In 2011, Japan reeled from the effects of a devastating magnitude 9.0 earthquake. But unnoticed in the chaos resulting from the quake, its major aftershocks and the tsunami it caused, something strange happened. About 16 minutes after the earthquake, but before the aftershocks
A James Cook University Ph.D. student's late-night solo survey has led to the first recorded sighting of a microwhip scorpion in the Daintree Rainforest. JCU entomologist and taxonomist Matthew Connors works at the university's Daintree Rainforest Observatory as a demonstrator
Larger areas contain more species. This is one of the most ironclad laws of ecology, which explains why large natural areas usually receive higher priority in conservation strategies. In fragmented landscapes, this logic has also led small forest fragments to be seen as
Astronomers may have found the remains of two long-dead stellar siblings
This week, a group of Australian primary school principals called for more male primary school teachers, saying boys needed more "male role models."
More than 100 million years ago, a flying reptile called a pterosaur flew over the oceans hunting squid and fish.
Scientists working on the revolutionary 'R' programming language invented at the University of Auckland have won a top award intended to be a Nobel Prize for statisticians.
The U.K. could face significant challenges if it follows the European Union's lead and introduces tougher restrictions on imports linked to deforestation, according to new research from The University of Manchester. The study examines how the EU's landmark Regulation on
The operation opens the door to treating more people living with HIV who have end-stage organ disease
A prototype four-wheel rover developed at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory with advanced mobility and robotic autonomy capabilities trundled across the Colorado Desert near Plaster City, California, during a field test in March 2026. Called ERNEST (Exploration Rover for
Physicists in China have observed five phases in localization physics within a single quantum system. Using an advanced photonic platform, the team, led by Yucheng Wang and Jingyun Fan at the Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, has demonstrated that
NASA selected a mission concept to research how space weather and dynamics within Earth's atmosphere influence the space environment and help improve prediction capabilities for impacts on crucial technology, such as GPS and low Earth orbit satellites, as well as astronauts in
A new method that detects whether bones have been burned reveals Homo erectus brought fires into caves far earlier than previous evidence had suggested
The James Webb Space Telescope has found nearby brown dwarfs masquerading as far-distant galaxies. The discovery reinforces how, in astronomy, what you see isn’t always what you get
The quest to approximate irrational numbers with fractions reveals hidden patterns, surprising hierarchies and enduring mathematical mysteries
Everyday viral infections may be quietly reshaping the body’s network of molecules that support cells and tissues in ways that can raise cancer risk over time
Arsenio Butil Jr. fell to his knees and began to pray when last week's deadly 7.8-magnitude earthquake began shaking his home on the coast of the southern Philippines.
The disruption of your gut microbiome is a major consequence, and possible cause, of ageing. Columnist Graham Lawton looks into recent trials examining whether it can be replenished through diet and prebiotics, probiotics or postbiotics
Oils from crops such as coconut, palm oil and soybean are used in a range of applications, from cosmetics and makeup to margarine and spreads, and from medicines to animal feed. These oil crops, as they are known, are increasingly consumed and cultivated. This has an impact on
Why does water roll off a duck's back but spread on clean glass? For macroscopic (millimeter-scale) drops, this behavior can be explained using continuum theory. However, when nanoscale (10–9 mm) droplets spread on surfaces, a force called line tension becomes relevant and
Malaysian scientists have discovered a new species of parasitic fungus in Borneo's jungles that preys on "zombie fungi" known to infect insects before subjecting them to a gruesome death.
Indonesia's government is racing to capture the last-known Bornean rhino in the wild in a bid to preserve the species through in vitro fertilization, a government official told AFP on Friday.
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
