School districts across the U.S. are increasingly using student test scores to rate the effectiveness of teachers, but a new Portland State University study found that the scores have less to do with individual teachers and more to do with their students and the schools.

Inspired by work on infants, researchers at the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE ) investigated whether dogs' behaviors are guided by human displays of preference or by the animals' own choices. They found that dogs' looking times, but not fetching behavior, were influenced by the owner's expression of preference. Although the studies did not demonstrate that dogs override their own preferences...

A new comprehensive study from UNC Charlotte's Urban Institute, College of Health and Human Services and School of Social Work shows an effective approach to ending chronic homelessness that helps those in need and benefits communities.

Ecotourism offers a specific travel experience: It focuses on nature, education and sustainability. Often, these destinations highlight endangered or threatened species and engage visitors in making socially responsible choices.

Unlocking the zig-zagging dance of hot, charged plasma particles that fuel fusion reactions can help to harness on Earth the fusion energy that powers the sun and stars. At the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL), an experimentalist and two theorists have developed a new algorithm, or set of computer rules, for tracking volatile particles that could advance...

A new hydrocarbon study contradicts conventional wisdom about how methane is trapped in rock, revealing a new strategy to more easily access the valuable energy resource.

Electronic shirts that keep the wearer comfortably warm or cool, as well as medical fabrics that deliver drugs, monitor the condition of a wound and perform other tasks, may one day be manufactured more efficiently thanks to a key advance by Oregon State University researchers.

Food insecurity in America is reaching an all-time high during the COVID-19 pandemic. But large regional differences exist in the severity of the impact.

In Seattle, "the big one"—a massive earthquake that could devastate the region—represents an ominous threat. So widespread are the concerns that city leaders there created standards to fortify new skyscrapers using data from studies forecasting the impact of a big earthquake in the region.

Modern communications technology, regardless of use, relies on a similar formula: devices send signals and information through data centers, towers and satellites en route to their final destination. The effectiveness of the communication relies on how well that information travels, and there are a variety of factors that can slow down that journey—geography, weather and more.

UT Southwestern researchers have discovered a mechanism that cells use to degrade microRNAs (miRNAs), genetic molecules that regulate the amounts of proteins in cells.

Mars once had oceans but is now bone-dry, leaving many to wonder how the water was lost. University of Arizona researchers have discovered a surprisingly large amount of water in the upper atmosphere of Mars, where it is rapidly destroyed, explaining part of this Martian mystery.

We don't know precisely how hot things will get as climate change marches on, but there's reason to believe animals in the tropics may not fare as well as their temperate relatives. Many scientists think tropical animals, because they're accustomed to a more stable thermal environment, may be pushed beyond their limits quickly as temperatures soar. And that could lead to massive species loss.

On Earth, amethysts can form when gas bubbles in lava cool under the right conditions. In space, a dying star with a mass similar to the Sun is capable of producing a structure on par with the appeal of these beautiful gems.

The properties of quantum states of light are already leveraged by such highly sophisticated leading-edge technologies as those of the latest sensitivity upgrades to LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, deployed to detect gravitational waves since September 2015, or the encryption keys used for satellite on-board security.

A new study outlines ways colleges and universities can update their curricula to prepare the workforce for a new wave of quantum technology jobs. Three researchers, including Rochester Institute of Technology Associate Professor Ben Zwickl, suggested steps that need to be taken in a new paper in Physical Review Physics Education Research after interviewing managers at more than 20 quantum...

As the COVID-19 pandemic began in the United States, universities were forced to make difficult operational decisions to help slow the spread of the disease and protect their students, faculty, staff, and community members. Guidance from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and Prevention, the World Health Organization (WHO), and other agencies informed these decisions about non-pharmaceutical...

Liquids aren't as well behaved in space as they are on Earth. Inside a spacecraft, microgravity allows liquids to freely slosh and float about.

JILA researchers have used a state-of-the-art atomic clock to narrow the search for elusive dark matter, an example of how continual improvements in clocks have value beyond timekeeping.

Scientists from the Skoltech Center for Design, Manufacturing, and Materials (CDMM) have developed a method for designing and manufacturing complex-shaped ceramic bone implants with a controllable porous structure, which largely enhances tissue fusion efficiency. Their research was published in the journal Applied Sciences.

UW Medicine researchers at the Brotman Baty Institute in Seattle have created two cell atlases that track gene expression and chromatin accessibility during the development of human cell types and tissues.

In an important step during the early evolution of life on Earth, the formation of the amino acid cysteine delivered vital catalysts, which enabled the earliest protein molecules to form in water, according to a new study by UCL researchers.

Long ago and far across the universe, an enormous burst of gamma rays unleashed more energy in a half-second than the sun will produce over its entire 10-billion-year lifetime.

For galaxies, as for people, living in a crowd is different from living alone. Recently, astronomers used the National Science Foundation's Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) to learn how a crowded environment affects galaxies in the Perseus Cluster, a collection of thousands of galaxies some 240 million light-years from Earth.