Whatever challenges life throws, mothers often know best as they guide offspring through the risky stages of early development. This scenario, familiar when applied to humans, turns out to be true for plants too, according to intriguing research from the John Innes Center and
Earth's magnetic field is generated by the churn of its liquid nickel-iron outer core, but it is not a constant feature. Every so often, the magnetic north and south poles swap places in what are called geomagnetic reversals, and the record of these flips is preserved in rocks
Despite decades of independent progress in population ecology and movement ecology, researchers have lacked a theoretical bridge between these two disciplines. "Ecologists have been trying to establish this link since the 1950s, when they started to characterize animal movement
Researchers at Wageningen University & Research have developed a new type of plastic that, according to materials theory, should not be able to exist. Its properties sit somewhere between those of glass and plastic: it is easy to (re)shape, yet resistant to impact. This unusual
The substance that revolutionized cookware and helped build the atomic bomb is facing a reckoning The post Why Teflon Is Losing Its Sticking Power appeared first on Nautilus .
Over the last several decades, urban planners and municipalities have sought to identify and better manage the socioeconomic dynamics associated with rapid development in established neighborhoods. The term "gentrification" has been lingua franca for generations of urbanites
This famous ape may have understood pretend actions—suggesting he had the capacity to imagine
Stanford researchers have created the first-ever global map of a rare earthquake type that occurs not in Earth's crust but in our planet's mantle, the layer sandwiched between the thin crust and Earth's molten core. The new map will help scientists learn more about the
At the 15th UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal, Canada, in 2022, nations committed to reducing the risks associated with pesticide use in agriculture by 50% by 2030. A new study by a research team from RPTUKaiserslautern-Landau, published in the journal Science,
Babies are born with the ability to predict rhythm, according to a study published February 5 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Roberta Bianco from the Italian Institute of Technology, and colleagues.
A combination of weakened atmospheric removal and increased emissions from warming wetlands, rivers, lakes, and agricultural land increased atmospheric methane at an unprecedented rate in the early 2020s, an international team of researchers report today in the journal Science.
In a series of tea party-like experiments, Johns Hopkins University researchers demonstrate for the first time that apes can use their imagination and play pretend, an ability thought to be uniquely human.
Brain scans and signals show babies can sort images and sense rhythm, offering new insight into how infant brains are wired from the start.
Apes, like humans, are capable of pretend play, challenging long-held views about how animals think, a new study suggests.
In biology, many RNA molecules act as sophisticated microscopic machines. Among them, riboswitches function as tiny biological sensors, changing their 3D shape upon binding to a specific metabolite. This shape-change acts as a switch, often turning a downstream gene "on" or
Parents often tell their children to sound out the words as they are learning to read. It makes sense: Since they already know how to speak, the sound of a word might serve as a clue to its meaning.
The South Carolina measles outbreak has triggered rare but serious brain swelling in some children
Jeffrey Epstein aggressively sought access to publishers, mentions of Scientific American and other media in Department of Justice files show
An “impossible” neutrino detected by an underwater telescope could be the key The post Did We Just See a Black Hole Explode? appeared first on Nautilus .
A newly discovered comet has astronomers excited, with the potential to be a spectacular sight in early April. C/2026 A1 (MAPS) was spotted by a team of four amateur astronomers with a remotely operated telescope in the Atacama desert on January 13.
Historical accounts of the Punic Wars—and many other ancient wars—often paint a picture of soldiers riding in on imposing "war elephants." Yet, no skeletal remains of these war elephants had ever been found from the Punic War period and region. But, in 2020, archaeologists
In 2025, Hawaiʻi experienced its second-driest year in more than a century, alongside persistently above-average temperatures throughout the year—a stark reality detailed in the inaugural Hawai'i Annual Climate Report 2025. Published by the University of Hawai'i Sea Grant
When a young Katharine Burr Blodgett joined future Nobel Prize winner Irving Langmuir at the General Electric Company’s industrial research laboratory in Schenectady, N.Y, it was the start of her brilliant career
In the Pacific Northwest, big faults like the Cascadian subduction zone located offshore, get a lot of attention. But big faults aren't the only ones that pose significant hazards, and a new study investigates the dynamics of a complex fault zone that runs right under the heart
Cosmic rays are extremely fast, charged particles that travel through space at nearly the speed of light. The Amaterasu particle was detected in 2021 by the Telescope Array experiment in the U.S. It is the second-highest-energy cosmic ray ever observed, carrying around 40
It stands to reason that the longer or more diligently you work at something, the better you get at it. But researchers from the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business found that consumers don't necessarily see it that way.
Scientists have spent decades searching for the final resting place of Luna 9, the first spacecraft to soft-land on the moon. Now they’re on the cusp of finding it
A new Curtin University study warns that large parts of Australia, including major cities and farming regions, could be highly vulnerable to a fast-spreading invasive beetle, already causing severe damage across the Perth metropolitan area. The study looked at the full life
Bacteria in food can make you seriously ill, which is why it is so important for the facilities that produce your food to ensure proper hygiene in their production lines. A new doctoral thesis from NTNU has investigated how bacterial communities in the chicken and salmon
Scientists at the University of Southampton have uncovered evidence from ancient rocks that Earth's climate continued to fluctuate during its most extreme ice age—known as Snowball Earth. During the Cryogenian Period, between 720 and 635 million years ago, it has long been
Researchers at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, together with data scientists, have developed a new method to largely automate the extraction of label information from digitized insect specimens. The pipeline, named ELIE, uses artificial intelligence to reliably detect and
A new study shows that blood collected on a sanitary pad can be used for cervical cancer screening, opening the door to new diagnostics
An experiment with superconducting qubits opens the door to determining whether quantum devices could be less energetically costly if they are powered by quantum batteries
MXene materials are promising candidates for a new energy storage technology. However, the processes by which the charge storage takes place were not yet fully understood. A team at HZB has examined, for the first time, individual MXene flakes to explore these processes in
More than 50 skuas in Antarctica died from the high pathogenicity avian influenza virus H5N1 in the summers of 2023 and 2024, marking the first documented die-off of wildlife from the virus on the continent. That is confirmed for the first time in a study led by Erasmus MC in
Quantum computers hold great promise for exciting applications in the future, but for now they keep presenting physicists and engineers with a series of challenges and conundrums. One of them relates to decoherence and the errors that result from it: bit flips and phase flips.
Oceanic ecosystems are increasingly threatened by global warming, which causes coral bleaching, species migration and, through the loss of habitats and biodiversity, food web disruptions on major scales. Also, pollutants such as plastics and other marine debris, wastewater, as
Researchers have found what might be a little red dot transitioning into its final state, where x-rays burst through its gas cocoon. Others argue the object is nothing special
More than one-third of cancer cases are preventable, a massive study finds
Florida's coastal and urban counties continue to see the spread of two invasive termite species beyond South Florida. The species are now threatening structures statewide, according to a new University of Florida study.
Our Milky Way galaxy may not have a supermassive black hole at its center but rather an enormous clump of mysterious dark matter exerting the same gravitational influence, astronomers say. They believe this invisible substance—which makes up most of the universe's mass—can
The evolution of the human species is marked by an increase in brain size. Now new research suggests that could be partly dependent on increases in prenatal estrogen—revealed by looking at the length of a person's fingers. Professor John Manning, of Swansea's Applied Sports,
Two-year-olds raised in vegan or vegetarian households don't necessarily have restricted growth, according to a study of 1.2 million children
Researchers at University of Jyväskylä (Finland) advance understanding of gold nanocluster behavior at elevated temperatures using machine learning-based simulations. This information is crucial in the design of nanomaterials so that their properties can be modified for use in
All life on Earth shares a common ancestor that lived roughly four billion years ago. This so-called "last universal common ancestor" (LUCA) represents the most ancient organism that researchers can study. Previous research on the last universal common ancestor has found that
Data centers are eating up computing resources and pushing chipmakers toward AI-grade memory, tightening supply for Nintendo and other hardware makers
Since the dawn of the computer age, researchers have wrestled with two persistent challenges: how to store ever-increasing reams of data and how to protect that information from unintended access. Now, researchers with Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute and their
How exactly unconventional superconductivity arises is one of the central questions of modern solid-state physics. A new study published in the journal Nature provides crucial insights into this question. For the first time, an international research team was able to
Every year at Grand Canyon National Park, millions of visitors from all over the world stop at one of a dozen water spigots. Most people are on a rim, seeing the canyon's majesty for the first time, when they step off the trail to refill a water bottle. Others are deep in the
An international study investigating the genomic diversity of the Sudanese population reveals that the Copts originating in Egypt—who settled in the country between the seventh and eleventh centuries—have acquired a genetic variant that protects them from contracting malaria.
