Magnetars are bizarre objects—massive, spinning neutron stars with magnetic fields among the most powerful known, capable of shooting off brief bursts of radio waves so bright they're visible across the universe.

When Elsa reached sustained winds of 85 mph last week, it became the strongest July storm in the Caribbean Sea since Hurricane Emily in 2005. Four days later, it would brush past the Tampa Bay coastline, dumping plenty of rain, but leaving the region mostly unscathed.

Information-rich optical imaging can provide multidimensional information to enable observation and analysis of a detected target, contributing insights into mysterious and unknown worlds. With its ability to capture dynamic scenes on picosecond—and even femtosecond—timescales, ultrafast multidimensional optical imaging has important applications in the detection of the ultrafast phenomena in...

An incident at the Hyperion sewage treatment plant in Playa del Rey has caused 17 million gallons of sewage to be discharged into the ocean.

Over the past years, graphene oxide membranes have been mainly studied for water desalination and dye separation. However, membranes have a wide range of applications, such as within the food industry. A research group led by Aaron Morelos-Gomez of Shinshu University's Global Aqua Innovation Center investigated the application of graphene oxide membranes for milk, which typically creates dense...

What is life? The most basic and smallest form of life we know is a single cell. Trying to create living cells from scratch is therefore the ultimate goal for Alexander Mason. However, as a cell consists of lots of parts and has many different functions this is a big challenge. In this video lecture Alexander Mason explains how he uses non-living materials like proteins and polymers as...

Direct farm marketing efforts, such as farmers markets and roadside stands, are more successful in communities with more nonprofits, social enterprises and creative industries, according to a team including Cornell University researchers, who created a nationwide database of assets to help municipalities craft community-specific development plans.

Jeff Bezos' rocket company has gotten government approval to launch people into space, himself included.

A research group has produced fresh insights about the release of oxygen in lithium-ion batteries, paving the way for more robust and safer high-energy-density batteries.

Fruit flies have evolved an elaborate courtship ritual. Upon recognizing a suitable mate in his vicinity, a male fruit fly transforms into a dogged suitor, sometimes chasing the female for more than 26 yards, or nine miles in human terms, singing to her all the while by vibrating his wings.

The mid-Proterozoic (1.85-0.85 Ga), considered the 'boring billion', was a critical time for early evolution of eukaryotic organisms.

Astronomers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) and elsewhere report the detection of a new ultra-high energy (UHE) gamma-ray source in the Galactic plane. The newly identified source, designated LHAASO J0341+5258, is extended and emission from it reaches up to 200 TeV. The finding is detailed in a paper published July 5 on arXiv.org.

North Carolina State University researchers have created insecticide-free, mosquito-resistant clothing using textile materials they confirmed to be bite-proof in experiments with live mosquitoes. They developed the materials using a computational model of their own design, which describes the biting behavior of Aedes aegypti, the mosquito that carries viruses that cause human diseases like Zika,...

New research from Queen Mary University of London suggests that when it comes to large-scale research evaluations such as the Research Excellence Framework (REF), peer reviews would be more cost-effective if targeted to publications not appearing in outstanding journals.

A team of economists and scientists including SFI External Professor Doyne Farmer (INET at Oxford) have published a new study illustrating how tools from ecology can help us better understand financial markets.

Recently, a research team led by Prof. Yang Zhaorong from the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science (HFIPS) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with researchers from the Anhui University and other institutions, discovered pressure-induced two-dome superconductivity in the quasi-two-dimensional topological kagome superconductor CsV3Sb5. This work was published in Physical...

A new framework which reconciles the roles of behavioral genetics and cultural evolution in inheritance—and cuts through the nature/nurture debate—has been put forward by researchers at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).

A decade after scientists discovered that lab rats will rescue a fellow rat in distress, but not a rat they consider an outsider, new UC Berkeley research pinpoints the brain regions that drive rats to prioritize their nearest and dearest in times of crisis. It also suggests humans may share the same neural bias.

"What we see here is energy transfer that is much faster than in any semiconductor," says Jakob Heier. The physicist works in Empa's Functional Polymers lab, and the discovery he has made with his team could cause a stir in many areas—such as sensor technology, optical data transmission or the fabrication of organic solar cells. We are talking about islands of dye molecules with a perfect,...

Enzyme catalysis is a promising green solution for producing pharmaceuticals, fine chemicals, and biofuels. However, exploring their catalytic promiscuity to expand and enhance the capabilities of enzymes remains challenging.

A research team from the University of Göttingen and the University of British Columbia (Canada) has investigated how people in five different countries react to various usages of genome editing in agriculture. The researchers looked at which uses are accepted and how the risks and benefits of the new breeding technologies are rated by people. The results show only minor differences between the...

Emotions toward and cultural importance of large carnivores are better predictors of the acceptance of management strategies by local communities than the extent of livestock depredation. This is the result of a new interdisciplinary investigation led by scientists from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW). They conducted 100 questionnaires with Maasai pastoralists in...

The sun constantly emits a stream of energetic particles, some of which reach Earth. The density and energy of this stream form the basis of space weather, which can interfere with the operation of satellites and other spacecraft. A key unresolved question in the field is the frequency with which the sun emits bursts of energetic particles strong enough to disable or destroy space-based...

Amore diverse, equitable, and inclusive workplace doesn't have to be a dream. A new report from Wharton shows how companies can make it a reality with the help of middle managers, who ultimately shape the environment and daily experiences of employees.