Wines and table grapes exist thanks to a genetic exchange so rare that it's only happened twice in nature in the last 6 million years. And since the domestication of the grapevine 8,000 years ago, breeding has continued to be a gamble.

Simon Fraser University researchers are playing a key role in guiding conservation efforts to protect a declining butterfly population. The eastern monarch butterfly, an important pollinating species known for its distinct yellow-orange and black colour, is diminishing due to the loss of the milkweed plant—its primary food source.

Residents in southern Louisiana were bracing for more rain Tuesday after heavy downpours flooded homes, swamped cars and closed a major interstate.

A $1 billion missile-warning satellite for the U.S. Space Force rocketed toward orbit Tuesday.

While examining the prevalence of listeria in agricultural soil throughout the U.S., Cornell University food scientists have stumbled upon five previously unknown and novel relatives of the bacteria.

Compared to most other bear species, very little is known about how female Andean bears choose where they give birth to cubs. As a critical component of the reproductive cycle, birthing dens are essential to the survival of South America's only bear species, listed as Vulnerable on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

Modern and emerging applications in various fields have found creative uses for organic thin films (TFs); some prominent examples include sensors, photovoltaic systems, transistors, and optoelectronics. However, the methods currently available for producing TFs, such as chemical vapor deposition, are expensive and time-consuming, and often require highly controlled conditions. As one would expect,...

Australian scientists have compared an ancient Greek technique of memorizing data to an even older technique from Aboriginal culture, using students in a rural medical school.

Two British chemists who developed a super-fast DNA sequencing technique that paved the way for revolutionary healthcare advances were on Tuesday awarded Finland's version of the Nobel science prizes.

A new study of ancient DNA from horse fossils found in North America and Eurasia shows that horse populations on the two continents remained connected through the Bering Land Bridge, moving back and forth and interbreeding multiple times over hundreds of thousands of years.

Researchers at Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University (SPbPU) developed a new approach to determine the best electrode materials composition for solid-state lithium-ion batteries. The results of the study were published in the journal Nanomaterials.

In today's plants, photorespiration dissipates some of the energy produced by photosynthesis and releases CO2. It begins when the enzyme RuBisCO acts on oxygen instead of carbon dioxide and creates toxic side-products requiring costly recycling reactions. The detoxification process uses up fixed carbon and wastes energy, thus strongly limiting agricultural productivity.

The frequency and intensity of heat waves in cities is increasing due to climate change, with a great negative impact on the health and mortality rates of the population. Anthropogenic activities and urban materials affect heat accumulation in cities, and solar radiation stored throughout the day on asphalt and buildings is released slowly during the night, generating significant heat stress. To...

Hundreds of satellite images spanning over 25 years have been compiled to show the evolution of Greece's ever-changing coastlines.

As lockdown measures ease this week in the UK, environmental psychologists are urging that before rushing back to business as normal, we take advantage of the shifts observed over the past year to lock-in new, greener behaviors.

Five years after the disastrous wildfire in Fort McMurray, Alberta, researchers are warning that the complex role of peatlands, a factor critical to projecting the risk and behavior of future fires, is missing from the forecasting model.

More than three quarters of Iran's land is under extreme groundwater overdraft, where the rate of human uptake is higher than the rate of natural recharge. This is according to a new study led by Concordia researchers published in the Nature journal Scientific Reports.

In the midst of a devastating global pandemic of wildlife origin and with future spillovers imminent as humans continue to come into closer contact with wildlife, infectious-disease models that consider the full ecological and anthropological contexts of disease transmission are critical to the health of all life. Existing models are limited in their ability to predict disease emergence, since...

A research group at the University of Córdoba studied the molecular properties of the holm oak (Quercus ilex) in search of trees that are more resistant to drought and root rot.

Classic computers use binary values (0/1) to perform. By contrast, our brain cells can use more values to operate, making them more energy-efficient than computers. This is why scientists are interested in neuromorphic (brain-like) computing. Physicists from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) have used a complex oxide to create elements comparable to the neurons and synapses in the...

With pandemic lockdowns still in place last summer, The Ohio State University couldn't host its in-person Summer Success Program to help preschoolers from low-income families prepare for kindergarten.

Scientists have developed a mathematical model that predicts how the number and effects of bacterial mutations leading to drug resistance will influence the success of antibiotic treatments.

In the field of international business research, lobbying is considered a legitimate and legal political action conducted in a developed economy. Bribery, on the other hand, is seen as an outright corrupt practice in an emerging economy.

Combining natural salt marsh habitats with conventional dikes may provide a more sustainable and cost-effective alternative for fully engineered flood protection. Researchers of the University of Groningen (UG) and the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) studied how salt marsh nature management can be optimized for coastal defense purposes. They found that grazing by both cattle...