Soft, stretchy, slimline and strong electronics could accelerate the arrival of artificial skin.

The proliferation of pits and ponds created in recent years by miners digging for gold in Peru's Amazon has altered the landscape and amplified the risk of mercury poisoning, a new study shows. In some watersheds, there's been a 670% increase in land area covered by abandoned mining pits that have filled in with water. Low-oxygen conditions in these ponds accelerate the conversion of submerged...

In a study on mice conducted by the Neural Computation Unit at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), the authors, Dr. Katsuhiko Miyazaki and Dr. Kayoko Miyazaki, pinpoint specific areas of the brain that individually promote patience through the action of serotonin.

A team from the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) and the Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ), led by Professor Fateh Chebana, has recently developed a cold-health watch and warning system for cold waves, a first in the world. Their results were published in November 2020 in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

Legal scholars, computer scientists and economists must work together to prevent unlawful price-surging behaviors from artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms used by rivals in a competitive market, argue Emilio Calvano and colleagues in this Policy Forum.

Research published in Science reveals how pores form during metals additive manufacturing and become defects trapped in solidifying metal. The practical value of this research is that it can inform industry on how to predict and improve 3D printing processes.

Neanderthal thumbs were better adapted to holding tools in the same way that we hold a hammer, according to a paper published in Scientific Reports.

Finding medicines that can kill cancer cells while leaving normal tissue unscathed is a Holy Grail of oncology research. In two new papers, scientists at UC San Francisco and Princeton University present complementary strategies to crack this problem with 'smart' cell therapies -- living medicines that remain inert unless triggered by combinations of proteins that only ever appear together in...

The number of people living with undiagnosed HIV is increasing in the WHO European Region. According to data published today by ECDC and the WHO/Europe, more than 136 000 people were newly diagnosed in 2019 - roughly 20% of these diagnoses were in the EU/EAA and 80% in the eastern part of the European Region. Every second HIV diagnosis (53%) happens at a late stage of the infection, when the...

Researchers at Leipzig University and the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) have compiled the world's most comprehensive list of known plant species. It contains 1,315,562 names of vascular plants, thus extending the number by some 70,000 - equivalent to about 20%. The researchers have also succeeded in clarifying 181,000 hitherto unclear species names. The data set has...

Tortoise refugees with the highest genetic variation are far more likely to survive conservation translocation than tortoises whose genetic diversity is lower, according to a new study.

For decades, scientists have expected that the shedding of leaves from temperate trees will get later and later under ongoing climate change.

Researchers warn that heatwaves and concurrent droughts of Mongolia's semi-arid plateau have increased significantly during the past two decades, with troubling implications for the future. The change also has ramifications for atmospheric conditions across the Northern Hemisphere.

Over a period of 39 months, invasive keyhole wasps (Pachodynerus nasidens) at the Brisbane Airport were responsible for 93 instances of fully blocked replica pitot probes -- vital instruments that measure airspeed -- according to a study published November 30 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Alan House of Eco Logical Australia and colleagues. As noted by the authors, the results underscore...

University of Copenhagen researchers have been following vegetation trends across the planet's driest areas using satellite imagery from recent decades. They have identified a troubling trend: Too little vegetation is sprouting up from rainwater in developing nations, whereas things are headed in the opposite direction in wealthier ones. As a result, the future could see food shortages and growing...

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have developed a new gene therapy approach that offers promise for one day treating an eye disease that leads to a progressive loss of vision and affects thousands of people across the globe. The study, which involved a collaboration with clinical teams in the Royal Victoria Eye and Ear Hospital and the Mater Hospital, also has implications for a much wider...

New research has identified and described a cellular process that, despite what textbooks say, has remained elusive to scientists until now -- precisely how the copying of genetic material that, once started, is properly turned off.

The abrupt shift to hotter and drier conditions over inner East Asia is unprecedented and may herald an irreversible shift to a new climate regime for the region, according to a new study.

A UCLA study publishing Nov. 27 in Science supports a new conservation strategy. Climate change increasingly makes relocating threatened species necessary, despite the frequently low success rate. The study found tortoises with lots of genetic variation were much more likely to survive after their relocation. The research supports this fast, inexpensive conservation tool, and upends the...

Demystifying traditional Chinese medicine for conservationists could be the key to better protecting endangered species like pangolins, tigers and rhino, according to University of Queensland-led researchers. UQ PhD candidate Hubert Cheung said efforts to shift entrenched values and beliefs about Chinese medicine are not achieving conservation gains in the short term.

Researchers from Yale-NUS College find that viewing interests as developable, not fixed, can help people make connections among diverse fields that others might miss, with implications for innovation. Their research suggests that understanding this can benefit organisations in generating innovative solutions and ideas, job seekers taking on new or wide-ranging responsibilities, and can create a...

Researchers from the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology, Jena University and University Hospital have developed an optical toolbox to build microscopes for a few hundred euros that deliver high-resolution images comparable to commercial microscopes that cost up to a thousand times more. The 3D printed open-source modular system can be combined in the way the research question requires --...

Computational chemists from St Petersburg University and the Zelinsky Institute of Organic Chemistry of the Russian Academy of Sciences have developed a new strategy for using calcium acetylide in the synthesis of organic compounds. The researchers proposed a new approach by analysing the interaction of calcium acetylide with water and dimethyl sulfoxide on the atomic scale.

As people age, joints become less flexible, causing balance problems that lower quality of life. Dr. Kosuke Hirata, Mr. Ryosuke Yamadera, and Prof. Ryota Akagi from the Shibaura Institute of Technology revealed that among younger adults, muscle but not nerve stiffness is associated with the ankle's range of motion (ROM), whereas only nerve stiffness is linked to ankle ROM among older adults. In...