The US Air Force said Wednesday it would be sending its high-tech X-37B space drone back into orbit this month—the sixth trip for the reusable vehicle that maneuvers around the Earth on secretive missions.

New research to be published in the INFORMS journal Management Science has found popular rideshare platforms exhibit racial and other biases that penalize under-represented minorities and others seeking to use their services.

Scientists have been studying cyanobacteria and its many potential applications for decades, from cutting CO2 emissions to creating a substitute for oil-based plastics, but there wasn't a deep understanding of the full life cycle and metabolism of specialized compartments within these common bacteria—until now.

In his latest line of research, Cun-Zheng Ning, a professor of electrical engineering in the Ira A. Fulton Schools of Engineering at Arizona State University, and his peers explored the intricate balance of physics that governs how electrons, holes, excitons and trions coexist and mutually convert into each other to produce optical gain. Their results, led by Tsinghua University Associate...

Sonar is commonly used to map the ocean floor, and seabed composition (e.g. mud, clay or rock) affects the way the sound is reflected back. Salinity, depth and water temperature also affect how sound waves are propagated through water.

New findings about critical cellular structures have upended common assumptions about their formation and composition and provided new insight how molecular machines are built in living cells.

Spoiling foods, souring wine and worsening wounds have a common culprit—a process called oxidation. Although the ill effects of these chemical reactions can be curtailed by antioxidants, creating a sturdy platform capable of providing prolonged antioxidant activity is an ongoing challenge.

From avocado plants to baker's yeast, humans to zebras, sexually reproducing organisms must create germ cells that contain half the number of chromosomes found in a typical body cell. When these germ cells—such as sperm and egg—come together during fertilization, the regular number of chromosomes is restored.

The technology – developed and patented from the laboratory of Nien-Hwa Linda Wang, Purdue's Maxine Spencer Nichols Professor of Chemical Engineering – has successfully shown to separate the rare earth metals without the devastating environmental effects of conventional acid based methods with high yield and purity.

Conventional knowledge has it that warm air rises while cold air sinks. But a study from the University of California, Davis, found that in the tropical atmosphere, cold air rises due to an overlooked effect—the lightness of water vapor. This effect helps to stabilize tropical climates and buffer some of the impacts of a warming climate.

Global warming is approaching a tipping point that during this century could reawaken an ancient climate pattern similar to El Niño in the Indian Ocean, new research led by scientists from The University of Texas at Austin has found.

Temperate and tropical dry forests—not just rainforests—are home to thousands of unique tree species, a new study reveals.

A new analysis of reef restoration projects in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary suggests they could play a key role in helping staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis) recover from being endangered. Matthew Ware of Florida State University in Tallahassee and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on May 6, 2020.

A new study by an international team from the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas and Hokkaido University and Okayama University of Science in Japan further explores the proliferation of the most commonly occurring duck-billed dinosaur of the ancient Arctic as the genus Edmontosaurus. The findings also reinforce that the hadrosaurs—known as the "caribou of the Cretaceous"—had a huge...

Billions of years ago, the Martian surface could have supported microbial life as we know it. But did such life ever actually exist there? NASA and its Mars 2020 mission hope to find out with the Perseverance rover, which launches to the Red Planet this summer.

When the Deepwater Horizon oil rig suffered a blowout in 2010 and began spilling oil into the Gulf of Mexico, scientists got to work understanding the effects of that disaster.

A new freeze-resistant Trichinella species has been discovered in wolverines by Agricultural Research Service scientists and their colleagues. Trichinella are parasites that cause the disease trichinosis (formally referred to as trichinellosis), which people can get by eating raw or undercooked meat from infected animals.

In established democracies with a long experience of democracy, the risk of democratic breakdown, in the face of a crisis like the current corona-crisis, is low. The outlook is very different for new democracies, especially those with weak civil society and weak political parties, according to research from the University of Gothenburg.

Yes, there's a prize for the most beautiful flower-filled float in the Rose Parade each year, but how about a prize for the most ground-shaking marching band? According to a new study, the 2020 honors go to the Southern University and A&M College, followed closely by the hometown Pasadena City College Honor band.

Amy Petros, a University of North Texas chemistry professor, always encourages her students to be creative, work together and utilize the resources around them. In a time of social distancing and sheltering in place, those lessons have become even more important.

A new University of Wisconsin Oshkosh analysis of raptor teeth published in the peer-reviewed journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology shows that Velociraptors and their kin likely did not hunt in big, coordinated packs like dogs.

The iconic eyespots that some moths and butterflies use to ward off predators likely evolved in distinct ways, providing insights into how these insects became so diverse.

A University of Saskatchewan (USask) research team has uncovered how bats can carry the Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) coronavirus without getting sick—research that could shed light on how coronaviruses make the jump to humans and other animals.

In the development of autonomous systems and materials, self-assembling molecular structures controlled by chemical reaction networks are increasingly important. However, there is a lack of simple external mechanisms that ensure that the components of these reaction networks can be activated in a controlled manner.