When the water came, it came quickly. The clear-up operation in the devastated small towns of eastern Belgium will take far longer.

What makes humans unique? Scientists have taken another step toward solving an enduring mystery with a new tool that may allow for more precise comparisons between the DNA of modern humans and that of our extinct ancestors.

Smoke and heat from a massive wildfire in southeastern Oregon are creating giant "fire clouds" over the blaze—dangerous columns of smoke and ash that can reach up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) in the sky and are visible from more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) away.

A three-day celebration of what would have been history-making astronaut John Glenn's 100th birthday began Friday in his birthplace and childhood hometown in Ohio, even as additional events were announced to mark the occasion.

Climate change is driving a large increase in intense, slow-moving storms, a new study by Newcastle University and the Met Office has found.

For the first time ever, researchers from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine discovered that phages—tiny viruses that attack bacteria—are key to initiating rapid bacterial evolution leading to the emergence of treatment-resistant "superbugs." The findings were published today in Science Advances.

The Hubble Space Telescope should be back in action soon, following a tricky, remote repair job by NASA.

Archaeologists have discovered a rare stone delineating the city limits of ancient Rome that dates from the age of Emperor Claudius in 49 A.D. and was found during excavations for a new sewage system.

The hydrothermal vent fluids from the Gorda Ridge spreading center in the northeast Pacific Ocean create a biological hub of activity in the deep sea. There, in the dark ocean, a unique food web thrives not on photosynthesis but rather on chemical energy from the venting fluids. Among the creatures having a field day feasting at the Gorda Ridge vents is a diverse assortment of microbial...

Evolution is often portrayed as a tree, with new species branching off from existing lineages, never again to meet. The truth however is often much messier. In the case of adaptive radiation, in which species diversify rapidly to fill different ecological niches, it can be difficult to resolve relationships, and the phylogeny (i.e. evolutionary tree) may look more like a bush than a tree. This is...

Many legacy media outlets played an unwitting role in the growth of the four most successful fake Twitter accounts hosted by the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) that were created to spread disinformation during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign, according to a study led by a University at Buffalo communication researcher.

Recent findings, with important implications for ocean biogeochemistry and climate science, have been published by Nature Communications in a paper by Associate Professor Mark Holzer from UNSW Science's School of Mathematics & Statistics, with co-authors Tim DeVries (UCSB) and Casimir de Lavergne (LOCEAN).

U.S. corn and soybean varieties have become increasingly heat and drought resistant as agricultural production adapts to a changing climate. But the focus on developing crops for extreme conditions has negatively affected performance under normal weather patterns, a University of Illinois study shows.

At Shikine Island, Japan, kelp forests and abalone fisheries were once common, but over the last twenty years they have disappeared. Now, researchers from Japan have discovered that these temperate coastal marine ecosystems are becoming more 'simple', losing biodiversity, complexity and their esthetic values.

The first full approval of a drug to treat lymphoma in dogs has been granted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Great leaps in science and technology have been propelled by recent advances in seeing fast evolving physical phenomena, as they happen. Femtosecond lasers from the infrared to the X-ray region have enabled us to 'watch', in real time, atoms dance in molecules and solids on femtosecond and picosecond timescales. Watching such fascinating motions not just in real time, but at the spatial locations...

Using long wavelength near-infrared light, scientists at UC Davis developed a label-free microscopy approach that achieves a unique combination of deep, high resolution, and minimally invasive brain imaging. The technique images neurons and axonal myelination across the mouse neocortex and some sub-cortical regions, through the thinned skull. Now studies of brain disease can be conducted deep in...

The laws of quantum physics rule the microcosm. They determine, for example, how easily electrons move through a crystal and thus whether the material is a metal, a semiconductor or an insulator. Quantum physics may lead to exotic properties in certain materials: In so-called topological insulators, only the electrons that can occupy some specific quantum states are free to move like massless...

Measurements of biomechanical properties inside living cells require minimally-invasive methods. Optical tweezers are particularly attractive as a tool. They use the momentum of light to trap and manipulate micro- or nanoscale particles. A team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Cornelia Denz from the University of Münster (Germany) has now developed a simplified method to perform the necessary...

The ability to predict and interpret modifications of ribonucleic acid (RNA) has been a welcome advance in biochemistry research.

Greenland dropped all plans for future oil exploration on environmental grounds, saying the price of extraction was "too high."

Solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs) are a promising technology for cleanly converting chemical energy to electrical energy. But their efficiency depends on the rate at which solids and gasses interact at the devices' electrode surfaces. Thus, to explore ways to improve SOFC efficiency, an international team led by researchers from Berkeley Lab studied a model electrode material in a new way – by...

A new way of producing coherent light in the ultra-violet spectral region, which points the way to developing brilliant table-top X-ray sources, has been produced in research led at the University of Strathclyde.

Although some people may yearn for sports to be free of political or racial divisiveness, a new study shows how impossible that dream may be.