A hugely ambitious project to replicate the energy of the sun is entering a critical phase, as scientists and technicians in southern France begin assembling giant parts of a nuclear fusion device, an international experiment aimed to develop the ultimate clean energy source.

Passengers flying Virgin Galactic on suborbital trips into space will be able to see themselves floating weightless against the backdrop of the Earth below while 16 cameras document the adventures, the company said Tuesday.

Quantum computers have enormous potential for calculations using novel algorithms and involving amounts of data far beyond the capacity of today's supercomputers. While such computers have been built, they are still in their infancy and have limited applicability for solving complex problems in materials science and chemistry. For example, they only permit the simulation of the properties of a few...

Scientists at CERN have reported on their first significant evidence for a process predicted by theory, paving the way for searches for evidence of new physics in particle processes that could explain dark matter and other mysteries of the universe.

The world needs clean water, and its need is only going to grow in the coming decades. Yet desalination and other water-purifying technologies are often expensive and require a lot of energy to run, making it that much harder to provide more clean water to a growing population in a warming world.

"A watched pot never boils," as the saying goes, but that was not the case for UC Santa Barbara researchers watching a "pot" of liquids formed from DNA. In fact, the opposite happened.

As climate change becomes increasingly difficult to ignore, scientists are working to diversify and improve alternatives to fossil-fuel-based energy. Renewable bioenergy crops, such as the perennial grass Miscanthus, show promise for cellulosic ethanol production and other uses, but current hybrids are limited by environmental conditions and susceptibility to pests and diseases.

Former Hurricane Douglas has encountered strong wind shear after passing the Hawaiian Islands and has now weakened to a tropical storm. NASA's Terra satellite provided infrared data to find that the strongest storms were displaced from the center as the storm weakens.

Plucky, beautiful and declining in numbers at about a 2% annual rate, the rufous hummingbird makes its long annual migration in different timing and route patterns based the birds' age and sex, new research by Oregon State University shows.

To remove carbon dioxide from the Earth's atmosphere in an effort to slow climate change, scientists must get their hands dirty and peek underground.

Having a personal higher purpose promotes well-being, more happiness and even lower stress from the COVID-19 pandemic, according to findings from a new survey by two Washington University in St. Louis researchers from the Olin Business School.

Fourteen years after receiving the official go-ahead, scientists on Tuesday began assembling a giant machine in southern France designed to demonstrate that nuclear fusion, the process which powers the sun, can be a safe and viable energy source on Earth.

In what they believe is the first study of its kind, researchers led by postdoctoral researcher Luiz A. Domeignoz-Horta and senior author Kristen DeAngelis at the University of Massachusetts Amherst report that shifts in the diversity of soil microbial communities can change the soil's ability to sequester carbon, where it usually helps to regulate climate.

Evolutionary and developmental biologist Craig Albertson and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst report that they have identified a molecular mechanism that allows an organism to change the way it looks depending on the environment it is exposed to, a process known as phenotypic plasticity.

Populations of migratory river fish collapsed by 76 percent on average in the last 50 years, according to a report by conservation groups Tuesday, warning the "catastrophic" declines could impact people and ecosystems around the world.

While many models suggest that climate change will prompt a substantial number of people to leave their homes, not all research so clearly finds this is the case. Investigating cases where computer models seemed to indicate only limited impacts of climate change on people leaving rural areas, a team of researchers now suggest that the models may reveal a more nuanced circular migration pattern in...

Air pollution cuts life expectancy for every man, woman and child on Earth by nearly two years, according to data released Tuesday which experts said showed poor air quality is "the greatest risk to human health".

A global collaboration of telescopes including ESA's Integral high-energy space observatory has detected a unique mix of radiation bursting from a dead star in our galaxy—something that has never been seen before in this type of star, and may solve a long-standing cosmic mystery.

When the Shewanella oneidensis bacterium "breathes" in certain metal and sulfur compounds anaerobically, the way an aerobic organism would process oxygen, it produces materials that could be used to enhance electronics, electrochemical energy storage, and drug-delivery devices.

China's first Mars probe has beamed back a photo of the Earth and the Moon as it heads toward its destination, the country's space agency said Tuesday.

The movement of fluids through small capillaries and channels is crucial for processes ranging from blood flow through the brain to power generation and electronic cooling systems, but that movement often stops when the channel is smaller than 10 nanometers.

New research from Professor Feng Li, Chair of Information Management at City's Business School has outlined three new approaches that digital innovators can take to reduce the risk of failure and seize competitive advantage in the industry.

Zebrafish are one of the most well studied animals on the planet. But how they came by their beautiful black and gold stripes is more of a mystery. Our new research used mathematical modeling—and detailed observations of mutant zebrafish patterns—to get to the bottom of one of nature's oldest secrets.

Fossil remains of a novel species of lizard that lived more than 130 million years ago have been found in the north of Minas Gerais, Brazil. It has been named Neokotus sanfranciscanus and is the oldest representatives of the order Squamata ever found in South America. Squamates are the largest reptile group, comprising lizards, snakes and amphisbaenians (worm lizards).