–2026, the record was broken every single year.
Rice and lentils are a pairing that goes a long way back, whether as khichdi in India or mujaddara in the Middle East. On its own, each is a source of incomplete protein, short on certain essential amino acids—but paired together, they fill each other's gaps, and lentils also
Irrigating U.S. crops prevents higher greenhouse gas emissions by avoiding land conversion, new research by Colorado State University shows. Agricultural irrigation allows the United States to grow more food on less land. If irrigation were suddenly shut off, the land-use
