The newly established U.S. Space Force launched its first national security satellite Thursday with a leaner staff because of the coronavirus pandemic.

You know how you leave space in a water bottle before you pop it in the freezer—to accommodate the fact that water expands as it freezes? Most metal parts in airplanes face the more common opposite problem. At high altitudes (low temperatures) they shrink. To keep such shrinkage from causing major disasters, engineers make airplanes out of composites or alloys, mixing materials that have...

There is no longer a need to guess what ocean temperatures were like in the remote tropical Pacific hundreds of years ago. The ancient coral that lived there know all.

We've all seen the documentaries that feature scenes of mass migrations on land. Those videos are pretty impressive showing all sorts of animals—birds, mammals and other creatures—on the move. What wasn't known was to what extent this was taking place in the deepest parts of our oceans.

When it comes to finding a mate, male guppies rely on their brothers to ward off the competition.

Deep inside computer chips, tiny wires made of gold and other conductive metals carry the electricity used to process data.

For the millions of Americans concerned about shortages of vital supplies like toilet paper, food basics and other items vital to getting us through an unprecedented global health crisis, there is some encouraging news, according to researchers at Northern Arizona University.

Crop yields have increased substantially over the past decades, occurring alongside the increasing use of nitrogen fertilizer. While nitrogen fertilizer benefits crop growth, it has negative effects on the environment and climate, as it requires a great amount of energy to produce. Many scientists are seeking ways to develop more sustainable practices that maintain high crop yields with reduced...

Scientists have designed a catalyst composed of very low concentrations of platinum (single atoms and clusters smaller than billionths of a meter) on the surface of titanium dioxide. They demonstrated how this catalyst significantly enhances the rate of breaking a particular carbon-oxygen bond for the conversion of a plant derivative (furfuryl alcohol) into a potential biofuel (2-methylfuran)....

The journal Science has published a study led by the ICREA researcher João Zilhão from the University of Barcelona on the excavation in Cueva de Figueira Brava, Portugal, which was used as shelter by Neanderthal populations about between 86,000 and 106,000 years ago. The study reveals fishing and shellfish gathering contributed significantly to the subsistence economy of the inhabitants of...

If circulation of deep waters in the Atlantic stops or slows due to climate change, it could cause cooling in northern North America and Europe—a scenario that has occurred during past cold glacial periods.

Eighty-five percent of the universe is composed of dark matter, but we don't know what, exactly, it is.

Research published in the journal Microbiology has found that a unique type of algae, usually only seen on the shells of turtles, affects the surrounding microbial communities.

According to a new study, zebra finches exposed to low levels of environmental PCBs as nestlings show changes in breeding behavior as adults. The study published in the journal PLoS ONE was conducted by scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Though polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, were banned in 1979, they still contaminate the environment because of improper disposal.

Artificial intelligence will be increasingly used on labels on food and other products in the future to make them interactive, and regulations should be reformed now so they take account of new innovations, a study warns.

When hikers returned to UC Davis Stebbins Cold Canyon Reserve in 2016, a year after a wildfire swept through its expanse of oak trees and chaparral in Northern California, half of them expected to see a devastated landscape. But pre- and post-hike surveys conducted by the University of California, Davis, reveal that roughly a third returned energized, awed and excited about the changes they saw.

Nanostructured layers boast countless potential properties—but how can the most suitable one be identified without any long-term experiments? A team from the Materials Discovery Department at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB) has ventured a shortcut: using a machine learning algorithm, the researchers were able to reliably predict the properties of such a layer. Their report was published in the...

As cities physically expanded worldwide between 1970 and 2010, the population in those cities became less dense, according to a study led by a Texas A&M university professor.

Scientists have found a way in the laboratory to shorten the time it takes to create a key chemical used to synthesize a variety of medications, fertilizers and other important substances.

Shorter and warmer winters lead to an increase in emissions of methane from northern lakes, according to a new study by scientists in Finland and the US. Longer ice-free periods contribute to increased methane emissions. In Finland, emissions of methane from lakes could go up by as much as 60%.

Researchers at Linköping University have discovered a quantum phenomenon that influences the formation of free charges in organic solar cells. "If we can properly understand what's going on, we can increase the efficiency," says Olle Inganäs, professor emeritus.

Local community involvement is vital in efforts to raise water levels to help restore Indonesia's tropical peatlands, a new study has found.

A new feathered dinosaur that lived in New Mexico 67 million years ago is one of the last known surviving raptor species, according to a new publication in the journal Scientific Reports.

A study published in Journal of Human Evolution reveals for the first time the diet of the fossil baboon Theropithecus oswaldi found in Cueva Victoria in Cartagena (Murcia, Spain), the only site in Europe with remains of this primate whose origins date back to four million years ago in eastern Africa.