Persistent inequitable exposure to air pollution in Salt Lake County schools
Salt Lake County, Utah's air pollution varies over the year, and at times it is the worst in the United States. The geography traps winter inversions and summertime smog throughout the Salt Lake Valley, but underserved neighborhoods—and their schools—experience the highest concentrations. Previous research has shown pollution disparities using annual averages of PM 2.5 levels, the tiny...
Online romance scams: A modern form of fraud
Over the last 20 years, the rapid development of digital communication technology has given rise to new forms of social interaction on social media. Digital communication technologies can overcome physical, social and psychological barriers in building romantic relationships. Around 1400, dating sites/chats have been created over the last decade in North America alone. Solely in the UK, 23% of...
Big data and synthetic chemistry could fight climate change and pollution
Scientists at the University of South Carolina and Columbia University have developed a faster way to design and make gas-filtering membranes that could cut greenhouse gas emissions and reduce pollution.
Modern sea-level rise linked to human activities, Rutgers research reaffirms
New research by Rutgers scientists reaffirms that modern sea-level rise is linked to human activities and not to changes in Earth's orbit.
USGS reports magnitude-6.5 earthquake in western Nevada
Authorities in western Nevada checked for possible highway damage following a magnitude 6.5 earthquake in a remote area early Friday.
Typhoon leaves 1 dead, extensive damage in Philippine towns
Strong winds and rain from Typhoon Vongfong left at least one person dead and damaged hundreds of homes and coronavirus isolation facilities along with rice and corn fields in five hard-hit eastern towns, a governor said Friday.
Scientists break the link between a quantum material's spin and orbital states
In designing electronic devices, scientists look for ways to manipulate and control three basic properties of electrons: their charge; their spin states, which give rise to magnetism; and the shapes of the fuzzy clouds they form around the nuclei of atoms, which are known as orbitals.
Ocean 'breathability' key to past, future habitat of West Coast marine species
Marine life off the West Coast, from Mexico up through Canada, inhabit the California Current. The cool, nutrient-rich water supports life from invisible phytoplankton to the economically important salmon, rockfish and Dungeness crab to the majestic orcas.
Shrub encroachment on grasslands can increase groundwater recharge
Grasslands across the globe, which support the majority of the world's grazing animals, have been transitioning to shrublands in a process that scientists call "woody plant encroachment."
Food webs determine the fate of mercury pollution in the Colorado River, Grand Canyon
In the Grand Canyon reach of the Colorado River, two species play an outsized role in the fate of mercury in the aquatic ecosystem, and their numbers are altered by flood events. So reports new research, published in Science Advances, that is among the first to meld ecotoxicology and ecosystem ecology to trace how mercury flows through aquatic food webs and then spreads to land.
NASA analyzes developing System 90L in Straits of Florida
A low-pressure area designated as System 90L appears to be developing in the Straits of Florida, located between Southern Florida and Cuba. NASA's Aqua satellite measured cloud top temperatures within the developing system and found some stronger storms.
Global cooling event 4,200 years ago spurred rice's evolution, spread across Asia
A major global cooling event that occurred 4,200 years ago may have led to the evolution of new rice varieties and the spread of rice into both northern and southern Asia, an international team of researchers has found.
Controlling cells with light
Photopharmacology investigates the use of light to switch the effect of drugs on and off. Now, for the first time, scientific teams from Jena, Munich, and New York have succeeded in using this method to control a component of cells that was previously considered inaccessible.
Early humans thrived in this drowned South African landscape
Early humans lived in South African river valleys with deep, fertile soils filled with grasslands, floodplains, woodlands, and wetlands that abounded with hippos, zebras, antelopes, and many other animals, some extinct for millennia.
Researchers find the key to preserving 'The Scream'
"The Scream" is among the most famous paintings of the modern era. The familiar image is interpreted as the ultimate representation of anxiety and mental anguish. There are a number of versions of "The Scream," namely two paintings, two pastels, several lithographic prints and a few drawings and sketches. The two most well-known versions are the paintings that Edvard Munch created in 1893 and...
U.S. layoffs surged to record high of 11.4 million in March
U.S. layoffs soared in March to a record 11.4 million after state and local governments closed restaurants, bars, movie theaters and other nonessential businesses in response to the intensifying viral outbreak.
Black holes and neutron stars merge unseen in dense star clusters
Mergers between black holes and neutron stars in dense star clusters are quite unlike those that form in isolated regions where stars are few. Their associated features could be crucial to the study of gravitational waves and their source. Dr. Manuel Arca Sedda of the Institute for Astronomical Computing at Heidelberg University came to this conclusion in a study that used computer simulations....
Bizarre new species discovered... on Twitter
While many of us use social media to be tickled silly by cat videos or wowed by delectable cakes, others use them to discover new species. Included in the latter group are researchers from the University of Copenhagen's Natural History Museum of Denmark. Indeed, they just found a new type of parasitic fungus via Twitter.
Dead Sea Scroll fragments thought to be blank reveal text
New research has revealed that four Dead Sea Scroll manuscript fragments housed at The University of Manchester's John Rylands Library, which were previously thought to be blank, do in fact contain text.
New technology will show how RNA regulates gene activity
The discovery of a huge number of long non-protein coding RNAs, aka lncRNAs, in the mammalian genome was a major surprise of the recent large-scale genomics projects. An international team including a bioinformatician from the Research Center of Biotechnology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology has developed a reliable method for assessing the...
Pine martens like to have neighbors—but not too near
Pine martens need neighbours but like to keep their distance, according to new research.
ExoMars rover upgrades and parachute tests
The second ExoMars mission, scheduled for launch to the Red Planet in 2022, is taking advantage of the extra time to upgrade some of the rover's instruments and get ready for the next parachute high-altitude drop tests.
Watching the in situ hydrogen diffusion dynamics in magnesium on the nanoscale
Switchable materials that have extreme material contrast and short switching times with negligible degradation can contribute to active plasmonic and nanophotonic systems. In order to understand their supreme properties, researchers must gather in-depth knowledge about nanoscopic processes. In a new study now published on Science Advances, Julian Karst and a team of scientists at the University of...
Exploring climate change impacts through popular proverbs
The proverbs related to environmental issues traditionally used by the local population in rural areas of Spain are currently considered imprecise and unreliable due to climate change impacts. This is the result of a study carried out by the Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia Ambientals of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) that presents a novel way of using the local knowledge...
Metagenomics reveals distinct microbiotypes in the giant clams Tridacna maxima
New research conducted at CRIOBE and ENTROPIE research units, with the collaboration of the Swire institute of Marine Science of The University of Hong Kong, The Cawthron Institute and James Cook University, highlights the impacts of benthic species assemblages on the giant clams Tridacna maxima. The findings were recently published in the journal Microbiome.