Silicon chips have powered computing for half a century. Increasingly, they are also becoming platforms to read and manipulate biology at scale—recording from many neurons, reading many DNA sequences and now synthesizing DNA.
The first tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season formed Wednesday near the Gulf Coast, bringing intense rain and the threat of dangerous flash floods to states including Texas and Louisiana, meteorologists said.
A research team at the University of Greifswald's Research Training Group RTG-PRO "Proteases in pathogen and host: importance in infection and inflammation" has discovered a new mechanism by which bacterial pathogens adjust their activity to the metabolism of infected host
Once cotton gets wet, it pulls heat from your body. This is helpful when you're exercising or outside on a hot day, but dangerous in the bitter cold. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Energy Letters have created an ultralight synthetic fiber material with cotton-like fluffiness
Graves of hunter-gatherers in Siberia point to a deadly disease outbreak dating to some 5,500 years ago, a new DNA analysis finds
Plague is commonly associated with rats, crowded medieval cities, and the epidemics that swept across Europe during and after the Middle Ages. But a new study published in Nature shows that the disease was already lethal 5,500 years ago, when it killed humans in small, mobile
Birdwatching is one of the most common and popular ways people experience nature. But it's not often that even the most enthusiastic birdwatcher returns to the same place more than 800 times to witness the changes over four decades.
A prototype quantum sensor developed by researchers at Imperial has demonstrated for the first time that a key principle behind next-generation quantum detectors can work under realistic conditions.
A new study published in Nature shows that rock weathering increasingly counteracts river CO2 emissions as permafrost degrades. The study was carried out by a collaborative team of researchers from Umeå University in Sweden and East China Normal University.
New Oxford University-led research reveals that bees can regulate their feeding to avoid overconsuming certain essential nutrients, and that honey bees make a specialist "baby food" that gives their larvae a better-balanced diet.
Plague DNA in ancient graves near Siberia's Lake Baikal suggests the disease threatened people long before farming and crowded settlements.
A conversation with a philosopher about extraterrestrial and machine minds The post Aliens Probably Have Consciousness appeared first on Nautilus .
Big cats have a big impact. A long-term study showed that when mountain lions began regular visits to a small suburban preserve about 45 miles (72 kilometers) south of San Francisco, they changed the behavior of many other animals.
Whales and dolphins inhabit some of the largest and seemingly most pristine environments on Earth, from tropical coastlines to Antarctic waters. Yet even they cannot escape PFAS—persistent "forever chemicals" that leak from our homes, factories and waterways into the sea.
Scientists have taken a surprising step toward unlocking regeneration in mammals, showing that the ability to rebuild complex body parts may not be lost after all—it may simply be switched off. Using a two-stage treatment, researchers redirected the body’s normal healing
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) is developing electronics and flight software for the NASA/U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Landsat 10 satellite, which is set to launch in 2031 to collect new and improved Earth observation data. The mission continues NASA's and USGS's
Scientists have discovered that the southern Andes Mountains don't rise slowly and steadily as previously thought. Instead, the range builds itself in short, powerful "pulses" every few million years.
Goats appear to have a rare ability not shared by many in the animal kingdom, and that is being able to follow the direction of a human voice to locate hidden objects. While dogs have been shown to do this, even our closest primate cousins, like chimpanzees, have struggled with
An international team of scientists has identified a completely new type of rock from the red planet and, for the first time, discovered the mineral garnet in a Martian sample. The breakthrough offers a rare glimpse into Mars' ancient past and could help researchers piece
Physicists have long been drawn to the nonlinear Hall effect: a subtle variant of the classical Hall effect, in which an electric voltage appears perpendicular to a current flowing through a material. Unlike its classical counterpart, the nonlinear version can arise even
An international research collaboration between the University of Vienna and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States has used machine learning to re-examine one of the most debated signals in astrophysics. The so-called Galactic Center Excess (GCE), a faint,
A new study led by Marco Fumasoni, principal investigator at Fundação GIMM, shows that evolution can substantially reduce cell size without significantly compromising cells' ability to grow. The work, carried out in yeast in collaboration with researchers at Cornell University,
Climate change could push UK rivers to dangerous extremes and bring more frequent rapid swings between wet and dry conditions—a phenomenon known as hydroclimatic whiplash—according to research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA). Researchers analyzed almost 700 river
The iconic one-eyed monster coming to movie screens in July in The Odyssey might have more in common with tiny water critters than with humans.
A galaxy appears to be missing the invisible substance thought to hold such objects together, further challenging long-held assumptions about how galaxies form
One well-done gas giant, coming right up! That's the latest from researchers analyzing NASA's James Webb Space Telescope observations of HD 80606 b, an exoplanet four times the mass of Jupiter with an extremely elliptical orbit that sweeps close by its sun-like star. The
Researchers at The Australian National University (ANU) have uncovered a mechanism that helps plants continue photosynthesizing under extreme heat and dry air conditions—a finding that could improve how scientists predict the effects of climate change on crops and ecosystems.
Could the secret to preventing dangerous falls be surprisingly simple? For older adults, these unexpected tumbles are a leading cause of injury, affecting roughly 1 in 4 people 65 and older each year. What if the key isn't complex technology or intensive therapy, but something
A Rutgers study suggests GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy may weaken the link between impulsive tendencies and violent behavior. The surprising finding hints that these medications could affect how people act on impulses, though researchers stress that cause and effect
A team of scientists has used NASA's Goldstone Solar System Radar and the U.S. National Science Foundation Green Bank Telescope (NSF GBT) to carry out the most extensive radar study to date of Europa, the ocean world orbiting Jupiter. By repeatedly "pinging" Europa with
For years, pest control professionals throughout the Northeast have reported a troubling pattern. In some neighborhoods, rodents seemed increasingly difficult to eliminate, even when standard control methods were used. Now researchers at Rutgers University believe they may know
Scientists have discovered a new Amazonian spider with an astonishing disguise: it looks like a parasitic fungus. The species, Taczanowskia waska, mimics both the appearance and behavior of the fungus, helping it stay hidden from predators and potentially catch prey more easily.
Scientists have digitally preserved the world’s most endangered marine mammal by creating highly detailed 3D models of a vaquita skeleton using advanced imaging technology. The virtual archive provides an unprecedented look at the species and could help inspire conservation
An international study of infant remains from 50,000–75,000 years ago has provided new evidence about the developmental trajectory of our evolutionary "cousins," Neanderthals.
Exposure to a common plastic chemical before and shortly after birth may have lasting effects on behavior. Researchers found that male rats exposed early in life to DEHP—a plasticizer used in products ranging from medical devices to toys—showed significantly higher anxiety as
New research led by a scientist at IPAC—a science and data center for astrophysics and planetary science at Caltech—studying the hot Jupiter CoRoT-2 b has settled on one of the three leading hypotheses explaining why its atmosphere has a hot spot in the opposite direction from
Career interest tests can be very helpful for teenagers and young adults deciding which career to pursue. New research from Michigan State University challenges the assumption that vocational interests are only relevant for early career decision-making; rather, they remain
UK newspapers responded to a major climate ruling by the world's top court by claiming "lawfare" and linking the decision to the U.K.'s proposed handover of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, a new review of global media coverage has found. The review is titled Frames in
Many animals exhibit fascinating collective behaviors, which allow them to move, search for food, reproduce and avoid threats more effectively than they would alone. One of these behaviors is queuing migration, which essentially entails traveling as a group in an organized line
Galapagos sharks have been spotted scrubbing off parasites with help from manta rays
Researchers from Sun Yat-sen University and collaborating institutions have discovered a new species of bumblebee goby on Hengqin Island in Guangdong Province, marking the first recorded presence of this fish genus in China. The discovery and description of Brachygobius jennie,
A small clinical trial suggests that probiotics may offer a surprising mental health boost for older adults with depression. Seniors who took a daily probiotic alongside their regular antidepressant treatment experienced slightly greater improvements in depression and anxiety
Neutrinos are one of the fundamental particles of the universe. They live a ghostly existence with no electric charge, very little mass and extremely few interactions with matter. They are also the most abundant particles with mass in the universe and can be created through a
SpaceX shares surged again Tuesday, lifting Elon Musk's rocket company into the world's top five in market value for most of the session as a record-breaking IPO gave way to a torrid buying frenzy.
A clever nanoscale redesign may have solved one of superconductivity’s biggest problems. Researchers in Sweden discovered that by subtly sculpting the surface beneath an ultrathin superconducting material, they could make it stay superconducting at higher temperatures and under
A Tasmanian devil named Mary has been found in an "unstable condition" more than two weeks after escaping her enclosure, an Australian wildlife park said Wednesday.
A new technique could solve one of the biggest challenges in making future computer chips from ultrathin materials. Researchers found that coating molybdenum disulfide with oxygen or fluorine lets manufacturers remove just the top layer of atoms much more safely during plasma
A minimally invasive treatment that blocks inflammation-driving blood vessels in the knee provided significant pain relief and improved function for osteoarthritis patients, with benefits lasting at least a year. The procedure was safe, highly successful, and could offer a new
Scientists are beginning to explore a hidden world of thousands of food chemicals that go far beyond the nutrients listed on nutrition labels. This “nutritional dark matter” may hold the key to understanding disease risk, healthy aging, and why different diets affect people in
Greenland has a long and checkered history of human settlement: several Paleo-Inuit cultures since approximately 2,500 BCE, descendants of Vikings between the 10th and 15th centuries, and early modern Danes since 1721. All left their traces on the landscape, for example in the
