When you look up at the night sky, how do you know whether the specks of light that you see are bright and far away, or relatively faint and close by? One way to find out is to compare how much light the object actually emits with how bright it appears. The difference between its true luminosity and its apparent brightness reveals an object's distance from the observer.

Sometime between March 2010 and May 2012, a meteor streaked across the Martian sky and broke into pieces, slamming into the planet's surface. The resulting craters were relatively small—just 13 feet (4 meters) in diameter. The smaller the features, the more difficult they are to spot using Mars orbiters. But in this case—and for the first time—scientists spotted them with a little extra...

Repeated catastrophic ice discharges from western North America into the North Pacific contributed to, and perhaps triggered, hemispheric-scale changes in the Earth's climate during the last ice age, new research published online today in Science reveals.

A group led by researchers at Butantan Institute in Brazil and supported by FAPESP has described for the first time the presence of venom glands in the mouth of an amphibian. The legless animal is a caecilian and lives underground. It has tooth-related glands that, when compressed during biting, release a secretion into its prey—earthworms, insect larvae, small amphibians and snakes, and even...

For many developing countries, it is difficult to break the cycle of corruption on their own. Historically, multinational firms have assumed that they have two options available when dealing with corruption in developing countries: "play the game," meaning pay bribes or engage in corrupt activities, or "leave the table" by avoiding investing in countries where corruption is widespread. New...

Catherine Neish is counting the days until her space launch. While the Western planetary geologist isn't space-suiting up for her own interstellar voyage, she is playing a key role in an international mission—dispatching a robotic drone to Saturn's moon Titan—set to blast-off in 2027.

Firefighters were warily watching for "violent" winds expected in California's wine country Thursday that could fan the flames of a massive blaze that has destroyed more than 140 homes and is threatening thousands more in a small town known for hot springs, mud baths and wineries.

NASA's first new space potty in decades—a $23 million titanium toilet better suited for women—is getting a not-so-dry run at the International Space Station before eventually flying to the moon.

You could say Seattle came alive with more than an even flow of tourism dollars from a pair of highly-anticipated Pearl Jam concerts, according to rockin' new research by West Virginia University economists.

Perovskites are a class of materials made up of organic materials bound to a metal. Their fascinating structure and properties have propelled perovskites into the forefront of materials' research, where they are studied for use in a wide range of applications. Metal-halide perovskites are especially popular, and are being considered for use in solar cells, LED lights, lasers, and photodetectors.

A new paper provides 10 steps that principal investigators (PIs) and research group leaders can follow to help cultivate anti-racist professional and learning environments. V. Bala Chaudhary of DePaul University, Chicago, and Asmeret Asefaw Berhe of U.C. Merced present these guidelines in the open-access journal PLOS Computational Biology.

A new study by an international team of environmental scientists in the Brazilian Amazon shows that redesigned conservation projects could deliver big gains for critical freshwater ecosystems—raising hopes for the futures of thousands of species.

Under a microscope, the first few hours of every multicellular organism's life seem incongruously chaotic. After fertilization, a once tranquil single-celled egg divides again and again, quickly becoming a visually tumultuous mosh pit of cells jockeying for position inside the rapidly growing embryo.

Europe's forests are sitting on a pollution timebomb which could rewrite their ecology when it explodes, say researchers.

Manatees don't live year-round in Texas, but these gentle, slow-moving sea cows are known to occasionally visit, swimming in for a "summer vacation" from Florida and Mexico and returning to warmer waters for the winter.

The number of forest fires in Brazil's Amazon increased sharply in September, figures released Thursday show, fueling growing criticism of President Jair Bolsonaro's environmental policies.

NASA infrared imagery revealed that Hurricane Marie is rapidly growing stronger and more powerful. Infrared imagery revealed that powerful thunderstorms circled the eye of the hurricane as it moved through the Eastern Pacific Ocean.

Nanoparticles are used in a wide range of products and manufacturing processes because the properties of a material can change dramatically when the material comes in nano-form.

Research from the University of Kent's School of Economics sheds new light on a long-standing obstacle to improving agricultural productivity in developing countries: the reluctance of small-scale farmers to adopt modern technologies because of the risks associated with them.

A group of researchers at the University of Ottawa has been looking for ways to improve enzyme design methodologies and recently published their findings in Nature Communications.

A new analysis by North Carolina State University and Arizona State University outlines how a brand of frozen meat products took social media by storm—and what other brands can learn from the phenomenon.

Researchers at the University of California San Diego report in a new study a way to improve groundwater monitoring by using a remote sensing technology (known as InSAR), in conjunction with climate and land cover data, to bridge gaps in the understanding of sustainable groundwater in California's San Joaquin Valley.

Noonan syndrome (NS) and Noonan syndrome with multiple lentigines (NS-ML) are rare human developmental disorders caused by mutations of the protein SHP2. Until recently, the mechanism of NS and NS-ML pathogenesis had been unclear, and nor is there any effective treatment for the disorders.

Technion researchers have developed accurate radiation sources that are expected to lead to breakthroughs in medical imaging and other areas. They have developed precise radiation sources that may replace the expensive and cumbersome facilities currently used for such tasks. The suggested apparatus produces controlled radiation with a narrow spectrum that can be tuned with high resolution, at a...