Just as countries import a vast array of consumer goods across national borders, so living cells are engaged in a lively import-export business. Their ports of entry are sophisticated transport channels embedded in a cell's protective membrane. Regulating what kinds of cargo can pass through the borderlands formed by the cell's two-layer membrane is essential for proper functioning and survival.

A new study published in the journal Scientific Reports has revealed the strongest evidence to date that all bison in North America carry multiple small, but clearly identifiable, regions of DNA that originated from domestic cattle.

Chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a new machine-learning (ML) framework that can zero in on which steps of a multistep chemical conversion should be tweaked to improve productivity. The approach could help guide the design of catalysts—chemical "dealmakers" that speed up reactions.

The Sun emitted a strong solar flare on Tuesday, May 10, 2022, peaking at 9:55 a.m. EDT. NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, which watches the sun constantly, captured an image of the event.

A new effort is underway to find the remains of a British ship that Rhode Island colonists burned 250 years ago, marine archaeologists and state officials announced Tuesday.

When the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano erupted on Jan. 15, 2022, it sent atmospheric shock waves, sonic booms, and tsunami waves around the world. Now, scientists are finding the volcano's effects also reached space.

Following his success eradicating a major source of malaria, technology created by a University of South Florida public health researcher is being implemented by insect control agencies throughout Africa and across the Tampa Bay region.

An intermediate layer consisting of a few atoms is helping to improve the transport of spin currents from one material to another. Until now, this process involves significant losses. A team from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), the Max Planck Institute (MPI) for Microstructure Physics, and the Freie Universität Berlin reports in the ACS scientific journal Nano Letters on how this...

Sperm meets egg, setting off a cascade of events leading to the creation of an embryo. But how do developing cells—which all contain the same genetic information—decide what to be when they grow up? How does a cell differentiate into muscle, skin, organs, or even new eggs and sperm?

Increased investment in public schools pays off through reductions in adult crime, according to a new University of Michigan study.

As lakes across the upper Midwest grow warmer year after year, cool-water species of fish are finding it harder to thrive. In Wisconsin, that trend is especially noticeable in struggling populations of walleye—important to many indigenous communities, a top target in the state's sport fishery, and a popular item on many restaurant menus.

Rainfall map accuracy is vital in climate and hydraulic modeling and supports environmental management decision making, water resource planning and weather forecasting. University of Hawaiʻi and East-West Center researchers have developed more accurate monthly rainfall maps by using machine learning. They used a machine learning technique to detect erroneous rainfall maps. The results of this...

Nestled 30 feet underground in Menlo Park, California, a half-mile-long stretch of tunnel is now colder than most of the universe. It houses a new superconducting particle accelerator, part of an upgrade project to the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray free-electron laser at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.

The first detailed academic study of East African maritime traditions shows changes in boatbuilding techniques but the continuing use of wooden vessels by fishers.

As vehicle traffic lightened and industry slowed during the COVID-19 stay-at-home period in 2020, a University of Houston study by the air quality forecasting group led by Yunsoo Choi, associate professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, estimated levels of potentially-dangerous air pollutants simultaneously decreased in major cities across the country.

When genes mutate, this can lead to severe diseases of the human nervous system. Researchers at Leipzig University and the University of Würzburg have now used fruit flies to demonstrate how, apart from the negative effect, the mutation of a neuronal gene can have a positive effect—namely higher IQ in humans. They have published the discovery in the journal Brain.

By applying light, University of Arkansas physicists Peng Chen and Laurent Bellaiche have discovered a surprising mechanism for controlling ferroelectric polarization in a deterministic manner.

Humans are undoubtedly altering the natural environment. But how wild animals respond to these changes is complex and unclear. In a new study published today, scientists have discovered significant differences in how the brain works in two distinct personality types: those who act fearless and those who seem afraid of new things. Being fearless can help wildlife, specifically birds, find new food...

Computational detective work by U.S. and German physicists has confirmed that cerium zirconium pyrochlore is a 3D quantum spin liquid.

According to the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), almost half the world's population—about 3.3 billion to 3.6 billion people—live in contexts that are highly vulnerable to the impact of climate change. Social inequality greatly increases this vulnerability.

The World Cycling Championships in Bergen in 2017 had budgeted slightly more than €16.5 million in both revenues and costs. They missed the mark on both counts, and the event incurred a € 5.8 million deficit.

"From my own knowledge of these things, physics is not something that girls tend to fancy. They don't want to do it … There's a lot of hard math in there that I think that they would rather not do," Katharine Birbalsingh, chair of the U.K. government's Social Mobility Commission and a secondary school head teacher, told the Commons Science and Technology Committee on April 27 2022.

When we think of tools to achieve climate goals such as limiting the average temperature increase to 1.5 degrees above that of the pre-industrial age, most of us visualize wind turbines, solar panels and electric cars. Even the climate policy models currently in use, the so-called Integrated Assessment Models (IAMs), which aim to borrow and combine insights from climate science, engineering, and...

Microplastics are being transported to some of the most remote places on Earth by the wind, according to new research involving the University of East Anglia. A new study published today in Nature Reviews Earth & Environment shows how wind transports these particles great distances, and much faster than water can.