Some might say you look a little green when you are sick. Leafy greens actually turn purple—although not obvious to the human eye, it can be seen through advanced hyperspectral imaging (different than purple varieties of some vegetables). Purdue researchers discovered this color change in kale and basil stressed by cadmium, a heavy metal toxic to human and animal health.

It may be true that seeing is believing, but sometimes hearing can be better.

What does a "resilient" forest look like in California's Sierra Nevada? A lot fewer trees than we're used to, according to a study of frequent-fire forests from the University of California, Davis.

A team of biology researchers at Georgia State University has found that some of the newer variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 can infect the respiratory tract of wild mice, unlike the original strain that emerged from China.

Commercially available ultrafiltration membranes that purify water are expensive and get clogged easily by particles and microorganisms. Recently, living filtration membranes were reported as an alternative sieving material. Grown from kombucha cultures, the filters are dense, stacked sheets of bacterial cellulose. Now, researchers reporting in ACS ES&T Water show that these living membranes are...

Freemium strategies dominate software product markets, with many if not most applications enticing new users with a free version, then requiring payment for more advanced features. The strategy thrives at attracting users, but there's very little empirical evidence showing how it impacts a company's bottom line. New research published in the Strategic Management Journal in November changes that,...

One of the key components behind next-generation high resolution video displays will be optical nanoantennas. These devices use nanotechnology to mix and interfere with light beams to produce color and even holograms.

The endangered Sumatran orangutan infant at New Orleans' zoo is being bottle-fed because his mother wasn't producing enough milk.

Aging leads to a decline in cellular fitness and loss of optimal protein function. Many age-related ailments, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, are caused by protein aggregation, a result of errors in protein folding. Yet, the mechanisms underlying how aging causes proteins to aggregate has largely remained a black box. In new research published Jan. 19 in Nature, researchers at...

Legalization of marijuana in California has helped some financial institutions in the state increase their assets at the same time many banks, feeling stifled by federal regulations, deny services to licensed growers, manufacturers and retailers, a new study shows.

Researchers have developed an adaptive liquid lens based on a new electrically responsive fluid called dibutyl adipate (DBA) that changes focal length when a voltage is applied. The lens is lightweight, compact and simple to fabricate, which makes it ideal for mobile phone cameras, endoscopes, eyeglasses and machine vision applications.

A study conducted by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and Vaisala Inc., published yesterday in the Geological Society of America's journal Geology, discusses how advances in global lightning detection have provided novel ways to characterize explosive volcanism. Lead author Alexa Van Eaton says, "It's the perfect storm—explosive...

Research featured this month in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences highlights the progress of plant genomics and includes a roadmap for the enormous task of sequencing the genomes of plants worldwide.

Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have recently published work that lays the foundation for new ways of thinking about pathogen evolution. "Our research highlights that template-free modeling that uses machine learning is indeed superior to template-based modeling for the secreted proteins of the destructive fungal pathogen Magnaporthe oryzae," said Kyungyong Seong, first...

Black holes are often described as the monsters of the universe—tearing apart stars, consuming anything that comes too close, and holding light captive. Detailed evidence from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, however, shows a black hole in a new light: Fostering rather than suppressing star formation. Hubble imaging and spectroscopy of the dwarf starburst galaxy Henize 2-10 clearly show a gas...

About 2.4 billion years ago, Earth's atmosphere underwent what is called the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). Prior to the GOE, early Earth had far less molecular oxygen than we have today. After the GOE, molecular oxygen began to increase in abundance, eventually making life like ours possible.

A team of researchers has discovered a jumping behavior that is entirely new to insect larvae, and there is evidence that it is occurring in a range of species—we just haven't noticed it before.

Computer simulations of snow cover can accurately forecast avalanche hazard, according to a new international study involving researchers from Simon Fraser University.

The goal of nuclear physics is to describe all matter from its simplest building blocks: quarks and gluons. Found deep inside protons and neutrons, quarks and gluons also combine in less common configurations to make other subatomic particles of matter. For scientists, producing these less-common particles in experiments is an interesting challenge. A new theory method aids in those efforts by...

Entropy, a physical property often explained as "disorder," is revealed as a creator of order with a new bonding theory developed at the University of Michigan and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The release of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas responsible for almost a quarter of global warming, is being studied around the world, from Arctic wetlands to livestock feedlots. A University of Washington team has discovered a source much closer to home: 349 plumes of methane gas bubbling up from the seafloor in Puget Sound, which holds more water than any other U.S. estuary.

Numbers like π, e and φ often turn up in unexpected places in science and mathematics. Pascal's triangle and the Fibonacci sequence also seem inexplicably widespread in nature. Then there's the Riemann zeta function, a deceptively straightforward function that has perplexed mathematicians since the 19th century. The most famous quandary, the Riemann hypothesis, is perhaps the greatest unsolved...

Software development teams given the freedom to tackle their projects in whatever ways they choose are more productive and have more satisfied customers than teams that follow a central corporate standard, according to new research from The University of Texas at Austin.

Party polarization tends to come before voter polarization, according to new research co-led by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.