Cucurbit downy mildew is a devastating disease for the United States cucurbit industry, which includes cucumbers, watermelon, squash, and pumpkin. The disease has caused major losses in North Carolina, which has significant cucumber and watermelon acreage. To help growers better manage this disease, a group of plant pathologists at North Carolina State University sought to better understand the...

Coronaviruses are adept at imitating human immune proteins that have been implicated in severe COVID-19 disease, a study from researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons has found.

Getting rid of old cars is helping clean the skies over developed nations, but many clunkers are ending up in developing countries where they are add significantly to air pollution, a UN report warns.

Boulder, Colo., U.S.: Hurricanes, the United States' deadliest and most destructive weather disasters, are notoriously difficult to predict. With the average storm intensity as well as the proportion of storms that reach category 4 or 5 likely to increase, more accurate predictions of future hurricane impacts could help emergency officials and coastal populations better prepare for such...

A team of researchers at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and New York State Psychiatric Institute have embarked on the largest, most comprehensive longitudinal study of how U.S. college students are being impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic—and how they are seizing the moment to redefine their futures.

Across the western U.S., severe wildfires fueled by tinder-dry vegetation have already burned more than 3.2 million hectares (8 million acres [as of the time of this press release])—an area the size of Maryland—in 2020, and nearly six times that area burned this year in Australia. And even though neither country's worst-ever fire year is not yet over, concerns are already mounting regarding...

A new study from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology confirms that most birds—but not all—synchronize their migratory movements with seasonal changes in vegetation greenness. This is the first study of its kind to cover the Western Hemisphere during the year-long life cycle of North American migratory birds that feed on vegetation, seeds, nectar, insects, or meat. The findings were published today...

A relatively new method to control nuclear fusion that combines a massive jolt of electricity with strong magnetic fields and a powerful laser beam has achieved its own record output of neutrons—a key standard by which fusion efforts are judged—at Sandia National Laboratories' Z pulsed power facility, the most powerful producer of X-rays on Earth.

Like most spiral galaxies, the Milky Way has a roughly spherical collection of stars at its center called the bulge. How the bulge formed has been a long-standing mystery, with many studies suggesting that it built up over time through multiple bursts of star formation.

NASA's Mars 2020 Perseverance rover mission has logged a lot of flight miles since being lofted skyward on July 30—146.3 million miles (235.4 million kilometers) to be exact. Turns out that is exactly the same distance it has to go before the spacecraft hits the Red Planet's atmosphere like a 11,900 mph (19,000 kph) freight train on Feb. 18, 2021.

To better understand how the novel coronavirus behaves and how it can be stopped, scientists have completed a three-dimensional map that reveals the location of every atom in an enzyme molecule critical to SARS-CoV-2 reproduction.

Ice loss from the Greenland Ice Sheet has accelerated significantly over the past two decades, transforming the shape of the ice sheet edge and therefore coastal Greenland, according to scientific research led by Twila Moon, deputy lead scientist of the National Snow and Ice Data Center. These changes to the ice sheet could have far-reaching impacts on ecosystems and communities, as the flow of...

Great egrets in the Everglades are losing their sexual motivation because they are exposed to mercury through the fish they eat, a University of Florida study using more than 20 years of data has found.

When the universe was only a tenth of its current age its galaxies experienced a growth spurt. It was this period that the scientists in the ALPINE project focused on when they used ESO's ALMA telescope to carry out the first ever large survey of distant galaxies. To their surprise, these galaxies observed in the early stages of their life were far more mature than expected. Their work is the...

Major US financial firms are helping fund environmental destruction and indigenous rights abuses in the Amazon with billions of dollars in investments in questionable companies, according to a report published Tuesday.

Residents of the storm-pummeled Gulf Coast steeled themselves for yet another tropical weather strike Tuesday after Zeta raked across the Yucatan Peninsula on a track that forecasters said would likely bring it ashore south of New Orleans as a hurricane.

Fossils recovered from Antarctica in the 1980s represent the oldest giant members of an extinct group of birds that patrolled the southern oceans with wingspans of up to 21 feet (6.4 meters) that would dwarf the 11½-foot wingspan of today's largest bird, the wandering albatross.

New results from NASA's Juno mission at Jupiter suggest that either "sprites" or "elves" could be dancing in the upper atmosphere of the solar system's largest planet. It is the first time these bright, unpredictable and extremely brief flashes of light—formally known as transient luminous events, or TLE's—have been observed on another world. The findings were published on Oct. 27, 2020, in...

As the ice in the clouds melts into droplets, they reflect more sunlight. But in the end there is no more ice left to melt.

Researchers have improved the assessment of consistency in meta-analysis. The improved consistency measure considers statistical power, and it has potential to alter the interpretation of meta-analyses. The new measure was published in the European Journal for Philosophy of Science.

Each autumn, migratory birds in Europe set off on long and arduous journeys to spend the winter in the warmer south. They are not alone as around 20 percent of all bird species worldwide are migratory, moving between separate breeding and wintering sites each year. Some species migrate thousands of kilometers in just a few days or weeks whilst others will only travel short distances between...

By efficiently converting the blue light emitted from InGaN chips into yellow light and mixing them into white light, classic yellow Y3Al5O12: Ce (YAG) phosphor has proved itself to be the most prominent phosphor in white light emitting diodes (w-LEDs). However, the color rendering index (CRI) of YAG: Ce-based w-LEDs is usually limited to < 70 and its correlated color temperature (CCT) is often...

Recently, a research team led by Prof. Wang Junfeng from the High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Hefei Institutes of Physical Science revealed the dual specificity of Vav2-SH2 protein after investigating the specific recognition mechanism of human Vav2 protein with cell membrane phospholipids and the receptor tyrosine kinase EphA2 juxtamembrane region.

An international team of coastal scientists has dismissed suggestions that half the world's beaches could become extinct over the course of the 21st century.