Every time your heart beats, your lungs expand, or your skin stretches, a remarkable protein called elastin helps your body return to its original shape. But what exactly gives this protein its elasticity? For more than 50 years, scientists have debated whether elastin's
Popular media, from computer games to movies, often portray medieval life as being dominated by fighters and farmers. In these depictions, there's little evidence of a world beyond political struggle and simple subsistence.
A hopeful story for the world's largest, critically endangered sea turtle may be playing out along the sandy beaches of Ecuador.
Scientists have used new machine learning techniques to investigate a topic no one has ever found a way to study: the evolution of fish moving together in schools across thousands of species. The new paper, published Nov. 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
New research from the University of St Andrews has uncovered the primary drivers of tin mineralization, which will have significant implications for the discovery of tin deposits critical to the energy transition.
A parasitic infection commonly associated with cats may be associated with severe, potentially sight-threatening ocular disease in dogs, according to a new study by researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Tropical farmers are often expected to choose between high crop yields and protecting wildlife. However, an international team of researchers led by the University of Vienna, in collaboration with the universities of Göttingen and Würzburg in Germany and Bioversity
We've been waiting a long time for the Extremely Large Telescope's first light, scheduled for March 2029. Telescopes this large, powerful and costly always have multiple science goals, and that's true for the ELT. One of its science goals is to study fundamental aspects of the
Most of us are familiar with the urge to pick up a seashell from the beach or keep a stone from a hiking trip. The object itself may be ordinary, but to the person who keeps it, it serves as a reminder of a particular moment, place or person. Where did this behavior come from?
New research links clean air to tighter glucose control The post How A Bedroom Air Filter Could Keep Your Blood Sugar in Check appeared first on Nautilus .
Regions worldwide may have already experienced around 90%–94% of the warming expected when the global average reaches 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, and 65%–76% of that expected at 2°C of warming. The findings, published in Nature Climate Change, suggest that regional
Animals communicate in ways that are sometimes obvious to us and sometimes almost completely hidden. Bright colors, songs and courtship displays are easy to notice. Chemical signals are different: an animal can leave a message behind long after it has moved away.
Most of the stars in the Milky Way are what we might call normal stars. They're main sequence stars like our sun, meaning they're doing what most people probably think stars do: shining as they fuse hydrogen atoms into helium atoms on a vast scale.
Energy can be carried in a number of ways: by electrons, the particles that underpin all modern electronics, as well as by quasiparticles, the results of different particles interacting with one another at the quantum level. Columbia chemist Milan Delor has been watching these
A research team led by Lu Haipeng, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), has achieved a breakthrough in preserving spin information for optoelectronic technologies. The team has developed a perovskite chiral
The planet already grows enough food to feed everyone. The problem is one of logistics. A third of all the food grown and raised goes to waste, meaning that one in 12 people does not have enough to eat.
Mid-infrared observations with the Subaru Telescope have revealed the shape and surface temperature of the nucleus of Comet 2P/Encke. By analyzing how the nucleus's thermal emission changed as it rotated, the researchers found that the nucleus is elongated, with a long axis of
An infrared signal thought to reveal how molecules in perovskite solar materials respond to light-generated charges can arise largely from the way light travels through the thin film itself, a new theoretical study shows. Jun Nishida, assistant professor at the Institute for
Helicenes are a class of organic molecules consisting of benzene rings arranged in a spiral-like shape. These molecules exhibit significant circularly polarized luminescence—emission of light with left or right handedness—and are expected to be utilized in 3D displays and
An international research team led by the University of Sydney has found a way to formulate microemulsions without traditional surfactants, which are often toxic and hard to separate from end products. The findings have important implications for pharmaceutical applications and
Using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have discovered what is triggering repeated outbursts from a giant, unstable star.
Every year, fungal infections kill around 2.5 million people worldwide, more than tuberculosis and malaria combined. Yet most people may have never heard of the fungi responsible, and few health systems track them in any organized way.
A conversation with cognitive scientist Evelina Fedorenko about where thought and language overlap The post Do We Think in Pictures, Words, or… Code? appeared first on Nautilus .
UCLA-led astronomers have discovered the first known "disappearing planet" about 1,000 light-years away. The planet, TOI-2535 b, is a "hot Jupiter," a gas giant that orbits extremely close to its host star. TOI-2535 b whips around its star in only 8.25 days—10 times faster than
During a disaster, emergency managers need quick, reliable data to make decisions, but the vast and changing stream of information that emerges during a crisis can make it difficult to distinguish facts from noise.
Discovering new molecules for specific uses is a major driver of progress in a wide variety of industries, whether it's pharmaceutical companies looking for new drugs or electronics or energy companies seeking new materials with particular properties. But it's also largely a
Freshly harvested fruit remains metabolically active, respires vigorously and is highly sensitive to ethylene. It is therefore highly susceptible to softening, browning, water loss and decay. Currently, about 25% of fruit is lost in the postharvest supply chain because of
A century after the Taung Child permanently altered our view of human origins, a new study published in npj Palaeoecosystems dates the famous fossil to between 2.96 and 3.03 million years old. Led by professor Gabriele Macho of the Archaeology, Environmental Changes and
Anthropologists seeking to understand human evolution often include primates such as chimps or apes in their studies. But a new review paper by Kyle Smith, a postdoctoral research scholar in NC State's College of Veterinary Medicine, argues that an equally informative animal is
An exceptionally well-preserved, approximately 47-million-year-old owl fossil from the UNESCO World Heritage Site Messel provides new clues as to when owls became nocturnal. The newly described species Masillastrix blattophaga was likely still diurnal—as indicated by an
Long-period, high-inclination comets of the sort that can cause extinction-level impacts here on Earth have long been thought to originate from a theoretical Oort cloud. That is, a roughly spherical cloud of icy cometary objects that number in the trillions at distances that
Symmetry is all around us, from the repeating patterns of crystals to the stitches in a knitted sweater. In materials science, these patterns are more than just visually appealing: They can influence how a material conducts heat, transports electricity and interacts with light.
Preserved in amber for about 53 million years, a beetle has been described as a new species by researchers in Spain and France. Named Cnopus twentyonepilotorum, it is the first puppet beetle (family Aderidae) to be formally described from the Oise amber of northern France. The
Chimpanzees may learn how to use some of their calls from the adults around them, in a surprising parallel with how human children learn words, finds a study from the CNRS Institute of Cognitive Sciences, University of Warwick and Taï Chimpanzee Project.
The negative impact of loneliness on health and well-being is well known, but for university students, social interaction can also be key to academic success. A new study by Constructor University professor Dr. Sonia Lippke and colleagues, published in the journal Frontiers in
The tiny atomic defects so important for future quantum technologies can be difficult to spot. Fortunately, they leave behind some clues. The defects can alter how a material responds to light, producing a distinctive optical fingerprint that scientists can measure. The
Aswin Singaram Natarajan rolls a stem of wheat in his hands. It looks perfectly healthy, but the senior experimental scientist at CSIRO, Australia's national science agency, knows his eyes can deceive him. A plant could look green and vital and still be losing—losing too much
It’s found in mayonnaise, chocolate, and lean meats The post Common Food Additive Linked to Lower Risk of Cognitive Impairment appeared first on Nautilus .
Reconstructing impact events on Earth and other planetary bodies, including the moon, is crucial for understanding how the solar system evolved and how planets develop.
About 50 million years ago, Earth experienced its warmest climate since the extinction of the dinosaurs. Global temperatures were more than 10°C higher than today, and atmospheric CO₂ concentrations reached around 1,600 parts per million. But what kept CO₂ levels so
Iran and Afghanistan have a certain iconic status as largely inhospitable areas, rich in raw materials. But where does this remarkable geology come from? Researchers from the University of Central Asia and Utrecht University have now reconstructed the history of this
Kari Schleher, an assistant professor in the University of New Mexico's Department of Anthropology and faculty curator of archaeology at UNM's Maxwell Museum, recently published research examining whether archaeologists can determine the sources of azurite, a vivid blue copper
Organic pollutants such as pesticides and industrial chemicals commonly pose risks to aquatic ecosystems, even in protected rivers and streams, according to a new study by RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau, based on the analysis of more than 180 million water measurements
Turbulent flows are ubiquitous: they are found in clouds, in the ocean and even on other planets. Yet despite their chaotic nature, they also form large-scale structures that can be calculated and predicted. For example, while long streaks of clouds may appear orderly from the
When they start to get too warm but before they're dangerously hot, most plants employ a similar playbook. They change their shape, a host of adaptations that includes growing longer stems and stalks to promote air circulation.
Foundayo, a daily pill, successfully reduced obstructive sleep apnea, according to clinical trial data
A research team led by professor Zhang Yuanming from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography (XIEG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has revealed that the outcomes of desert plant-herbivore interactions are strongly context-dependent. The paper is published in the
Resistance to antifungal medicines in the pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus is proving more persistent than previously thought. Research by Wageningen University & Research (WUR), published in Current Biology, shows that fungicides used in agriculture, even those with a
The year 2026 continues the protracted streak of exceptional global temperatures, melting ice and rising sea levels, with a very strong El Niño event set to unleash even more heat and extreme weather well into 2027, according to a new report from the World Meteorological
How can something remain intact when it should naturally break apart? This question has been addressed by researchers at RPTU. Their work has led to the experimental observation of an unusual quantum state in which two atoms remain bound together even though they possess enough
