A freakish heat wave is making early autumn feel like the dog days of summer in much of the southern and eastern US, with forecasters predicting Wednesday that temperatures could get close to triple digits.

Driving is not just an air pollution and climate change problem—turns out, it just might be the largest contributor of microplastics in California coastal waters.

Researchers have created a silicon carbide (SiC) photonic integrated chip that can be thermally tuned by applying an electric signal. The approach could one day be used to create a large range of reconfigurable devices such as phase-shifters and tunable optical couplers needed for networking applications and quantum information processing.

A researcher at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA) is examining how the flight routes people take to get to tourist destinations impact the amount of pollution in the air in a newly published study he coauthored in the Annals of Tourism Research.

Virgin Galactic says it has been contracted by the Italian air force for a suborbital research flight aboard its winged rocket ship.

Someday soon, analysts will determine that a city or county, or maybe a school district or utility, is so vulnerable to sea level rise, flooding, drought or wildfire that it is an investment risk.

Understanding the causes and consequences of Late Quaternary megafaunal extinctions is increasingly important in a world of growing human populations and climate change. A new review, led by scholars at the Bernice Pauahi Bishop Museum and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, highlights the role that cutting-edge scientific methods can play in broadening the discussions about...

Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA), is the macromolecule that holds all hereditary and genetic information. Continuously under assault, alterations and damage to DNA can lead to many different health issues, including cancer. DNA is highly regulated within cells, where multiple mechanisms are at play to repair and protect its integrity. Scientists are still investigating these mechanisms to fully...

A new material with antifungal and antitumor properties has been developed by researchers at the Center for Development of Functional Materials (CDMF), one of the Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (RIDCs) supported by São Paulo Research Foundation—FAPESP. CDMF is hosted by the Federal University of São Carlos (UFSCar) in São Paulo State, Brazil.

An international research team led by Giuseppe Marramà from the Institute of Paleontology at the University of Vienna discovered a new and well-preserved fossil stingray with an exceptional anatomy, which greatly differs from living species. The find provides new insights into the evolution of these animals and sheds light on the recovery of marine ecosystems after the mass extinction occurred 66...

Enticed by the brilliant green hues of copper acetate and copper resinate, some painters in the Renaissance period incorporated these pigments into their masterpieces. However, by the 18th century, most artists had abandoned the colors because of their tendency to darken with time. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' journal Inorganic Chemistry have uncovered the chemistry behind the copper...

The International Monitoring System is the top global seismic network for monitoring nuclear weapon tests around the world. To expand the system's detection capabilities, however, international monitors should seek out the data, methods and expertise of smaller regional seismic networks.

Scientific collaborations across the globe are an important part of modern research. However, political and economic strife between governments, such as current tensions between the U.S. and China, can threaten these vital connections, according to an article in Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), the weekly newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society.

Metabolic analysis involves ongoing biological pathways and can be more distal than proteomic/genomic approaches to in vitro diagnostics (IVD). However, point-of-care (POC) metabolic analysis needs special designed materials to detect target biomarkers of low concentration in complex biosystems.

The neutrino event IceCube 170922A, detected at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory at the South Pole, appears to originate from the distant active galaxy TXS 0506+056, at a light travel distance of 3.8 billion light years. TXS 0506+056 is one of many active galaxies and it remained a mystery why and how only this particular galaxy generated neutrinos so far.

White sharks are top predators in the marine environment, but unlike their terrestrial counterparts, very little is known about their predatory activity underwater, with current knowledge limited to surface predation events. Now, a team of international scientists has used video- and data-logging technology to shed new light on predator-prey interactions of these mighty sea creatures.

Quantum physics is difficult and explaining it even more so. Associate Professor Holger F. Hofmann from Hiroshima University and Kartik Patekar from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay have tried to solve one of the biggest puzzles in quantum physics: how to measure the quantum system without changing it?

In a report recently published in Nature Communications, a research group led by Associate Professor Joel Yang from the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD) printed probably the smallest colorful 3-D model of the Eiffel Tower. Impressively, no pigments or inks were used. Instead, the 3-D-printed model of the Eiffel Tower, measuring less than half the width of a human hair at 39...

A special ship designed to clean the oceans has harvested its first plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch since setting sail from San Francisco last month, its Dutch inventor said Wednesday.

In November 1953, the Nationaltheater in Mannheim, Germany, staged a new opera, the composer Boris Blacher's "Abstrakte Oper Nr. 1," which had debuted just months previously. As it ran, music fans were treated to both a performance and a raging controversy about the work, which one critic called "a monstrosity of musical progress," and another termed "a stillbirth."

Just less than 13,000 years ago, the climate cooled for a short while in many parts of the world, especially in the northern hemisphere. We know this because of what has been found in ice cores drilled in Greenland, as well as from oceans around the world.

If political headlines globally are anything to go by, it seems democracy is at risk. Totalitarian views are on the rise. Far-right parties and leaders have gained voters in many countries. And decisions are being made by law courts or by technical experts from international economic organizations. And people, particularly young people, feel they do not have a say. So it's not surprising then that...

If "Why?" is the first question in science, "Why not?" must be a close second. Sometimes it's worth thinking about why something does not exist.

The logo for Hera, ESA's proposed asteroid mission for planetary defense, has already reached space, thanks to ESA astronaut Luca Parmitano, who snapped this photo from the cupola of the International Space Station. The Hera mission itself is seeking final approval for development at the Space19+ Ministerial Council this November.