Latest science news, discoveries and scientific developments.
When will the glacier in your valley disappear? Will the glacier you visited as a child still exist in 2050? And how much difference would limiting global warming make?
Life is not always easy for a bee: Not all plants place their pollen outside. Some flowers have to be set to vibrating before the pollen can get out of their tube-like stamens. Certain bee species have developed a special technique for this: They bite on the flower and use their flight muscles to generate rapid vibrations. The stamen is shaken and the pollen is released. This phenomenon is known as "buzz pollination."
While chemical bonds usually determine the structure and properties of a material, bonds between neighboring metal atoms can also change as temperature or other conditions change. These changes can lead to unusual electronic and magnetic behaviors.
Scientists have identified the mechanisms that allow plants to change their root anatomy to maximize survival when nutrients are scarce. The findings could pave the way for developing new ways to improve beneficial plant-microbe interactions in agriculture.
OpenAI is at the center of another controversy over machines tackling big math problems. This one’s about the twin prime conjecture.
Scientists have discovered that there is ice deep inside planets like Neptune and Uranus and want to find out what form it takes and how it behaves. They cannot dig for it and transport it all the way back to Earth, so they do the next best thing: recreate those extreme conditions in the lab.
A study by Politecnico di Milano and the University of Insubria (Varese and Como) has been published in PLOS Digital Health. The study involved more than 700 children from primary and lower secondary school. The participants used the THInkPen (Tele-Health Ink Pen) while completing two BVSCO-3 tasks from the Battery for the Clinical Assessment of Writing and Orthographic Skills. This is the most widely used test in Italy for assessing writing difficulties, dysgraphia and dysorthography.
Who isn't familiar with the colorful coral reefs from movies like "Finding Nemo" or "The Little Mermaid"? Unfortunately, the reality is often quite different, as these vital ecosystems are under pressure worldwide. Climate change and pollution are causing corals to bleach and die. Even the most resilient coral reefs of the United States are now threatened.
An exceptionally well-preserved fossilized molar belonging to an adult Pacific mastodon has surfaced in a nature preserve near San Francisco.Upon first glance, the ancient tooth looked like an "oddly shaped rock" to geologists who were conducting fieldwork in the area, according to a statement from the Midpeninsula Regional Open Space (Midpen), which runs the preserve. But the find was quickly unmasked as a valuable fossil from the last ice age and was sent to scientists at Stanford University for carbon dating."The tooth itself is in immaculate condition," Wayne Thompson, a paleontologist and the CEO of Pacific Paleontology, a consulting firm that carried out a preliminary analysis, said in...
A vast sheet of volcanic rock in the Andes has preserved clues to a buried landscape that existed 22 million years ago, according to a new study led by UCL (University College London) researchers.
With Western wildfires increasing in size, duration and intensity, millions of Americans are now exposed to wildfire smoke each year. In California, 2020 and 2021 were particularly challenging, with a 10-fold increase in fires compared with any time in the state's history. Northern Nevada is positioned to receive much of the smoke from California wildfires, and Reno residents experienced months of smoke-shrouded skies during this time. Now, a new study gives us a deeper look into the potentially hazardous chemicals lurking in this smoke.
Researchers at the Eastern Institute of Technology (EIT), Ningbo, have developed a graph-based approach that directly extracts concise, accurate constitutive equations from solid-material experimental data. The study, published in Science Advances, describes a method for discovering constitutive models for alloy steels, lithium metal and filled rubbers. It outperforms mainstream empirical models in predictive accuracy while preserving explicit, physically interpretable mathematical formulations.
Elon Musk firm’s Colossus 2 data centre – the largest in the US – has been spewing out nitrogen oxide emissions from trailer-mounted gas turbines, an analysis suggests
In March 2021, Berkeley, Calif., became the first city in the world to ban the display of sugary beverages and snacks in store checkout lanes, where candy, chocolate and soda are commonly placed to encourage impulse buying while shoppers are in line.
It's the season for babies in the snake world, and Project RattleCam is capturing magical moments.
Weakening Atlantic Ocean currents could cripple agriculture in some of the world's major breadbaskets, threatening global food security and raising the price of basic commodities, new research finds.The study, which hasn't been peer-reviewed yet, investigated how a roughly 60% decline in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) would impact global food production. The AMOC is a system of ocean currents that regulates the global climate and brings heat from the tropics to the Northern Hemisphere.However, the system is currently the weakest it's been in more than 1,000 years, having lost 10% to 20% of its strength due to climate change, estimates show.In the new study, researcher...
The seemingly trivial ability to hear a regular pulse in music is a remarkable—and perhaps distinctively human—feature of the brain. In a wide-ranging critical review, Gábor Háden of the HUN-REN Research Centre for Natural Sciences and Henkjan Honing of the University of Amsterdam evaluate more than two decades of research into how this capacity develops and has evolved. Their paper was published this week in the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences.
Imagine telling your phone that you want a quiet boutique hotel near a city center, below a certain price, with a decent breakfast and late checkout. A few seconds later, an AI assistant compares the options, explains why each one fits and helps complete the booking. This is no longer hypothetical.
While artificial intelligence (AI) systems can now solve challenging math equations and respond in human-like language, the question of AI consciousness has moved from the realm of sci-fi to scientific discussion. The debate has become more mainstream thanks to a recent preprint study that examined "consciousness steering," an AI-tuning technique that affects how an AI model expresses ideas about self-awareness. The researchers suggested that if AI is allowed to claim it is conscious, it's also more likely to state that it believes in ghosts or vampires. Although the study hasn't been peer-reviewed yet, it raises a big question in the world of AI research: Could AI one day develop real consc...
Fluorinated waste, like that found in firefighting aqueous film-forming foam, can act as a significant environmental pollutant. Recently, James Tour's lab at Rice University developed a method to capture fluoride from these waste streams and recycle it into a useful reagent, silver fluoride, that could be used in other manufacturing processes. This process is published in Nature Chemical Engineering.