High levels of background noise, mainly due to ships, have reduced the ability of critically endangered North Atlantic right whales to communicate with each other by about two-thirds.

For the second time in three years, Google ranks as the happiest place to work, a new study finds.

A team of researchers has shown for the first time a link between low levels of a specific hormone and increased risk of metabolic disease in humans.

UCLA has performed its first transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR), using a new device approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to replace an aortic valve in a patient who was not a candidate for open-heart surgery.

Researching great white sharks is pretty intense, but there are fun parts too. Find out what they are!

In a balancing act, the Interior Department rules out drilling in some sections of the National Petroleum Reserve but green-lights it in others.

Earlier this month, 138 skydivers joined hands in the air to form an airborne snowflake-like formation.

Consumers are buying fewer phones this quarter, and that may be because they're holding off for the iPhone 5 or upgrades from other smartphone companies. According to a report from Gartner, an IT research company, smartphone sales declined in the second quarter of 2012, down 2.3 per cent from the same time last...

According to Web-based rumors citing an unnamed inside source, Microsoft plans to launch its new Windows RT-based Surface tablet computer October 26 at the low, low, low price of $199. Not coincidentally, October 26 is the also the day that the new Windows 8 operating system will formally launch. If it does sell at a suggested retail price under $200, the new tablet would be in the pricing...

Astronomers fill in a hole in the theory of galaxy clusters by spotting one that is producing hundreds of new stars each year.

Scores show how individual countries are protecting their waters and deriving benefits for their people.

We don't use our smartphones for talking as much as we once did, but we are and will increasingly be using them to detect and monitor health risks, from irregular heart rhythms to E. coli bacteria in drinking water, industry experts say. Health app developers initially focused on consumer diet and exercise, said Brian Dolan, editor of Boston-based MobiHealthNews.com, which tracks advances in...

Students don't seem to want to buy e-textbooks. So some schools are simply forcing them. While several colleges across the country are pushing electronic textbooks, touting them as more efficient and less cumbersome than regular textbooks, students are reluctant. E-textbooks still account for only 9% of textbook purchases, says Student Monitor, which researches college student behavior. "How...

Emily Langmead was hesitant when she first heard of free Wi-Fi in the subway. Like many New Yorkers, she wondered what the catch was. But now, she says, she uses it all the time. One month in to wireless service being provided in six New York City subway stations, commuters like Langmead are happy to have chances to connect when their trains head underground and pull into one of the stations...

The platform game abides. It may have the least appealing name imaginable -- see, your character has to jump between platforms -- but in recent years the genre has attracted the interest of a whole posse of young game designers. With hits like "Fez," "Braid" and "Limbo," the platformer is enjoying the kind of attention it hasn't drawn since the heyday of "Super Mario Bros." In "Sound Shapes"...

Phone companies are losing the high-speed Internet game. In the second quarter, the landline phone industry lost broadband subscribers for the first time, as cable companies continued to pile on new household and small business customers, thanks to the higher speeds they offer in most areas. The flow of subscribers from phone companies to cable providers could lead to a de facto monopoly on...

Using a new comprehensive index designed to assess the benefits to people of healthy oceans, scientists have evaluated the ecological, social, economic, and political conditions for every coastal country in the world. Their findings, published today in the journal Nature, show that the global ocean scores 60 out of 100 overall on the Ocean Health Index. Individual country scores range widely, from...

Asian nations must act quickly to protect their cities from flooding and other natural disasters as rapid urbanisation raises environmental risks, the Asian Development Bank said Wednesday.

(Phys.org) -- Researchers in Britain have found that migrating pink-footed geese have altered the path they take when returning to the UK to winter after flying southeast from Iceland, due to the construction of a wind farm. The study, conducted by Pawel Plonczkier and Ian Simms of Britain's Food and Environment Research Agency was held over a four year period using radar following the final...

(AP) — The blue iguana has lived on the rocky shores of Grand Cayman for at least a couple of million years, preening like a miniature turquoise dragon as it soaked in the sun or sheltered inside crevices. Yet having survived everything from tropical hurricanes to ice ages, it was driven to near-extinction by dogs, cats and cars.

Snakes are highly specialized legless animals, which have evolved around 150 Million years ago. Although without extremities their body is exposed to constant friction forces. The PhD-Student Marie-Christin Klein and Professor Stanislav Gorb of Kiel University found out how snake skin is adapted to legless locomotion. The skin is stiff and hard on the outside and becomes soft and flexible towards...

(Phys.org) -- Amid policy debate over potential liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports from the United States, a new paper from Rice University's Baker Institute for Public Policy predicts the long-term volume of exports from the U.S. will not likely be very large. The paper also argues that the impact on U.S. domestic natural gas prices will not be large if exports are allowed by the U.S government.

(Phys.org) -- Last spring private industry successfully sent a spacecraft carrying cargo to the International Space Station. Now the race is on to see which company will be the first to make commercial human spaceflight a reality.