Valentine's Day is traditionally a time of heart-shaped balloons, overpriced roses and fully booked restaurants. Couples kiss and hold hands, smiling selfies celebrate a day of public displays of devotion.
The people of Berlin woke on August 13, 1961, to discover that their city had been split in two.
At the Winter Olympics, athletes race down immaculate white slopes. The snow looks perfect. But it is largely manufactured.
Dashiell Hammett mentioned Sam Spade's jutting chin in the opening sentence of his novel, "The Maltese Falcon." Spade's chin was among the facial features Hammett used to describe his fictional detective's appearance, but starting with that distinctive chin was—at least from an
What appears to be a single volcanic eruption is often the result of complex processes operating deep beneath the surface, where magma moves, evolves, and changes over long periods of time. To fully understand how volcanoes work, scientists study the volcanic products that
The performance and stability of smartphones and artificial intelligence (AI) services depend on how uniformly and precisely semiconductor surfaces are processed. KAIST researchers have expanded the concept of everyday "sandpaper" into the realm of nanotechnology, developing a
Islands are famous for producing some of the world's strangest creatures, and now a new international study shows that the evolution of bird species on Hawaiian islands includes an ibis with unusually small eyes and limited visual capacity. The team from University of
Antibiotic treatments are losing effectiveness against a range of common bacterial pathogens, including E. coli, K. pneumoniae, Salmonella and Acinetobacter, according to a warning issued by the World Health Organization last October. For the microbe that gives rise to
A research team from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has introduced a soil amendment called humic acid-modified bentonite (HAMB). This amendment effectively enhances a soil's ability to hold onto ammonium while significantly reducing
A research team led by Prof. Fang Yonghua from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science of the Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed and systematically optimized a novel parabolic mirror cavity-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (PMCERS) technique, achieving a marked improvement in gas
Modern armor systems do not do a good enough job of protecting humans from blast-induced neurotrauma (brain and eye damage). To improve them, we may have to look to nature. In particular, a tiny shrimp that is able to protect itself from the shockwaves it generates to stun prey
Plutonium (Pu) exhibits one of the most diverse and complex chemistries of any element in the periodic table. Since its discovery in 1940, scientists have synthesized and studied many different types of plutonium-containing compounds using tools that reveal both their atomic
Sending a mission to the solar gravitational lens (SGL) is the most effective way of actually directly imaging a potentially habitable planet, as well as its atmosphere, and even possibly some of its cities. But, the SGL is somewhere around 650–900 AU away, making it almost
A major new international review co-authored by Professor Gemma Harvey, Professor of Physical Geography in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at Queen Mary University of London, highlights how species that physically modify freshwater environments interact
New research from The University of Manchester has shown that debates and resistance about wearing face masks go back a lot further than the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Meng Zhang, a Wellcome Trust Research Fellow at the University's Centre for the History of Science, Technology and
Not all self-employment guarantees financial security, with informal arrangements posing the greatest risks to well-being for many workers. Using machine learning to classify self-employment, a new University of Michigan study analyzed narrative job descriptions from the
UK winters are becoming significantly wetter mainly due to warming driven by human burning of fossil fuels releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, a Newcastle University study reveals. The research shows that for every degree of global or regional warming, winter
Marine animals, such as the extremely simple flatworm Trichoplax, are ideal model organisms for studying the early evolutionary origins of animal life processes. Despite measuring only a few millimeters and lacking true organs or nervous system, this animal interacts
It's been a good few months in the press for the rakali (known as moytj in Noongar)—Australia's native water rat. These long-whiskered rodents finally received the recognition they deserve, with the ABC's National Science Week poll crowning the rakali the nation's most
Researchers from Guangxi University, China have developed a new gas sensor that detects ammonia with a record speed of 1.4 seconds. The sensor's design mimics the structure of alveoli—the tiny air sacs in human lungs—while relying on a triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG) that
The father of the H-bomb hoped to put these blasts toward civilian infrastructure The post Edward Teller Tried to Move Mountains With Nuclear Bombs appeared first on Nautilus .
Shorter food chains could mean reefs are less able to weather changes in food availability, threatening an already vulnerable ecosystem.
Central Germany is among the regions where, as early as the mid-6th millennium BC, farmers displaced the Mesolithic hunter–gatherers from the fertile loess soils. Soon after this migration, however, exchange began between the newcomers and the established inhabitants. The State
Geologic reservoirs that trapped petroleum for millions of years are now being repurposed to store the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. New research is improving how we monitor this storage and verify how much CO2 these reservoirs have stored.
Scientists have long known that Earth's core is mostly made of iron, but the density is not high enough for it to be pure iron, meaning lighter elements exist in the core, as well. In particular, it's suspected to be a major reservoir of hydrogen. A new study, published in
A cyclone packing violent winds killed at least 20 people as it struck Madagascar, toppling houses and causing major flooding, the Indian Ocean island's disaster authority said Wednesday.
For decades, southern right whales have been celebrated as one of conservation's success stories.
The race to build reliable quantum computers is fraught with obstacles, and one of the most difficult to overcome is related to the promising but elusive Majorana qubits. Now, an international team has read the information stored in these quantum bits. The findings are
Biologists have long thought that speaking to nature’s economic value would persuade boardrooms it was worth saving. It hasn’t worked – so what, if anything, will?
About 4600 years ago, the population of Britain was replaced by a people who brought Bell Beaker pottery with them. Now, ancient DNA has uncovered the surprising story of where these people came from
Scientists say that multiple Earth system components appear closer to destabilization than previously believed, putting the planet in increased danger of following a "hothouse" path driven by feedback loops that can amplify the consequences of global warming.
Microbes could help oak trees cope with environmental change. Publishing in Cell Host & Microbe, a study observing oaks growing in a natural woodland found that the trees' above- and below-ground microbiomes were resilient to drought, nutrient scarcity, and exposure to
Human activity has lessened the resilience of modern coral reefs by restricting the food-fueled energy flow that moves through the food chains of these critical ecosystems, reports an international team of researchers in the journal Nature. Examining otoliths—fish ear stones
After years of confusion, a new study confirms the proton is tinier than once thought. That enables a test of the standard model of particle physics.
Few countries talk about "ghettos" the way Denmark does. For more than a decade, the term has shaped national debates about migration, integration and who truly belongs.
Free-floating planets, or as they are more commonly known, rogue planets, wander interstellar space completely alone. Saying there might be a lot of them is a bit of an understatement. Recent estimates put the number of rogue planets at something equivalent to the number of
To mark the United Nations' International Day of Women and Girls in Science, the Institute of Physics and IOP Publishing celebrate women who are advancing scientific discovery and help to build a research culture where everyone can thrive.
For blackberry breeders, white and pink flowers on blackberry plants are more than something to admire; they are a key early measure of the season's productivity.
Australian women face significant risk when disclosing gender-based violence in sport and often receive inadequate or harmful responses, according to new research led by La Trobe University. The project found that current integrity structures built for doping or match fixing
America’s drug safety agency declined to review a next-gen flu vaccine that uses the same tech as the coronavirus shots
Constantly checking your phone during conversations with a partner—a behavior known as phubbing—may be less about bad manners and more about deeper psychological needs. New research led by the University of Southampton, the Vinzenz Pallotti University and Ruhr University Bochum
The Murray-Darling Basin Authority (MDBA)—the statutory agency responsible for planning the Basin's water resources—has just shared the starkest news yet about the Basin's future: the Basin is almost certainly going to get hotter, drier, and more volatile in the future, with
For the first time, scientists have recorded how baby dunnarts, tiny carnivorous marsupials from Australia, reach their mother's pouch not long after being born. While much is known about how many other marsupial babies go from the birth canal to the pouch, such as kangaroos
Three major reviews commissioned by the World Health Organization find that GLP-1 drugs including tirzepatide (sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound), semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy), and liraglutide (Victoza and Saxenda) can lead to substantial weight loss in people with obesity. But
We describe electricity as a flow, but that’s not what happens in a typical wire. Physicists have begun to induce electrons to act like fluids, an effort that could illuminate new ways of thinking about quantum systems. The post Physicists Make Electrons Flow Like Water first
A study reveals that sticklebacks with complete bony plates have survival rates several percentage points higher than those with reduced plates, indicating ongoing natural selection. Moreover, the strength of selection appears to have intensified between 2016 and 2022. These
The surveillance arms race between employers and employees is heating up The post Your Boss Could Monitor Your Heart Rate With Spy Tech appeared first on Nautilus .
Researchers in China have isolated the effects of electronic friction, showing for the first time how the subtle drag force it imparts at sliding interfaces can be controlled. They demonstrate that it can be tuned by applying a voltage, or switched off entirely simply by
Life may have started in sticky, rock-hugging gels rather than inside cells. Researchers suggest these primitive, biofilm-like materials could trap and concentrate molecules, giving early chemistry a protected space to grow more complex. Within these gels, the first hints of
Rediscovering long forgotten music does not mean recovering how it was meant to be performed, and that is a major challenge for the arts, finds a new study from the University of Surrey. An expert has found that rediscovered music comes with no shared understanding for how it
