Rampant fires in the Amazon are "poisoning the air" of the world's biggest rainforest, causing a sharp rise in respiratory emergencies in a region already hit hard by COVID-19, said a study published Wednesday.

In the American Southwest, native desert bighorn sheep populations found in landscapes with minimal human disturbance, including several national parks, are less likely to be vulnerable to climate change, according to a new study led by Oregon State University.

The detection more than a decade ago by the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope of an excess of high-energy radiation in the center of the Milky Way convinced some physicists that they were seeing evidence of the annihilation of dark matter particles, but a team led by researchers at the University of California, Irvine has ruled out that interpretation.

Eighteen melon-headed whales washed up on the shores of Mauritius on Wednesday, the country's fisheries minister said, dismissing any link to a devastating oil spill earlier this month.

For decades, researchers have scratched their heads over how to combat deadly mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever.

Laura strengthened Wednesday into a menacing Category 4 hurricane, raising fears of a 20-foot storm surge that forecasters said would be "unsurvivable" and capable of sinking entire communities. Authorities implored coastal residents of Texas and Louisiana to evacuate and worried that not enough had fled.

The quest is on for a better way to kill beautiful but brutally destructive lionfish than shooting them one by one with spearguns.

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Ames Laboratory have discovered a metal-free carbon-based catalyst that has the potential to be much less expensive and more efficient for many industrial concerns, including manufacturing of bio- and fossil fuels, electrocatalysis, and fuel cells.

In a study published in the Journal of Morphology, a team of researchers from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT), Florida Museum of Natural History, Louisiana State University and Thailand's Maejo University have successfully pieced together the ancestral relationships that make up the family tree of hillstream loaches (Balitoridae), detailing for the first time a range of unusual pelvic...

An international team of researchers has discovered a new group of Chlamydiae—Anoxychlamydiales—living under the ocean floor without oxygen. These Chlamydiae have genes that allow them to survive without oxygen while making hydrogen gas. The researchers found that our single-cell ancestors 'caught' these hydrogen-producing genes from ancient Chlamydiae up to two-billion years ago—an event...

As the world's tallest peak, Mount Everest draws more than 500 climbers each spring to attempt the summit during a small window of favorable conditions on the rugged Himalayan mountain that tops out at just over 29,000 feet.

Owners of bulldogs, French bulldogs and pugs are highly likely to want to own their breed again in the future, and to recommend their breed to other owners, according to a study published August 26, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Rowena Packer of the Royal Veterinary College, UK, and colleagues. The development of breed loyalty toward these so-called brachycephalic (flat-faced) dogs...

Effective solutions to the climate challenge threatening the world's coral reefs require complex decisions about risk and uncertainty, timing, quality versus quantity as well as which species to support for the most robust and productive future, according to a science paper released today.

The transition from the Middle Stone Age (MSA) to the Later Stone Age (LSA) marks a major cultural change among human hunter-gatherer ancestors, but distinguishing between these two industrial complexes is not straightforward. New research published by a team from the University of Liverpool and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History this week demonstrates that machine learning...

A new study led by researchers at Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST), Nara, Japan, published in Science Advances, reports the crystal structure of YeeE, a membrane protein that allows bacteria to uptake thiosulfate from the environment in order to synthesize L-cysteine. The structure reveals that YeeE has a characteristic hourglass shape that results in a sophisticated mechanism for...

When a meteorite hurtles through the atmosphere and crashes to Earth, how does its violent impact alter the minerals found at the landing site? What can the short-lived chemical phases created by these extreme impacts teach scientists about the minerals existing at the high-temperature and pressure conditions found deep inside the planet?

Current sequencing techniques lack the sensitivity to detect rare gene mutations in a pool of cells, which is particularly important, for example, in early cancer detection. Now, scientists at KAUST have developed an approach, called targeted individual DNA molecule sequencing (IDMseq), that can accurately detect a single mutation in a pool of 10,000 cells.

Army researchers discovered a way to further enhance quantum systems to provide soldiers with more reliable and secure capabilities on the battlefield.

The Warsaw zoo said Wednesday it will start giving its elephants medical marijuana as part of a ground-breaking pilot project to test how it reduces their stress levels.

When a star passes too close to a supermassive black hole, tidal forces tear it apart, producing a bright flare of radiation as material from the star falls into the black hole. Astronomers study the light from these "tidal disruption events" (TDEs) for clues to the feeding behavior of the supermassive black holes lurking at the centers of galaxies.

Antimony sulfide, or stibnite (Sb2S3), has been investigated intensively in recent years as a promising material for nontoxic, environmentally friendly solar cells. It is now possible to fabricate thin photovoltaic films from an ink containing nanoparticles of stibnite, and to nanopattern those films for 2-D and 3-D structures of pretty much any shape. Such simple, cost-effective production...

Firefighters hard-pressed by some of the largest wildfires in California history scrambled Wednesday to take advantage of cooler weather and an influx of aid as they carved and burned containment lines around the flames to prevent more land from burning.

Unexpected bad news hit California more than 11,000 times last week. That's the estimated number of lightning strikes that unleashed two of the biggest fires in state history. The fires are burning at the same time across more than 1.4 million acres, sending a cloud of smoke stretching across the Western U.S.

A Tennessee fisherman's suspicions that he caught something extraordinary were confirmed over the weekend when state officials determined the fish was a South American pacu, a species related to the famously vicious piranha.