Astronomers may be closing in on a long-standing cosmic mystery: why some of the universe’s biggest galaxies seem to have far fewer stars than expected. Using NASA- and JAXA-supported XRISM observations of a galaxy called NGC 4151, researchers found strong evidence that
Off Oman's coast lives a small population of just over 80 Arabian Sea humpback whales (ASHWs). They are classified as endangered and are thought to be the only humpback whale population that doesn't undertake seasonal migrations across the world's oceans.
The race to build data centers in space is gaining momentum as AI drives unprecedented demand for computing power. Orbital facilities could tap into abundant solar energy and avoid many of the environmental challenges faced on Earth. Yet space remains a harsh and expensive
Australian Antarctic Program scientists are contributing to global understanding of the spread of H5 avian influenza (bird flu) with the release of findings from recent voyages to the remote sub-Antarctic Heard Island and McDonald Islands. The team has submitted its findings
Scientists may have uncovered a hidden trigger behind Alzheimer’s disease. Instead of plaques being the root cause, amyloid beta appears to interfere with tau, a protein that helps keep neurons functioning properly. This disruption could set off the damage that eventually leads
Proteins carry out almost every important function in our body, from copying our DNA to turning the food we eat into energy. These tiny "molecular machines" are first made by our cells as straight chains, like long pieces of string. Then, to work properly, each protein must
A chance discovery at Nagoya University in Japan has shown that a well-known brain enzyme has a hidden ability: It builds a sugar chain on itself, becomes secreted from the cell and deactivates, then switches on outside the cell once the chain is removed. The finding, published
Building more apartments will not solve Australia's housing affordability crisis unless policymakers address rising house prices and investor activity, new research shows. Australia's housing affordability crisis is being driven less by a shortage of apartments than by
Genomic selection has revolutionized animal breeding and accelerated genetic gains in breeding programs. However, the introduction of genomic selection in some cosmopolitan breeds has also been associated with increased inbreeding rates, raising concerns about the potential
Probiotic supplements found in drugstores nationwide contain an assortment of microbes sold for specific health purposes despite limited understanding of the microbes' connections to their marketed use, new University of Virginia School of Medicine research reveals. But the
In this era of Big Data, the prevailing wisdom is that more information leads to better answers. However, a new Canadian study shows that in the hunt for life's ancient ancestors, more data can actually lead to less truth. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Physicists at UC Santa Cruz and other institutes across California and New Mexico have developed a detection system that will allow next-generation particle accelerators to better reveal fundamental biological and chemical processes, as well as advance critical areas such as
According to a Concordia-led study, Canada's national parks may still be struggling to protect landscapes from fragmentation as effectively as intended. The paper is published in the journal Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.
Long-duration gamma-ray bursts are some of the most energetic events in the universe, releasing more energy in just a few seconds than the sun emits in 10 billion years. Los Alamos National Laboratory scientists, having discovered gamma-ray bursts more than 50 years ago,
Should you marry that person? Quit a steady career to retrain? Move across the country, away from aging parents? Sit with any of these and watch your mind spin. You weigh what you'd gain against what you'd lose. You run the numbers. And still no answer arrives.
Sending a spacecraft to the underexplored planet Uranus is at the top of many planetary scientists' wish lists. But which spacecraft-mounted instruments would be most useful for answering questions about the mysterious ice giant?
Financial markets are governed by a combination of rational and irrational forces, statistical probabilities and "animal spirits." It takes fluency in both to understand the market, let alone beat it. Yet market actors, including asset traders, now frequently use
Researchers at the National Graphene Institute, in collaboration with the National University of Singapore, have shown that the magnetic behavior of electrons in graphene can be precisely controlled using electricity, revealing unusually large spin signals in a carefully
Experiments at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory's National Ignition Facility (NIF) require breathtaking precision. Each of the 192 lasers is focused to a width of a few millimeters to enter a 3-millimeter hole at the top or bottom of a 2-centimeter (0.8-inch) gold
Half of all Americans live in the suburbs. For decades, planners and policymakers have blamed suburban sprawl's environmental and social costs on one thing: distance. The farther people live from city centers, the more they drive, the more carbon they emit and the more
Global climate change has increased the frequency of regional cold spells, causing substantial yield losses and even crop failure. Meanwhile, excessive nitrogen fertilizer use in agriculture has increased non-point-source pollution. Improving both stress resilience and nitrogen
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists studying the inner main-belt asteroid Donaldjohanson have found that its rotation wobbles. Rather than rolling through space in a steady pattern, Donaldjohanson turns on two axes, rotating end over end once every 10.5 Earth days
How does light turn into motion within a metal? A team of researchers from European XFEL, the University of Potsdam and other participating institutions has shown that ultrashort optical laser pulses can trigger extremely rapid lattice vibrations in periodically layered metal
A United States Army Lieutenant was the first to forecast the deadly storms in the late 1800s. Then he was told to stop. The post In the Midst of Tornado Season, a Surprisingly Short History of Predicting Twisters appeared first on Nautilus .
Imagine returning to a favorite hiking trail 15 years after your first visit and discovering that many of the plants and animals that once lived there are gone. While these species may still exist elsewhere, these disappearances—known as local extinctions—are among the clearest
Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) have proposed a warning tool that predicts, up to three weeks in advance, when river fish in Switzerland will be at risk from heat. As heat waves become more frequent with climate change,
People living in regions with lower scores on the Human Development Index face a substantially higher risk from climate-related disasters, even when these are not unusually severe. This is the key finding of a new study led by researchers at Leipzig University. The study
A new study of two supernova remnants, the debris left behind after stars explode, suggests the explosions came from stellar siblings that once orbited each other. The first star's detonation sent its binary companion hurtling through space, and then, after traveling for
Mosses are survivors. They can dry into what looks like green dust, only to spring back to life minutes after rain. They can grow on rocks, in deserts, and there's talk of using them to terraform Mars someday. According to new research, mosses have also been hiding something.
Soils that are exposed to prolonged drought often develop desiccation cracks, which impact soil properties and exacerbate moisture loss through evapotranspiration. Now, a study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign examines the evolution of soil cracking and how
Finding life beyond our solar system is a major goal of modern astronomy. NASA's planned Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) aims to take direct images of Earth-sized planets around stars other than our sun. This task, however, is extraordinarily difficult, given that these
Compostable plastics could be part of a solution to the world's plastic waste problem. But currently these materials need industrial composting facilities to break down. In a step toward making a home-compostable plastic, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have
Millions of light-years away, millions of years ago, a star exploded. In this violent process, it ejected incredible amounts of mass, including carbon, nitrogen and oxygen—the building blocks of life. In fact, the star may have produced elements on the periodic table all the
This NASA Hubble Space Telescope image features a galaxy cluster called CL0016+1609, or MACS J0018.5+1626, that is very bright at X-ray wavelengths and is one of the most extensively studied clusters at X-ray and radio wavelengths. X-ray observations of this cluster revealed
A conversation with an expert in geomythology about a wild idea The post Can “Dante’s Inferno” Tell Us Something About Space Rocks? appeared first on Nautilus .
When heat waves hit the Western United States, the risk of wildfires quickly rises. The prolonged heat dries out vegetation, but that's only part of the cause—heat waves also play other roles in spreading wildfires.
Greenland has recently been hit by localized wildfires, a rarity at this time of year that could be explained by global warming, a researcher at the Greenland Institute of Natural Resources said Thursday.
Scientists have discovered that the optimal diet for male fruit flies may depend strongly on whether they are reproducing, challenging long-standing assumptions about nutrition and aging. Led by researchers from the University of Liverpool's Department of Evolution, Ecology and
There is a Chinese saying that east or west, Guilin scenery is the best. Guilin and Chongqing, located in western China, are famous for their many mountains and rivers. They also harbor unique flora and fauna, such as the scaly-sided merganser, a globally endangered species
Palaeontologists have found new evidence that the early ancestors of amphibians, reptiles and mammals did not have a larval stage with external gills like modern frogs or salamanders
An extremely unusual tectonic movement took place 15 minutes after the Tohoku earthquake in 2011, causing almost the whole of Japan to move 5 millimetres to the east
Cells have evolved careful checks to ensure DNA is copied only once, but how they switch on replication at the right moment has been the focus of a 30-year research question. New work from the Crick has recorded the missing step.
Researchers at the University of Tsukuba have discovered that rainwater runoff in the highly rugged sedimentary rock mountains of Japan's Southern Alps is governed by two processes: "deep infiltration" and "shallow drainage via landslides." These processes are dictated by the
These ruins, located just five kilometers from Stonehenge, likely laid the groundwork for religious rites celebrating the longest and shortest days of the year
Ultrasound-based irradiation of rock formations has attracted considerable attention as a technique for enhancing heavy-oil (high-viscosity crude oil) recovery from deep underground reservoirs. However, a unified theoretical framework for wave propagation and energy dissipation
Breaking up with a loved one is often a painful life experience, one that is difficult to recover from. Researchers from SWPS University, however, suggest that a simple step can help. Writing down the story of a past relationship increases the effectiveness of thinking about
The RINO project was born from the discovery of unusual marks on rhinoceros teeth recovered from the prehistoric Payre site in France's Rhône Valley. The study of fossil rhinoceros teeth from this Middle Paleolithic site, dating to around 250,000–130,000 years ago, provides
Billions of years ago, environmental conditions on Mars were significantly more hospitable than they are today. Our neighboring planet was likely warm, humid and surrounded by a dense atmosphere. Whether simple microorganisms could have evolved at that time remains an open
Micro- and nanoplastics are now popping up everywhere: in seawater, snow, food and even in our bodies. The very smallest particles, in particular, are difficult to measure, meaning we still know too little about their spread and associated risks. UvA chemist Maria Hayder and
This “extraordinary” event was likely caused by seismic waves bouncing off Earth’s core, researchers found