To better understand the unique reproductive biology of tsetse flies, which are carriers of the parasites that cause a deadly infection known as African sleeping sickness, researchers explored the intact organs and tissues of tsetse flies using a powerful 3D X-ray imaging technique at Berkeley Lab.

Northwestern University researchers have developed a new approach to quantum device design that has produced the first gain-based long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) photodetector using band structure engineering based on a type-II superlattice material.

US and EU firms are importing large amounts of wood potentially linked to illegal deforestation after Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro's administration controversially lifted sanctions against the country's biggest flooring exporter, a report said Tuesday.

A prototype of a SpaceX rocket the company hopes will one day journey to Mars crashed in a fiery explosion as it tried to land upright after a test flight Tuesday.

Extensive sea ice covered the world's oceans during the last ice age, which prevented oxygen from penetrating into the deep ocean waters, complicating the relationship between oxygen and carbon, a new study has found.

The lockdowns and reduced societal activity related to the COVID-19 pandemic affected emissions of pollutants in ways that slightly warmed the planet for several months last year, according to new research led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

When different groups of people come into contact, what's the key to motivating advantaged racial groups to join historically disadvantaged racial minority groups to strive for racial equality and social justice? It's a complex conundrum studied for years by social scientists like Linda Tropp, professor of social psychology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

When wildfires roar through a forest and bulldozers dig into the earth to stop advancing flames, they may be churning more into the air than just clouds of dust and smoke, scientists say.

Recent global calamities—the pandemic, wildfires, floods—are spurring interdisciplinary scientists to nudge aside the fashionable First Law of Geography that dictates "everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things."

Topological insulators are one of the most puzzling quantum materials—a class of materials whose electrons cooperate in surprising ways to produce unexpected properties. The edges of a TI are electron superhighways where electrons flow with no loss, ignoring any impurities or other obstacles in their path, while the bulk of the material blocks electron flow.

A fascinating and crucial ability of biological tissue, such as muscle, is self-healing and self-strengthening in response to damage caused by external forces. Most human-made polymers, on the other hand, break irreversibly under enough mechanical stress, which makes them less useful for certain critical applications like manufacturing artificial organs. But what if we could design polymers that...

The longer someone stays awake, the more likely they'll start getting tired as their brain needs sleep. But how the brain senses that need for sleep hasn't always been clear. Now, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have shown in fruit flies that certain groups of brain cells called astrocytes sense electrical activity in different regions of the brain and use these signals to facilitate the...

Nature is a 'blind spot' in economics that can no longer be ignored by the accounting systems that dictate national finances and the decision-makers behind them.

Genetic information is stored in DNA and transcribed as mRNA. The mRNA is usually translated into proteins. However, it has long been known that mRNA can also be reverse transcribed to DNA and integrated back into the genome. Such cases are referred to as retrogenes. In an article, a team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology in Plön and the Zoological Institute of the Chinese...

Cycling, e-biking or walking can help tackle the climate crisis—even if you swap the car for active transport just one day a week—according to a new study led by researchers from the University of Oxford's Transport Studies Unit.

Now just a year and a half from launch, the mission to explore a metal-rich asteroid will soon begin assembling and testing the spacecraft.

Researchers developing renewable plastics and exploring new processes for plastics upcycling and recycling technologies will now be able to easily baseline their efforts to current manufacturing practices to understand if their efforts will save energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The many different sensations our bodies experience are accompanied by deeply complex exchanges of information within the brain, and the feeling of pain is no exception. So far, research has shown how pain intensity can be directly related to specific patterns of oscillation in brain activity, which are altered by the activation and deactivation of the 'interneurons' connecting different regions...

The findings of a new study examining the behaviors of alligator and caiman hatchlings have enhanced our understanding of how we can conserve, and increase, the population of endangered crocodilian species.

Anyone who has lived with a dog will know their capacity for learning the meaning of words, even ones you don't want them to know. How many times have you had to spell the words "walk" or "dinner" in the hope of avoiding an explosion of excitement?

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have discovered the individual traits of fungi, and how their hyphae—that is, the fungal threads that grow in soil—behave very differently as they navigate through the earth's microscopic labyrinths.

The Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) is a carnivorous plant that encloses its prey using modified leaves as a trap. During this process, electrical signals known as action potentials trigger the closure of the leaf lobes. An interdisciplinary team of scientists has now shown that these electrical signals generate measurable magnetic fields. Using atomic magnetometers, it proved possible to record...

Raising kids can be tough, and sometimes you need all the help you can get. Biologists at the University of Bristol argue that some animals might be able to blackmail reluctant relatives into assisting with the rearing of young. The study is published today [2 February] in The American Naturalist.

If you build it, they might not come. That's the key finding of a new study on habitat restoration practices that challenges a commonly accepted principle in ecology.