The black holes at the centers of galaxies are the most mysterious objects in the Universe, not only because of the huge quantities of material within them, millions of times the mass of the sun, but because of the incredibly dense concentration of matter in a volume no bigger than that of our solar system. When they capture matter from their surroundings they become active, and can send out...

Graduate student Kristen LeGault and assistant professor Kimberley Seed, both in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, specialize in the evolution of human pathogens and the viruses that infect bacteria, known as phages.

It is well known that an electric current increases the temperature of the material through which it is conducted due to the so-called Joule effect. This effect, which is used daily in domestic and industrial heaters, hair dryers, thermal fuses, etc., occurs because the new electrons injected into the material cannot go to the lower energy states because those are already occupied by the electrons...

Areas with ground temperatures that remain below 0 degrees Celsius for more than two years are referred to as permafrost, and approximately one-quarter of the Northern Hemisphere and 17% of the Earth's exposed land surface is permafrost. Permafrost is found in mountainous areas as well as in high-latitude tundra and taiga regions. Recent observations have shown that the permafrost in mountainous...

scientists from NUST MISIS, South Ural State University and Joint Institute for Nuclear Research together with colleagues from Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Belarus have developed a new radar absorbing polymer composite with exfoliated graphite (EG)/barium aluminum hexaferrite (HF) fillers. The new composite has excellent magnetic and microwave properties. It can absorb 99.9% of the incoming...

The rapid increase in energy consumption related to digital technologies is a major global challenge. One key problem is the reduction of the energy consumption of magnetic data storage devices, which are used, for example, in large data centers.

Seismologist John Cassidy says people should be ready to go before the official warning if they feel...

Scientists working to bring back the functionally extinct northern white rhino announced they had successfully created three additional embryos of the subspecies, bringing the total to 12.

A team of researchers from Italy, Spain and Georgia has found the remains of ancient hunting dogs at a dig site in what is now modern Georgia. In their paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the group describes the fossils they found, their attempts to classify them and the possibility of the dogs interacting with early human ancestors.

Messier 82 (M82) is a luminous infrared galaxy about twelve million light-years away from the Milky Way. Its burst of star formation powers the radiation and drives a bipolar superwind that originates near the core of the galaxy. The wind extends perpendicular to the galactic plane out into the halo and intergalactic medium; ionized gas in the wind traces a continuous structure that is about...

Small Pacific Island states depend on their commercial fisheries for food supplies and economic health. But our new research shows climate change will dramatically alter tuna stocks in the tropical Pacific, with potentially severe consequences for the people who depend on them.

While the reproduction process of flowering plants has been known for more than 120 years, there still remain many mysteries to unravel. Researchers from INRAE, ENS de Lyon, CNRS and Limagrain characterized a new membrane within pollen grain that surrounds the two sperm cells. In a publication in Journal of Cell Biology on 29 July 2021, the scientists show that this membrane is key to guarantee...

James Meador, an independent researcher at the California Institute of Technology, has found evidence that suggests the Apollo 11 ascent stage may still be orbiting the moon. He has written a paper outlining his research and findings and has posted it on the arXiv preprint server.

In a new survey of Los Angeles County renters, 49% of households reported that they were unable to pay all of their rent during the pandemic.

When school facilities closed for in-person learning in early March 2020, the assumption was that the shutdown and pandemic would be temporary blips in the memory of our students. Some 16 months later, school facilities are finally preparing to re-open for in-person learning. We could go about business as usual, but after the devastation of the pandemic, and the increasingly widespread...

Size matters when it comes to sorting biological materials. From identifying pathogens to screening for drug treatments, the ability to quickly identify and separate particles based on their size is an increasingly important tool in diagnosing and treating patients, according to Huanyu "Larry" Cheng, Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Professor in Penn State's Department of Engineering Science and...

Using technology familiar to computer gamers, University of Queensland scientists are creating 'digital twins' of mango and macadamia orchards to help boost food production.

The spread of COVID-19 was rapid and relentless, and so were its effects on economies worldwide. Knowing how state economies withstand economic shocks in near-real time can be beneficial for policymakers who have the power to enact strategies to counteract the negative impact. University of Notre Dame researchers developed the first near-real-time dashboard that tracks weekly state-level economic...

An aerospace company near Edmonton has patented technology it believes can help step up the game of fighting wildfires and other natural disasters in Alberta and...

All around the world, there is an extreme gender imbalance in physics, in both academia and industry.

The mammalian cerebellum has long been associated almost exclusively with motor control, yet recent studies indicate that it also contributes to many higher brain functions. An international research team led by Prof. Dr. Henrik Kaessmann from the Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University (ZMBH) has now decoded the genetic programs that control the development of cerebellar cell types...

Hokkaido University researchers in Japan created and tested a library of lipid-based compounds to find a way to safely and effectively deliver RNA drugs to the lungs. Their analyses, published in the journal Materials Horizons, pinpointed a lipid polymer that might in the future be used to treat acute respiratory distress syndrome, pulmonary hypertension and lung cancers.

Digital transistors—assembled by the billions in today's computer chips—act as near-perfect electronic switches. In the "on" position, achieved when an above-threshold voltage is applied to the device, the transistor allows current to flow. When the switch is off, the transistor prevents the flow of current. The on/off positions of the switch translate into the 1s and 0s of digital...

Dark matter remains one of the greatest mysteries in science. Despite decades of astronomical evidence for its existence, no one has yet been able to find any sign of it closer to home. There have been dozens of efforts to do so, and one of the most prominent just hit a milestone—the release and analysis of eight years of data. The IceCube Neutrino Observatory will soon be releasing results...

Western Australian pastoralist David Pollock argues much needs to be learned about how to transition Australia's vast, arid rangelands pastures from their present, significantly degraded condition to become truly sustainable farming operations.

Red Tide is sweeping through much of the Gulf Coast of Florida, having killed millions of fish and other marine life, and it could be headed toward Texas, according to a Texas A&M University at Galveston marine biologist.

The best way to appreciate the planet fully is to leave the planet entirely. To inhabit a world is to get awfully used to it. The sky is up there—big as ever. The ground is down there—solid as ever. The ocean is over that way. Canada is up the other way. There are happy places—Paris, Bora Bora. There are parts of the world—North Korea, Afghanistan—where people...

When covid-19 struck Europe in March 2020, hospitals were plunged into a health crisis that was still badly understood. “Doctors really didn’t have a clue how to manage these patients,” says Laure Wynants, an epidemiologist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands, who studies predictive tools. But there was data coming out of China, which had a four-month head start in the race to...