Researchers from York University and the University of British Columbia have found social media use to be one of the factors related to the spread of COVID-19 within dozens of countries during the early stages of the pandemic.

The widely studied metallic asteroid known as 16 Psyche was long thought to be the exposed iron core of a small planet that failed to form during the earliest days of the solar system. But new University of Arizona-led research suggests that the asteroid might not be as metallic or dense as once thought, and hints at a much different origin story.

How are the squirrels doing this year? The bears? The armadilloes? How would you know? A new paper published June 8 sets up the framework for answering these questions across the United States by releasing the data from the first national mammal survey made up of 1,509 motion-activated camera traps from 110 sites located across all 50 states.

The World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control recommend keeping a certain distance between people to prevent the spread of COVID-19. These social distancing recommendations are estimated from a variety of studies, but further research about the precise mechanism of virus transport from one person to another is still needed.

Engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a prototype X-ray scanning machine that reveals not just the shape of an object but its molecular composition. With unprecedented resolution and accuracy, the technology could revolutionize a wide range of fields such as cancer surgery, pathology, drug inspection and geology.

On June 8, World Oceans Day, the President of Panama, Laurentino Cortizo, signed an executive decree that expands the limits of the Cordillera de Coiba protected area, a step that will double the amount of Panamanian marine surface that is under some degree of protection. The scientific basis for this initiative was a multidisciplinary effort led by marine biologist Hector M. Guzman, from the...

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope team recently flight-certified all 24 of the detectors the mission needs. When Roman launches in the mid-2020s, these devices will convert starlight into electrical signals, which will then be decoded into 300-megapixel images of large patches of the sky. These images will allow astronomers to explore a vast array of celestial objects and phenomena,...

Our genetic material is stored in our cells in a specific way to make the meter-long DNA molecule fit into the tiny cell nucleus of each body cell. An international team of researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging, the CECAD Cluster of Excellence in Aging Research at the University of Cologne, the University College London and the University of Michigan have now been able to...

The prolonged impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the interaction restrictions created widespread lockdown fatigue and increased social tension in multiunit housing. But small improvements in quality-of-life routines may help people cope with the health restrictions better than they previously could.

Like champagne, roquefort and Kalamata olives, South Africa's world-famous rooibos tea has been added to a European Union list of protected agricultural products and foodstuffs, an industry official said Wednesday.

The worst drought in nearly a century to hit two key regions in Brazil is wreaking havoc on hydroelectric dams and crops—and threatening the nascent pandemic recovery of Latin America's biggest economy.

Colorado has its first gray wolf pups in 80 years, state wildlife officials said Wednesday.

Purdue University engineers have developed a method to transform existing cloth items into battery-free wearables resistant to laundry. These smart clothes are powered wirelessly through a flexible, silk-based coil sewn on the textile.

In humans and animals, fat cells produce and store fat in special organelles, which are specialized subunits within the cell, called lipid droplets. The lipid droplets make up the largest part of the volume of these fat cells, also known as adipocytes. Adipocytes fulfill vital tasks protecting our organs, as well as parts of the body that are sensitive to cold, and they serve as a source of...

Summer rainfall on the Tibetan Plateau is highly predictable on multiyear timescales in large ensemble predictions, according to a research team led by Zhou Tianjun from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

A group of ancient amphibians called temnospondyls evolved stiffer spinal columns to adapt to aquatic life, contrary to previous hypotheses, according to a study published June 9, 2021 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Aja Mia Carter of the University of Pennsylvania and colleagues.

New Curtin research has shown how a readily available, cheap and safe-to-use product found in the medicine cabinet of most homes could be the key to better ecological restoration practices with major benefits for the environment and agriculture.

PSI researchers have developed a new tomography method with which they can measure chemical properties inside catalyst materials in 3D extremely precisely and faster than before. The method has applications for science and industry. The researchers published their results today in the journal Science Advances.

Widespread adoption of hydrogen-powered vehicles over traditional electric vehicles requires fuel cells that can convert hydrogen and oxygen safely into water—a serious implementation problem.

In her doctoral research, Eeva Siljamäki has explored the possibilities of improvisation for music education. Her aim has been to increase understanding of how playful collaborative improvisation can enhance not only musical learning but also the quality of life.

Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute scientists are one step closer to understanding why some corals can weather climate change better than others, and the secret could be in a specific protein that produces a natural sunscreen. As their name implies, Hawaiian blue rice corals sport a deep blue pigment, which is created by chromoprotein and filters out harmful ultraviolet (UV) radiation from...

From 1980 to 2016, grain production in Brazil increased more than fourfold, and the country now stands as the world's largest soybean exporter and the second largest exporter of corn. The two main drivers of this increase in food production were cropland expansion and double-cropping, harvesting two crops, such as corn and soybeans, from the same field in a single year.

A new study led by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has updated the global population estimate for the Critically Endangered Grauer's gorillas (Gorilla beringei graueri)—the world's largest gorilla subspecies—to 6,800 individuals from a previous global estimate of 3,800 individuals. This revised estimate comes from recent field surveys conducted in one of this animal's largest remaining...

The fairy circles of the Namib are one of nature's greatest mysteries. Millions of these circular barren patches extend over vast areas along the margins of the desert in Namibia. In 1979, G.K. Theron published the first research about their origin. His hypothesis was that poisonous substances from Euphorbia damarana leaves induced fairy circles. As part of a new study, scientists from the...