One of the most promising applications of artificial intelligence technologies is the identification of tumors from high-resolution medical imagery. Can the same techniques be used to help paleontologists more quickly analyze similar scans of dinosaur fossils? Researchers reported some of the early answers—and remaining challenges—in a new paper published in Frontiers in Earth Science.

Researchers have discovered what appears to be the earliest known account of a rare weather phenomenon called ball lightning in England.

A collection of fossil shells from marine snails and clams is challenging a theory that says the world's deadliest mass extinction was accompanied by severe ocean acidification.

Shown four images of hypothetical peers—a boy playing with cars and trucks, a girl playing with cars and trucks, a boy playing with a Barbie and dollhouse, and a girl playing with a Barbie and dollhouse—children from Thailand and China were then asked a simple question: Would you want to be their friend?

Imagine taking your favorite treat—a Mars bar or cream puff—and beaming it with X-rays to map out what makes it so delicious. Then, picture being able to transfer some of those magnificent qualities and tastes to healthier, more sustainable products.

Researchers including a postdoc at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have created a gear-shaped photonic crystal microring that increases the strength of light-matter interactions without sacrificing optical quality. The result is an on-chip microresonator with an optical quality factor 50 times better than the previous record in slow light devices that could improve microresonators used in...

To learn how ocean water is melting glaciers, NASA's Oceans Melting Greenland mission extensively surveyed the coastline of the world's largest island.

The outbreak of COVID-19 has changed our lifestyle, and even the environment around us, such as the reduction of carbon dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions and the alleviation of water pollution. A more obvious change is that the production of waste related to pandemic prevention has increased significantly. For example, the main component of disposable masks we use every day is plastic fiber....

Optical tweezers use light to immobilize microscopic particles as small as a single atom in 3D space. The basic principle behind optical tweezers is the momentum transfer between light and the object being held. Analogous to the water pushing on a dam that blocks the stream, light pushes onto and attracts objects that make the light bend. This so-called optical force can be designed to point to a...

A chunk of a SpaceX rocket that blasted off seven years ago and was abandoned in space after completing its mission will crash into the Moon in March, experts say.

Vanderbilt researchers Sokrates Pantelides and Joshua Caldwell are part of an international collaboration that has demonstrated a new way to manipulate and measure subtle atomic vibrations in nanomaterials. This breakthrough could make it possible to develop customized functionalities to improve on and build new technologies.

School closures have caused large and persistent damage to children's learning and well-being, the cost of which will be felt for decades to come, according to a new report launched today by the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel (GEEAP), co-hosted by the UK's Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti, and the World Bank.

A new analysis by David Geary at the University of Missouri and Gijsbert Stoet at the University of Essex in the United Kingdom finds career aspirations from nearly 500,000 adolescents shows consistent sex differences across 80 nations, suggesting biologically-influenced preferences can play a role in gender segregation in the workplace later in life. The researchers also found a tendency for...

A new study from scientists at the UNC School of Medicine has illuminated an important process that occurs during cell division and is a likely source of DNA damage under some circumstances, including cancer.

A retired microscope and samples from studies on colloids and cellular signaling are among the cargo returning from the International Space Stationaboard the 24th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission. The Dragon craft, which arrived at the station Dec. 22, 2021, was scheduled to undock Jan. 22 with splashdown the next afternoon off the coast of Florida.

Research done at Cornell University has uncovered from gravitation wave data the first potential signs of spin-orbit resonances in binary black holes, a step toward understanding the mechanisms of supernovas and other big questions in astrophysics.

UCLA scientists have devised a method for producing intricately shaped hydrogel microparticles at a rate of more than 40 million per hour—at least 10 times faster than the current standard approach.

A new analysis predicts that, as climate change progresses, the most suitable regions for growing coffee arabica, cashews, and avocados will decline in some of the main countries that produce these crops. Roman Grüter and colleagues at Zurich University of Applied Sciences, Switzerland, present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on January 26, 2022.

A new article published today in PLOS ONE by a Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HU)'s Institute of Archaeology team and colleagues focused on the remains of a previously submerged fisher-hunter-gatherer camp on the shores of the Sea of Galilee from around 23,000 years ago. Through a close analysis of the abundance, variety and through use of animal remains, the team concluded that these survivors...

Quantum researchers at the University of Bristol have dramatically reduced the time to simulate an optical quantum computer, with a speedup of around one billion over previous approaches.

With 192 lasers and temperatures more than three times hotter than the center of the sun, scientists hit—at least for a fraction of a second—a key milestone on the long road toward nearly pollution-free fusion energy.

Caltech researchers used the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter to determine that surface water left salt minerals behind as recently as 2 billion years ago.

Researchers from HSE University have found that people from different cultures evaluate other people's creativity differently. Russians tend to believe that the more unusual a drawing is, the more creative it is, while participants from the United Arab Emirates tend to believe just the opposite. The paper was published in Frontiers in Psychology.

Academic Analytics Research Center (AARC) shared comprehensive data on scholarly publication rates in 170 disciplines. The newly available data tables show the rate of journal article, book, conference proceeding, and book chapter publications over different time periods and across different career stages in each discipline.