Top Science News

Nov. 19, 2024 — Up until recently, habituation -- a simple form of learning -- was deemed the exclusive domain of complex organisms with brains and nervous systems, such as worms, insects, birds, and mammals. But a new study offers compelling evidence that even tiny single-cell creatures such as ciliates and amoebae, as well as the cells in our own bodies, could exhibit habituation akin to that seen in more ...

Nov. 15, 2024 — In what could one day become a new treatment for epilepsy, researchers have used pulses of light to prevent seizure-like activity in ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — Researchers have discovered a mechanism behind the yo-yo effect: fat cells have a memory that is based on ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — Humans and animals move with remarkable economy without consciously thinking about it by utilizing the natural oscillation patterns of their bodies. A new tool can now utilize this knowledge for the first time to make robots move more ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — Through the intricate study of lava tubes -- caves formed following volcanic eruptions when lava cools down -- an international team of researchers has uncovered clues about Earth's ancient environments that could be significant in the search for life on ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — A theoretical astrophysicist may have solved a nearly two-decade-old mystery over the origins of an unusual 'zebra' pattern seen in high-frequency radio pulses from the Crab ...

Nov. 14, 2024 — Researchers have created a headphone prototype that allows listeners to hear people speaking within a bubble with a programmable radius of 3 to 6 feet. Voices and sounds outside the bubble are quieted an average of 49 decibels, even if they're louder than those in the ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — The history of a major animal group, composed of millions of species of insects, arachnids, and nemotodes, has been elusive -- until now. A team has now identified the oldest known ecdysozoan in the fossil record and the only one from the Precambrian ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — An international group of authors who developed the science behind net zero demonstrate that relying on 'natural carbon sinks' like forests and oceans to offset ongoing CO2 emissions from fossil fuel use will not actually stop global warming. The science of net zero, developed over 15 years ago, does not include these natural carbon sinks in the definition of net human-induced CO2 emissions. Yet ...

Nov. 16, 2024 — The Earth's total amount of freshwater dropped abruptly starting in May 2014 and has remained low ever since. The shift could indicate Earth's continents have entered a persistently drier ...

Nov. 15, 2024 — Scholars for the first time identified chemical signatures of the components of a liquid concoction contained in a Bes mug. A new technique helped identify a sample flavored with honey, sesame seeds, pine nuts, licorice and grapes -- commonly used to make the beverage look like ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — A commonly prescribed medication for heart failure was linked to a lower risk of heart damage, or cardiotoxicity, among high-risk cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy treatment using anthracyclines, according to recent ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — Engaging in everyday physical activity has immediate benefits for brain health. Middle-aged people who participated in everyday movement showed improvement in cognitive processing speed equivalent to being four years younger, regardless of the activity's ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — New research has found that people with a genetic defect in their ability to digest sucrose eat less cake, sweets and chocolate, which could hold the key to helping the wider population to eat less sugar. The international study shows that genetic variations in the sucrase-isomaltase (SI) gene are associated with the intake, and preference, of sucrose-rich foods. Scientists found that mice ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — Linguistics and computer science researchers have discovered some of the root causes of why AI large language models perform poorly in human-like ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — Exercise can have benefits at the level of neurons, through chemical and mechanical effects, researchers find. The discovery could inform exercise-related therapies for repairing damaged and deteriorating ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — A new model for epilepsy care provides a streamlined, multidisciplinary approach to the diagnosis and treatment of epilepsy, and combines modern digital tools, data sharing and peer ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — An interdisciplinary team explored possible regularities in vocal emotional expressions by comparing expressive interjections, such as 'wow,' to nonlinguistic vocalizations, such as screams and cries, from across the globe. The researchers analyzed vowels in interjections from 131 languages, comparing them with nearly 500 vowels from vocalizations ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — The airflow from an indoor badminton court's HVAC system and cross ventilation can affect the path of a birdie and have a significant role in play, but new research proposes that different roof configurations could help mitigate wind drift. The authors recommend that important badminton games be played on courts with a barrel roof and a ventilation opening. The team modeled the airflow in a ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Experts have identified five elements of a brain-based condition that has emerged as a leading cause of vision impairment starting in childhood in the United States and other industrialized nations. Known as cerebral (or cortical) visual impairment (CVI), some estimates suggest that at least 3% of primary school children exhibit CVI-related visual problems, which vary, but may include difficulty ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Energy stored in thermochemical materials can effectively heat indoor spaces, particularly in humid regions, according to ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — A new study sheds light on a potential link between exposure to certain everyday chemicals during pregnancy and the development of asthma in children. The study analyzed data from over 3,500 mother-child pairs as part of the Japan Environment and Children's Study (JECS), a large-scale nationwide research ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Houses for sale in a flood zone are around 10% cheaper than surrounding areas, according to new research. However, the reduced price tag is not worth the extra risk and can burden buyers with long-term insurance costs, according to new ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — A new theory, that explains how light and matter interact at the quantum level has enabled researchers to define for the first time the precise shape of a single ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — It is the computational processing of images that reveals the finest details of a sample placed under all kinds of different light microscopes. Even though this processing has come a long way, there is still room for increasing for example image contrast and resolution. Based on a unique deep learning architecture, a new computational model is faster than traditional models while matching or even ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — New research found confined and isolating environments changed the way people smelled and responded emotionally to certain food aromas. The team in this study compared 44 people's emotional responses and perception of eight food aromas in two environmental scenarios: sitting in reclined chairs that mimic astronauts' posture in microgravity; and then in the confined setting of the International ...

Nov. 14, 2024 — By probing chemical processes observed in the Earth's hot mantle, scientists have started developing a library of basalt-based spectral signatures that not only will help reveal the composition of planets outside of our solar system but could demonstrate evidence of water on those ...

Nov. 14, 2024 — How long did it take our Sun to form in its stellar nursery? Scientists are now closer to an answer. They succeeded in the measurement of the bound-state beta decay of fully-ionized thallium ions at the Experimental Storage Ring (ESR) of GSI/FAIR. This measurement has profound effects on the production of radioactive lead in asymptotic giant ...

Nov. 13, 2024 — Scientists using observations from NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory have discovered, for the first time, the signal from a pair of monster black holes disrupting a cloud of gas in the center of a ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — An international team has identified a strategy to improve both the performance and stability for solar cells made out of the 'miracle material' perovskite by mitigating a previously hidden degradation ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Researchers have developed a new method of growing organic crystals that can be used for energy-harvesting ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — In order to use remote locations to record and assess the behavior of wildlife and environmental conditions, the GAIA Initiative developed an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm that reliably and automatically classifies behaviors of white-backed vultures using animal tag data. As scavengers, vultures always look for the next carcass. With the ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — Researchers have introduced a technique for compressing a large language model's reams of data, which could increase privacy, save energy and lower costs. The new algorithm works by trimming redundancies and reducing the precision of an LLM's layers of information. This type of leaner LLM could be stored and accessed locally on a device like a ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — Immune cells are capable of detecting infections just like a sniffer dog, using special sensors known as Toll-like receptors, or TLRs for short. But what signals activate TLRs, and what is the relationship between the scale and nature of this activation and the substance being detected? In a recent study, researchers used an innovative method to answer these questions. The approach that they took ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — Herbal medicine is difficult to produce on an industrial scale. A team of bioengineers have now manipulated the cellular machinery in a species of yeast so that one such molecule can now be produced in a fermenter at unprecedented concentrations. The achievement also points the way to the microbial production of other plant-derived ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — Up to two thirds of the world's temperate rainforests could fall victim to climate change by the year 2100 according to a new ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Researchers are helping uncover new information about the Y chromosome in horses, which will help owners identify optimal lineages for breeding and help conservationists preserve breed ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Researchers examined the Senboku Hottokenai Network Project through a combination of case study and action research methodologies. The results of this study shed new light on the importance of community-led co-creation in transdisciplinary ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — A new study measuring access to nature for eight major global cities found most still have inadequate canopy cover, despite access to an abundance of ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Researchers have developed a new crystalline material that can harvest water from fog without any energy input. The design of the novel type of smart crystals, which the researchers named Janus crystals, is inspired by desert plants and animals, which can survive in arid ...

Nov. 14, 2024 — New research exploring the roots of modern Japanese populations has linked the genetic signature of Jomon hunter-gatherers to a higher body mass index (BMI) among individuals, underlining that ancient human ancestors can leave a genetic legacy with impacts on health in modern day ...

Nov. 13, 2024 — A collection of perforated pebbles from an archaeological site in Israel may be spindle whorls, representing a key milestone in the development of rotational tools including wheels, according to a new ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — A new study finds that the disturbance-demanding plant species oak, hazel and yew were abundant in Europe's forests before modern humans arrived, strengthening the argument that ancient vegetation was not the shady closed-canopy forests often ...

Nov. 13, 2024 — Few questions have captivated humankind more than the origin of life on Earth. How did the first living cells come to exist? How did these early protocells develop the structural membranes necessary for cells to thrive and assemble into complex organisms? New research has uncovered a plausible explanation involving the reaction between two simple ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — A new study found that policies to curtail the use of single-use plastic bags in grocery stores and other retail outlets in Austin and Dallas, Texas, resulted in people buying more plastic bags, a behavior that continued after the rules were no longer in ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — Alcohol-related deaths in the U.S. nearly doubled from 1999 to 2020. The sharpest spike occurred among 25- to 34-year-olds (nearly fourfold), while individuals aged 55 to 64 had the highest rates. Men consistently had higher rates but women saw the largest proportional rise, with deaths increasing 2.5 times. Asian and Pacific Islander communities experienced the steepest ethnic increase, while ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — Recent research suggests the unique stresses from farm life may be taking a toll on one of the pillars of the families that make your dinners possible: the women who keep farming families ...

Nov. 19, 2024 — Unlike kids in the United States, hunter-gatherer children in the Congo Basin have often learned how to hunt, identify edible plants and care for babies by the tender age of six or seven. This rapid learning is facilitated by a unique social environment where cultural knowledge is passed down not just from parents but from the broader community. The research helps explain how many cultural traits ...

Nov. 14, 2024 — Researchers find a link between early vocabulary composition and later language development in children with cochlear ...

Nov. 12, 2024 — Contrary to popular belief, children aren't better at learning new skills than adults. Indeed, young adults seem to learn faster than kids -- but also tend to forget more quickly. Here, better sleep seems to advantage ...

Nov. 6, 2024 — A new study shows how students can better understand and interpret conditional ...

Nov. 18, 2024 — It turns out gaming is good for you! New research indicates massive multiplayer online gamers learn by gaming and their skills in the workplace are enriched by those seemingly endless hours previously thought of as frittering away ...

Nov. 16, 2024 — Employees struggle when supervisors swing between good and bad ...

Nov. 13, 2024 — Working days lost to long covid could be costing the economy billions of pounds every year as patients struggle to cope with symptoms and return to work, finds a new ...

Nov. 14, 2024 — Physical cash not only influences how much we spend but also fosters a profound sense of psychological ownership that digital payments cannot replicate, according to new ...