Hundreds of millions of light-years away in a distant galaxy, a star orbiting a supermassive black hole is being violently ripped apart under the black hole's immense gravitational pull. As the star is shredded, its remnants are transformed into a stream of debris that rains back down onto the black hole to form a very hot, very bright disk of material swirling around the black hole, called an...

Participation in environmental education programs can motivate children across diverse language groups to act responsibly toward the environment, a recent study suggests.

AUSTIN, TEXAS— For canaries, learning to eat seeds can be a tough nut to crack. Researchers reported last week at the annual meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology that some of these birds are up to four times faster than their peers at cracking open hard shells and accessing the tasty morsels within. The team filmed 90...

Participation in environmental education programs can motivate children across diverse language groups to act responsibly toward the environment, a recent study from North Carolina State University researchers suggests.

Hundreds of millions of light-years away in a distant galaxy, a star orbiting a supermassive black hole is being violently ripped apart under the black hole's immense gravitational pull. As the star is shredded, its remnants are transformed into a stream of debris that rains back down onto the black hole to form a very hot, very bright disk of material swirling around the black hole, called an...

The new Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives is preparing to shine a bright light on science—and scientists. This week, it created two investigative panels that will scrutinize the country’s relationship with China and its response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Both committees are expected to grill many prominent scientists and federal research officials on their...

NASA announced the discovery of a solar system with rocky planets orbiting in the habitable zone of their star, but there are good reasons to think these planets aren't very much like...

Scientists have successfully demonstrated that autonomous methods can discover new materials. The artificial intelligence (AI)-driven technique led to the discovery of three new nanostructures, including a first-of-its-kind nanoscale 'ladder.'

Targeting iron metabolism in immune system cells may offer a new approach for treating systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) -- the most common form of the chronic autoimmune disease lupus. A multidisciplinary team of investigators has discovered that blocking an iron uptake receptor reduces disease pathology and promotes the activity of anti-inflammatory regulatory T cells in a mouse model of SLE.

Seemingly spontaneously coordinated swarm behavior exhibited by large groups of animals is a fascinating and striking collective phenomenon. Experiments conducted on laser-controlled synthetic microswimmers now show that supposed swarm intelligence can sometimes also be the result of simple and generic physical mechanisms. A team of physicists found that swarms of synthetically produced Brownian...

When people are in a negative mood, they may be quicker to spot inconsistencies in things they read, a new study suggests.

When genes are activated and expressed, they show patterns in cells that are similar in type and function across tissues and organs. Discovering these patterns improves our understanding of cells -- which has implications for unveiling disease mechanisms. The advent of spatial transcriptomics technologies has allowed researchers to observe gene expression in their spatial context across entire...

Flow batteries offer a solution. Electrolytes flow through electrochemical cells from storage tanks in this rechargeable battery. The existing flow battery technologies cost more than $200/kilowatt hour and are too expensive for practical application, but engineers have now developed a more compact flow battery cell configuration that reduces the size of the cell by 75%, and correspondingly...