The proliferation of pits and ponds created in recent years by miners digging for small deposits of alluvial gold in Peru's Amazon has dramatically altered the landscape and increased the risk of mercury exposure for indigenous communities and wildlife, a new study shows.

Modelling was presented to government before decision to allow three-household festive ‘bubbles’Coronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageCovid-19 infections could double over Christmas, scientists advising the government have said.The warning comes in the latest tranche of files from the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage). The documents were presented to...

Scientists hope remains, thought to be up to 5,000 years old, will deepen knowledge of whale species and of rising sea levelsA whale skeleton thought to be up to 5,000 years old has been discovered, almost perfectly preserved, by researchers in Thailand.The skeleton, believed to be a Bryde’s whale, was found in Samut Sakhon, west of Bangkok. Researchers have excavated 80% of the remains and have...

A team of researchers affiliated with a host of institutions in Norway and one in the U.K., has unveiled their findings after collecting and studying a very large number of ancient arrows they found near a melting ice patch in Norway's Jotunheimen Mountains. In their paper published in the journal The Holocene, the group describes how they kept their research secret to avoid the possibility of...

Superconducting devices such as SQUIDS (Superconducting Quantum Interferometry Device) can perform ultra-sensitive measurements of magnetic fields. Leiden physicsts invented a method to 3-D-print these and other superconducting devices in minutes.

Multi-kilowatt (kW) (≥3kW) level fiber lasers with high stability are significant in many applications, and Yb-doped fiber is the key device in such fiber lasers. The incredible advances of the past few decades in fiber fabrication technology have led to an exponential increase in the output power of continuous-wave (CW) fiber lasers. However, with further scaling the output power,...

International and Cypriot experts on Friday discussed a research project to test space equipment on the Mediterranean island before sending it to Mars to measure the age of its rocks, officials said.

Plan hatched by new ‘Union unit’ to counter rise in Scottish nationalismCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageDowning Street tried to get doses of the Oxford University/AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine labelled with an image of the union jack, it has emerged, as scientists and statisticians raised more questions over the press release that proclaimed the trial’s...

A comet discovered last year is offering scientists new insights into how these objects "turn on" and evolve, as it actually transitions out of the Centaur population and into the Jupiter Family of Comets (JFCs), according to a paper by Planetary Science Institute Research Scientist Jordan Steckloff.

Black holes are thought to gobble up so much surrounding material that they put an end to the life of their host galaxy. In that process they create a highly energetic object called a quasar which was previously thought to halt star birth. Now researchers have found a galaxy that is surviving the ravenous forces of a quasar by continuing to birth new stars –about 100 Sun-sized stars a year.

Researchers have recently displayed the interaction of superconducting qubits; the basic unit of quantum information, with surface acoustic wave resonators; a surface-wave equivalent of the crystal resonator, in quantum physics. This phenomena opens a new field of research, defined as quantum acoustodynamics to allow the development of new types of quantum devices. The main challenge in this...

New research by scientists from Delft University of Technology and the University of Duisburg-Essen uses the motion of atomically thin graphene to identify noble gasses. These gasses are chemically passive and do not react with other materials, which makes it challenging to detect them. The findings are reported in the journal Nature Communications.

An international team of geologists, headed by members of the University of Bern, has shown for the first time that the Swiss Alps are being lifted faster than they are being lowered through erosion—and are thus growing even higher. To do this, the researchers quantified the erosion of the Alps with the help of isotopes measured in the sand of more than 350 rivers throughout the European Alps....

The Freigeist group at TU Dresden, led by chemist Dr. Juliane Simmchen, has studied an impressive behavior of synthetic microswimmers: as soon as the photocatalytic particles leave an illuminated zone, they flip independently and swim back into the light. This promising observation and its analysis was recently published in the scientific journal Soft Matter as an "Emerging Investigator" article.