Recent efforts to support businesses reeling from revenues lost during the pandemic, such as grants and loan programs, have been criticized for favoring larger companies. New research finds that federal agencies get more bang for their buck when they channel grant dollars into smaller startups.

Nonlinear optics, a study of how light interacts with matter, is critical to many photonic applications, from the green laser pointers we're all familiar with to intense broadband (white) light sources for quantum photonics that enable optical quantum computing, super-resolution imaging, optical sensing and ranging, and more. Through nonlinear optics, researchers are discovering new ways to use...

Federal and state governments auction leases to oil and gas companies to extract natural resources from public land. A revamp of the auction system—utilizing a new model developed by a Rice University economist—could lead to more competitive bids and, ultimately, more money for governments.

Social distancing guidelines have reduced the spread of COVID-19, but lockdowns and isolation also have created or aggravated other well-being concerns, reports new research. Mayo Clinic investigators found a significant increase in loneliness and a decrease in feelings of friendship during the pandemic. The study, published Feb. 20 in the journal Social Science & Medicine, also showed...

For Black girls in the juvenile justice system, attention from a caregiver might amount to too much of a bad thing, a recent study suggests.

Close friends are important drivers of adolescent behavior, including college attendance, according to Steven Alvarado, assistant professor of sociology in the College of Arts and Sciences.

Volcanic eruptions, not natural variability, were the cause of an apparent "Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation," a purported cycle of warming thought to have occurred on a timescale of 40 to 60 years during the pre-industrial era, according to a team of climate scientists who looked at a large array of climate modeling experiments.

Three dozen endangered giant tortoises, born and raised in captivity, have been released into the wild on one of the Galapagos islands, where their kind is from.

Texas A&M University researchers have recently shown superior performance of a new oxide dispersion strengthened (ODS) alloy they developed for use in both fission and fusion reactors.

As you scroll through Amazon looking for the perfect product, or flip through titles on Netflix searching for a movie to fit your mood, auto-generated recommendations can help you find exactly what you're looking for among extensive offerings.

Observations of galactic rotation curves give one of the strongest lines of evidence pointing towards the existence of dark matter, a non-baryonic form of matter that makes up an estimated 85% of the matter in the observable Universe. Current assessments of galactic rotation curves are based upon a framework of Newtonian accounts of gravity, a new paper published in EPJ C, by Gerson Otto Ludwig,...

Many species might be left vulnerable in the face of climate change, unable to adapt their physiologies to respond to rapid global warming. According to a team of international researchers, species evolve heat tolerance more slowly than cold tolerance, and the level of heat they can adapt to has limits.

Hearing the words "new species discovered" may conjure images of deep caves, uncharted rainforests, or hidden oases in the desert.

Shark scientists at Georgia Aquarium, Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, and Dalhousie University are challenging the status quo in shark and ray mating research in a new study that looks at biological drivers of multiple paternity in these animals. The results were published March 4 in the journal Molecular Ecology.

You didn't need a Ph.D. to contribute to research into wildlife abundance and behavior in North Carolina, thanks to a large-scale citizen science project led by North Carolina State University researchers.

Humans and animals alike constantly size up one another. In the workplace, a new employee quickly learns which coworkers are the most respected—and therefore hold more power. Big brothers boss around little brothers. In nature, a dominant male chimpanzee fights off would-be intruders. Even fish and octopi interact within social hierarchies.

During the past 25 years astronomers have discovered a wide variety of exoplanets, made of rock, ice and gas, thanks to the construction of astronomical instruments designed specifically for planet searches. Also, using a combination of different observing techniques they have been able to determine a large number of masses, sizes, and hence densities of the planets, which helps them to estimate...

Forager ants do it, vampire bats do it, guppies do it, and mandrills do it. Long before humans learned about and started "social distancing due to COVID-19," animals in nature intuitively practiced social distancing when one of their own became sick.

Western butterfly populations are declining at an estimated rate of 1.6% per year, according to a new report to be published this week in Science. The report looks at more than 450 butterfly species, including the western monarch, whose latest population count revealed a 99.9% decline since the 1980s.

In nematode worms, a key controller allows the worm to sense when it needs food and when it feels full, and then changes its behavior accordingly. Jennifer Tullet of the University of Kent and colleagues report these new findings in a paper published March 4th in PLOS Genetics. They propose that a similar factor may control feelings of fullness in humans.

In less than a second, a small sensor used in brain chemistry research can detect the key molecules that provide the genetic instructions for life, RNA and DNA, a new study from American University shows.

As light as possible and as strong as possible at the same time: These are the requirements for modern lightweight materials, such as those used in aircraft construction and the automotive industry. A research team from Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht (HZG) and Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) has now developed a new materials' design approach for future ultralight materials: Nanometer-sized...

A new path toward sending and receiving information with single photons of light has been discovered by an international team of researchers led by the University of Michigan.

COSMIC, a multipurpose X-ray instrument at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory's (Berkeley Lab's) Advanced Light Source (ALS), has made headway in the scientific community since its launch less than 2 years ago, with groundbreaking contributions in fields ranging from batteries to biominerals.