The enormous black hole at the center of our galaxy is having an unusually large meal of interstellar gas and dust, and researchers don't yet understand why.

In 2017, Scot Martin, the Gordon McKay Professor of Environmental Science and Engineering at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS), envisioned a novel drone-based chemical monitoring system to track the health of the Amazon in the face of global climate change and human-caused deforestation and burning.

The iconic saguaros on Tumamoc Hill served as harbingers in new research which sought to predict how the desert species will fare in the hotter, drier climate of the future and how topography might mitigate the effects of climate change.

As plants expand into new open habitats, geographical and climatic factors may matter more than species-specific traits, according to a study published September 11, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Miki Nomura of the University of Otago in New Zealand, and colleagues.

On Oct. 15, 2017, actress Alyssa Milano sparked a firestorm on social media when she asked her Twitter followers to reply "me too" if they had ever been sexually harassed or assaulted. (Social justice activist Tarana Burke founded the "Me Too" movement more than 10 years ago as a way to help sexual assault survivors heal.) What followed were 1.5 million responses—many from sexual assault...

The hoary bat, the species of bat most frequently found dead at wind power facilities, is declining at a rate that threatens its long-term future in the Pacific Northwest, according to a novel and comprehensive research collaboration based at Oregon State University—Cascades.

There's a whole world behind the scenes at natural history museums that most people never see. Museum collections house millions upon millions of dinosaur bones, pickled sharks, dried leaves, and every other part of the natural world you can think of—more than could ever be put on display. Instead, these specimens are used in research by scientists trying to understand how different kinds of...

A new study finds that the muscles in bats' wings operate at a significantly lower temperature than their bodies, especially during flight.

A newly developed type of architected metamaterial has the ability to change shape in a tunable fashion.

Researchers from the University of Chicago have used tools developed to explore 3-D movements and mechanics of modern-day fish jaws to analyze a fossil fish for the first time. Combined with CT imaging technology able to capture images of the fossil while it is still encased in rock, the results reveal that the 335-million-year-old shark had sophisticated jaws capable of the kind of suction...

An international team of scientists, led by researchers at McMaster University, has solved a centuries-old mystery of 'Fraser's Clawed Frog', an unusual and elusive species found in West Africa.

Coasts, oceans, ecosystems, weather and human health all face impacts from climate change, and now valuable soils may also be affected.

The first national survey inquiring about American attitudes toward agricultural gene drives—genetic modification techniques that can be used to "drive" a genetic trait or characteristic through a given insect pest population to help commercial crop production by squelching harmful pest effects—shows more support for systems that are limited in scope and aimed at non-native insects.

In an underground vault enclosed by six-foot concrete walls and accessed by a rolling, 25-ton concrete-and-steel door, University of California, Berkeley, students are making neutrons dance to a new tune: one better suited to producing isotopes required for geological dating, police forensics, hospital diagnosis and treatment.

To the casual observer, Japanese stiltgrass appears as a harmless, leafy green plant that blends into the majestic scenery of your weekend hike through the woods.

The Acheulian culture endured in the Levant for over a million years during the Lower Paleolithic period (1.4 million to 400,000 years ago). Its use of bifaces or large cutting tools like hand axes and cleavers is considered a hallmark of its sophistication—or, some researchers would argue, the lack thereof.

Bacterial leaf streak, a foliar disease in corn, has only been in the United States for a handful of years, but Tiffany Jamann says it's a major problem in the Western Corn Belt.

Two palaeontologists working on the world-renowned Burgess Shale have revealed a new species, called Mollisonia plenovenatrix, which is presented as the oldest chelicerate. This discovery places the origin of this vast group of animals—of over 115,000 species, including horseshoe crabs, scorpions and spiders—to a time more than 500 million years ago. The findings are published in the...

An evolution revolution has begun after scientists extracted genetic information from a 1.7 million-year-old rhino tooth—the largest and oldest genetic data to ever be recorded.

Modern atomic clocks are the most accurate measurement tools currently available. The best current instruments deviate by just one second in 30 billion years. However, even this extraordinary level of precision can be improved upon. Indeed, a clock based on an excited nuclear state of thorium-229 should make it possible to enhance timing accuracy by another order of magnitude.

An international team of astronomers, including Northwestern University's Farhad Yusef-Zadeh, has discovered one of the largest structures ever observed in the Milky Way. A newly spotted pair of radio-emitting bubbles reach hundreds of light-years tall, dwarfing all other structures in the central region of the galaxy.

K2-18b, which is eight times the mass of Earth, is now the only planet orbiting a star outside the Solar System, or 'exoplanet', known to have both water and temperatures that could support life.

In 2002, the discovery of acrylamide in certain snacks rattled consumers and the food industry. Acrylamide, a probable human carcinogen, forms by a chemical reaction during baking or frying. Although experts say it's impossible to completely eliminate acrylamide from crackers, cookies and potato chips, food manufacturers are working to reduce the compound's levels, according to an article in...

During her childhood in northern Maine, Jessica Meir often stared at the night sky and wondered what it would be like to observe earth from space.