Artificial enzymes made of treated charcoal could have the power to curtail damaging levels of superoxides, radical oxygen ions that are toxic at high concentrations.

Native to Europe but discovered in Pennsylvania in 2015, the Allium leafminer is a fly whose larvae feed on crops in the Allium genus, including onions, garlic and leeks.

In a new study published in the scientific journal Ecology, researchers from the University of Montana's Flathead Lake Biological Station may have unlocked a mystery surrounding unique aquatic insects in the Flathead watershed.

Life on Earth would not be possible without the Moon; it keeps our planet's axis of rotation stable, which controls seasons and regulates our climate. However, there has been considerable debate over how the Moon was formed. The popular hypothesis contends that the Moon was formed by a Mars-sized body colliding with Earth's upper crust which is poor in metals. But new research suggests the Moon's...

Worldwide there is a growing demand for animal products for human nutrition, despite vegan and vegetarian diets becoming more popular in Western countries. Changing diets necessitate a substantial amount of protein as an input for animal production. Future protein feedstuffs will need to become independent of arable land in order to avoid further land use changes, such as deforestation.

A new study of wildlife consumption in northern Laos by San Diego Zoo Global researchers found widespread use of products made from sun bears, Asiatic bears and serows—goat-like mammals found throughout Asia—among other vulnerable species. The findings indicate that efforts are needed to reduce the unsustainable harvest of bears and serows, in particular, "before this demand becomes a...

A new study published in the Journal Environmental Pollution by researchers at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science found that the Ultra Music Festival was likely stressful to toadfish.

Whether it's sending the grandparents a few pictures of the kids, streaming a movie or music, or surfing the Internet for hours, the volume of data our society generates is increasing all the time. But this comes at a price, since storing data consumes huge amounts of energy. Assuming that data volumes continue to grow in future, the related energy consumption will also increase by several orders...

The first underwater Aboriginal archeological sites have been discovered off northwest Australia dating back thousands of years ago when the current seabed was dry land.

A team of researchers at the University of Tokyo and Fudan University has studied the process of crystallization when more than one structural arrangement is possible. By reducing the noise from random fluctuations, they found that transient precursors of the various crystalline orderings coexist and compete with each other. This work may help lead to more efficient crystal engineering methods.

An analysis of over 800 academic research papers on physical health and exercise suggests that the level of popular media coverage for a given paper is strongly linked to the attention it receives within the scientific community. P. Sage Anderson and colleagues at Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, report these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on July 1, 2020.

While scientists still don't fully understand the diverse nature of RNA molecules, it is believed that the proteins binding to them, called RNA-binding proteins, are associated with many types of disease formation. Research led by biomedical scientists from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has led to a novel detection method, called CARPID, to identify binding proteins of specific RNAs in...

You've heard the expression 'form follows function'? In materials science, function follows form.

Light pollution is increasingly being recognized as yet another of humanity's many impacts on the rest of the natural world. Artificial light at night, or 'ALAN' to use the researchers' name for the phenomenon, can alter foraging behavior, migration patterns, mortality rates and even the very physical structure of animals.

Through simulations of a dying star, a team of theoretical physics researchers have found the evolutionary origin and the maximum mass of black holes which are discovered by the detection of gravitational waves.

Annual forest harvesting in 26 European countries increased nearly 50 percent during 2016-2018 compared to an average of the four previous years, a trend that could threaten the European Union's climate goals, according to a study by the European Commission.

UPV/EHU researchers have developed a biomedical device consisting of byproducts from the food industry and which displays excellent properties for use in regenerative medicine. The novel device comprises soy protein and chitin, which form a matrix with a porous, interconnected microarchitecture similar to that of certain body tissues. The work has been published in the June issue of Green...

This week, scientists of the Institute of Bee Health of the University of Bern have published an article in the peer-reviewed journal Communications Biology, which shows how even low doses of neonicotinoid insecticides, as they may realistically occur in contaminated soils, adversely affect the development of black garden ants (Lasius niger). This study highlights the need to overthink current...

The coronavirus pandemic has hit the economy hard. What lessons can be learned from this experience? And what's the best way for companies to protect themselves against this kind of crisis in the future? The answer will certainly involve a combination of different approaches—but new mathematical methods developed by the Fraunhofer Institute for Industrial Mathematics (ITWM) look likely to be a...

Of the many ways the coronavirus pandemic has changed our lives, the banning of reusable cups by many cafes and other outlets serving hot drinks probably doesn't appear at the top of most people's lists. But the move is likely to add to the mountain of waste piling up as the pandemic has led to a reliance on large amounts of single-use plastic and brought recycling to a halt.

A new thermoplastic biomaterial, which is tough and strong but also easy to process and shape has been developed by researchers at the University of Birmingham.

The study states that failing to encourage tourists to do more on behalf of wildlife represents a missed opportunity for conservation. "We argue that the combination of emotional engagement and knowledge-driven action provided by wildlife-based tours will pave the way for a new area of conservation-oriented tourism" says Dr. Alvaro Fernández-Llamazares, the lead-author of the study from the...

The synaptonemal complex is a ladder-like cell structure that plays a major role in the development of egg and sperm cells in humans and other mammals. "The structure of this complex has hardly been changed in evolution, but its protein components vary greatly from organism to organism," says Professor Ricardo Benavente, cell and developmental biologist at the Biocenter of...

Predicted by Einstein's general theory of relativity, gravitational waves are ripples in space-time generated by certain movements of massive objects. They are important to study because they allow us to detect events in the universe that would otherwise leave little or no observable light, like black hole collisions.