Explore the latest scientific discoveries, science news, breakthroughs and developments from around the world.
A forest can look intact from the roadside and still have lost much of its capacity to bounce back. That gap between appearance and function is at the center of a new policy brief published by eLTER, the European research infrastructure for long-term ecosystem, critical zone and socio-ecological research.
Pelicans have resided in St James's Park, London, for 360 years. But the current flock has been a summer sensation because of the first chicks to hatch in the park's history.
Ichthyosaurs ruled the oceans for 150 million years during the Mesozoic Era. Their fish-shaped bodies were built for high speeds. In that context, it is normally an advantage to be as light as possible.
As a liquid that is easily stored and transported, ammonia (NH3) is an attractive carrier for hydrogen, which is used in fuel cells, semiconductor manufacturing, chemical processing and other applications. However, breaking ammonia into hydrogen and nitrogen typically requires high temperatures, and the resulting gas mixture must undergo additional purification before the hydrogen can be used in many applications.
Caring for others without caring for oneself is associated with lower levels of well-being and may not be sustainable, a new study found.
A bizarre squid has been filmed haunting the northeastern Pacific Ocean for the first time. Researchers spotted the bigfin squid (Magnapinna) via remote video while using an uncrewed submersible to explore underwater mountains, known as seamounts, at a depth of more than 10,000 feet (3,000 meters) off the coast of California. The footage, captured Aug. 7, represents the first confirmed live observation of a bigfin squid in the northeastern Pacific, according to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), whose scientists made the discovery with collaborators from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).Olívia Soares Pereira, a deep-sea ecologist and postdoctoral ...
For decades, researchers wondered if the Navier-Stokes equations, which describe fluid flow, break down. OpenAI put thousands of agents on the question.
Tristan Buckmaster, a mathematician at New York University, had just spent months working on what he believed could be a life-defining mathematical proof. Then, during a Sept. 6 meeting with OpenAI employees, he claims that he was issued a stark warning: "Why would you ruin your career?"That exchange, which Buckmaster described in a detailed public statement this week, sits at the heart of a ballooning controversy around a famous set of mathematical equations called Navier-Stokes. OpenAI says its artificial intelligence (AI) model has solved an outstanding problem tied to this 200-year-old set of fluid dynamics equations. The set of equations appears on the list of one of the seven Millenniu...
Abnormally high temperatures on the Tibetan Plateau triggered two catastrophic rainfall events halfway around the world in California and nearby states in early 2017 and 2023, a new study reports.This is the first time that researchers have identified this link, known as a climate teleconnection. The results could improve forecasts of extreme weather in the western U.S., which, in turn, could improve warnings for coastal communities and potentially save lives as well as billions of dollars in property damage, the study's authors say.In December 2016 and February 2023, the Tibetan Plateau was warmer than usual for these times of the year. Roughly one month after each of these hotspots appeare...
The world's oldest known habitual drug use can be traced to an island in Indonesia, where ice age hunter-gatherers sucked on betel nuts — palm seeds that contain a neuroactive substance, a new study finds. Scientists made the discovery after studying strange grooves in the teeth of two prehistoric hunter-gatherers. The deep grooves were caused by regularly sucking on betel nuts (Areca catechu), likely for relief from the pain of toothache, according to the study, which was published Wednesday (Sept. 9) in the journal Science Advances.The partial skeletons of the two people were found on the island of Sulawesi, but their lives were separated in time by thousands of years. One of them, a man w...
Gondwana was much bigger than we thought, according to the new analysis
Astronomers just dropped a video 27 years in the making: the highest-definition animation of a gargantuan black hole jet blasting out of a distant galaxy and twisting off into space.The video, made from 116 images taken between 1995 and 2022, captured a blazar known as 3C 345, in the constellation Hercules. A blazar is a sort of quasar — a bright, feeding supermassive black hole embedded in the center of a faraway galaxy — that emits huge jets of gas into its environment. The jets blaze at nearly the speed of light and are charged with highly concentrated X-rays and gamma rays.As described in an Aug. 26 study in the journal Nature, scientists gathered the images of 3C 345 using decades of ob...