Mayor says NEC field hospital will be ready to take patients as data shows 21% of deaths in England were in MidlandsCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageHospitals in the West Midlands are forecast to reach maximum capacity by next weekend, the region’s mayor has said, amid growing concern that one in five deaths from coronavirus in England have happened in the...

Particle chasing—it's a game that so many physicists play. Sometimes the hunt takes place inside large supercolliders, where spectacular collisions are necessary to find hidden particles and new physics. For physicists studying solids, the game occurs in a much different environment and the sought-after particles don't come from furious collisions. Instead, particle-like entities, called...

A previous study has shown that a type of squill growing in Madeira produces a chemical compound that may be useful as a medicinal drug. But a new study from researchers at Uppsala University has shown that this is probably not true: instead, the plant had likely accumulated antibiotics from contaminated soil.

The end-Permian mass extinction (EPME), approximately 252 million years ago (Ma), caused a serious marine and terrestrial ecosystem crisis, and about 75% of terrestrial biological species disappeared. How long did it take for terrestrial ecosystems to recover?

According to data from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), groundwater supplies half of the world's population with fresh water and makes up 43% of the water used in irrigation. Despite its importance, it is calculated that about a third of the world's greatest aquifers are drying up quickly and that 20% are being overexploited. In Spain, a country where a large...

Researchers have used high-resolution microscopy tools to peer at the inner-workings of an unusual type of superconductor, uranium ditelluride (UTe2). Their measurements reveal strong evidence that this material may be a natural home to an exotic quasiparticle that's been hiding from physicists for decades.

A previous study has shown that a type of squill growing in Madeira produces a chemical compound that may be useful as a medicinal drug. But a new study has shown that this is probably not true: instead, the plant had likely accumulated antibiotics from contaminated soil.

While drylands around the world will expand at an accelerated rate because of future climate change, their average productivity will likely be reduced, according to a new study. These regions, which primarily include savannas, grasslands and shrublands, are important for grazing and non-irrigated croplands. They are also a critical part of the global carbon cycle and make up 41% of Earth's land...

New research has detailed the clinical course and treatment of Germany's first group of COVID-19 patients. Criteria may now be developed to determine the earliest point at which COVID-19 patients treated in hospitals with limited bed capacity can be safely discharged.

Researchers have developed a tiny unit that is both an optical transmitter and a receiver.

The tiny hairs found on plant roots play a pivotal role in helping reduce soil erosion, a new study has found. The research provides compelling evidence that when root hairs interact with the surrounding soil they reduce soil erosion and increase soil cohesion by binding soil particles.

A study sheds new light on the role of northern peatlands in regulating the regional climate. According to the researchers, peatlands will remain carbon sinks until the end of this century, but their sink capacity will be substantially reduced after 2050, if the climate warms significantly.

Scientists have studied oscillating patterns of gene expression, coordinated across time and space within a tissue grown in vitro, to explore the molecular causes of a rare human hereditary disease known as spondylocostal dysostosis.

Pairing brain scans with virtual-navigation tasks, researchers found that people make less efficient and effective plans when stressed.

Frustrated NHS staff and scientists say they have labs ready but cannot get the materialsCoronavirus – latest updatesSee all our coronavirus coverageThe UK government’s pledge to carry out 100,000 coronavirus tests a day by the end of the month is unravelling, with NHS laboratory staff and scientists warning they do not have the test kits, chemicals and components they need to scale up.Boris...

In an international collaboration between the University of South Australia Business School, the Hunter Foundation Research Centre at the University of Newcastle and George Mason University in Washington, D.C., researchers have pinpointed which Australian cities are most vulnerable to economic disruptions caused directly by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Instead of looking up to the sky for bright bursts of fiery color, a research team spent Fourth of July 2018 peering down at fiery globs of molten lava from a sky-diving airplane. Bolted to their plane was a new NASA instrument designed to detect each time the volcano took a breath, as its caldera swelled and deflated.

At several points in the history of our planet, increasing amounts of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have caused extreme global warming, prompting the majority of species on Earth to die out.

A research team in the Department of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge U.S., explored a synthetic pathway to generate a phosphatetrahedrane framework. During the synthetic route, the team replaced a single carbon vertex with another p-block element within a highly strained tetrahedrane molecule. Highly strained molecules possess unusually acute bond angles at...

A Nordic study sheds new light on the role of northern peatlands in regulating the regional climate. According to the researchers, peatlands will remain carbon sinks until the end of this century, but their sink capacity will be substantially reduced after 2050, if the climate warms significantly.

The tiny hairs found on plant roots play a pivotal role in helping reduce soil erosion, a new study has found. The research, led by the University of Bristol and published in Communications Biology, provides compelling evidence that when root hairs interact with the surrounding soil they reduce soil erosion and increase soil cohesion by binding soil particles.

Melatonin controls the body clock—high melatonin levels make us feel tired in the evening. However, the hormone also plays an important role in animals' biological rhythms. Artificial light at night—light pollution—can suppress the production of melatonin in fish, even at very low light intensities, a finding established by researchers from the Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and...

Researchers have invented a machine-learning based algorithm for quantitatively characterizing material microstructure in three dimensions and in real time. This algorithm applies to most structural materials of interest to industry.