Career pressure—not ideology—causes military officers to protect or overthrow dictators. New research from the Department of Political Science shows that ambition and anxiety can transform "ordinary men" into the regime's ruthless henchmen—or into those who bury the regime.
Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have developed a method that gives access to the valuable raw materials formate and hydrogen from the waste product glycerol. Formates are the salts of formic acid and are widely used in the chemical industry, while
Already recognized for its excellence and even adopted for operational weather forecasting, the European Space Agency's Arctic Weather Satellite has now fulfilled its most important role. This small prototype mission has succeeded in paving the way for a new constellation of
While period pain and heavy menstrual bleeding are common, they're often dealt with privately. Yet they take a profound toll on a person's health—and finances.
Like a recording artist who has had a long career, NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has a "back catalog" of cosmic recordings that is impossible to replicate. To access these X-ray tracks, or observations, the ultimate compendium has been developed: the Chandra Source Catalog
Within the S&P 500, only a small fraction of chief executive officers speak with an accent or come from foreign backgrounds. The figure hovers around 10%. However, their share of the market is substantial.
Child sexual abuse cases involving female perpetrators are confronting and distressing. When these cases make the news, they often provoke shock and outrage.
For the first time, physicists have generated and observed stable bright matter-wave solitons with attractive interactions within a grid of laser light.
In a study published in Telestes, Dr. Joshua Kumbani and Dr. Margarita Díaz-Andreu categorized the various dance scenes depicted in South African rock art, drawing on ethnographic sources, published studies, and the comprehensive SARADA database to identify dance scenes, thus
For a long time, scientists assumed that Earth's water was delivered by asteroids and comets billions of years ago. This coincided with the Late Heavy Bombardment (ca. 4.1 to 3.8 billion years ago), a period when planets and bodies in the solar system experienced a much higher
Researchers have discovered how bacteria break through spaces barely larger than themselves, by wrapping their flagella around their bodies and moving forward. Using a microfluidic device that mimics insect gut channels, the team revealed a remarkable "flagellar wrapping"
Global food trade is essential for food security, but its ecological consequences often remain unseen. A new data paper published in One Ecosystem introduces a global long-term dataset, quantifying biodiversity loss embodied in the international trade of staple food crops. As
Quantum computers, systems that process information leveraging quantum mechanical effects, will require faster and energy-efficient memory components, which will allow them to perform well on complex tasks. Superconducting memories are promising memory devices that are made
Millions of years of isolation have shaped Australia's extraordinary mammal fauna into species unlike anywhere else in the world, from platypus to koalas and wombats. Tragically, Australia is the world leader in mammal extinctions.
A Roman-era skeleton discovered in southern England has finally given up her secrets after more than a decade of debate. Known as the Beachy Head Woman, she was once thought to have roots in sub-Saharan Africa or the Mediterranean—an idea that sparked global attention. But new,
Iron is an essential trace element in biological cells. The concentration of the element and its so-called redox state—it can exist either in a doubly ionized state as iron (II) (Fe2+) or a triply ionized state as iron (III) (Fe3+)—play a key role in metabolic processes such as
A massive new study comparing more than 100,000 people with today’s most advanced AI systems delivers a surprising result: generative AI can now beat the average human on certain creativity tests. Models like GPT-4 showed strong performance on tasks designed to measure original
A new study of climate extremes since 1988 finds that many regions have seen increases in deaths due to floods, storms and extreme temperatures. In human terms, the harm comes not just from deaths, but also from lost labor and property damage. (And this doesn't consider damage
Long before farming took hold, ancient Indigenous peoples of the American Southwest were already shaping the future of a wild potato. New evidence shows that this small, hardy plant was deliberately carried across the Four Corners region more than 10,000 years ago, helping it
Researchers have developed a technique that allows them to carve complex three dimensional nanodevices directly from single crystals. To demonstrate its power, they sculpted microscopic helices from a magnetic material and found that the structures behave like switchable
After analyzing 40 years of tree records across the Andes and Amazon, researchers found that climate change is reshaping tropical forests in uneven ways. Some regions are steadily losing tree species, especially where conditions are hotter and drier, while others are seeing
The tragic events in the Bay of Plenty this week are a stark reminder that landslides remain the deadliest of the many natural hazards New Zealand faces. A large landslide swept through the Mount Maunganui Beachside Holiday Park at the base of Mauao, triggering a major rescue
Socializing at a young age helps to develop greater diversity in children’s microbiomes, according to an analysis of baby-to-baby transmission of gut bacteria
A record-breaking experiment shows that a cluster of thousands of atoms can act like a wave as well as a particle
New research suggests that getting even just a few more minutes of sleep and exercise and eating an extra cup of vegetables every day can significantly boost longevity
Deep-ultraviolet (DUV, λ < 200 nm) all-solid-state lasers, essential to modern scientific research and industrial manufacturing, are widely applied in fields from material analysis to lithography. Their commercialization depends heavily on high-performance nonlinear optical
In recent years, revelations of unethical horse handling at elite levels of horsesport have drawn attention to an uncomfortable question: Do we really understand how our horses are feeling? According to Norwegian and Swedish researchers in the project HorseVoice, the answer is
Scientists are warning that a little-known group of microbes called free-living amoebae may pose a growing global health threat. Found in soil and water, some species can survive extreme heat, chlorine, and even modern water systems—conditions that kill most germs. One infamous
Researchers have found that a natural aging-related molecule can repair key memory processes affected by Alzheimer’s disease. The compound improves communication between brain cells and restores early memory abilities that typically fade first. Because it already exists in the
NASA is moving into a new phase of space exploration, with major progress across human spaceflight, science missions, and advanced technology. In just one year, the agency has launched multiple crewed and science missions, test-flown new aircraft, and pushed forward plans for
Air pollution is now recognized as one of the greatest threats to human health, contributing to an estimated 4.2 million premature deaths in 2019, according to the World Health Organization.
Falling space junk is becoming a real-world hazard, and scientists have found a clever new way to track it using instruments already listening to the Earth itself. By tapping into networks of earthquake sensors, researchers can follow the sonic booms created when space debris
A distant Sun-like star suddenly went dark for months, stunning astronomers who quickly realized something massive was passing in front of it. Observations revealed a gigantic disk of gas and dust filled with vaporized metals, swirling around an unseen companion object. For the