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Hundreds of feet below Earth's surface, rocks and water teem with fungi and support complex ecosystems of tiny organisms, according to a University of Michigan study that finds fungi are far more abundant deep underground than researchers previously thought.

Analyzing ancient DNA from more than 500 mammoth bones, an international team of researchers found that Ice Age humans selectively targeted female woolly mammoths. The results of the study, published in Current Biology, show that, in contrast to the sex ratio among naturally occurring woolly mammoth remains, large bone accumulations associated with ancient human activity are dominated by females.

Ports rank among the most disturbed marine environments. Pollutants like trash, oil and toxins from antifouling paints tend to accumulate in enclosed harbors. Invasive species arriving in ballast water may displace native wildlife, while ship propellers, sonars and dredging cause noise pollution that can interfere with animal communication. There is thus a great need for effective ways to clean up harbors. One promising method is renaturalization, in which hardy species that can survive under th

Corporate climate spending now steers trillions of dollars in transition finance worldwide. Does it drive genuine climate action? Research shows that accounting flexibility alone can make a company's reported emissions vary by roughly a factor of two—enough to appear either as a climate leader or a laggard. A new perspective in Nature Sustainability proposes developing industry-specific net-zero blueprints to close that gap.

Using cargo recovered from one of Australia's most infamous shipwrecks, new Curtin University-led research has revealed how surprisingly sophisticated global supply chains helped source and transport construction materials in the 17th century.

Bose–Einstein condensates are states of matter that form when particles called bosons are cooled to temperatures that are only a fraction of a degree above absolute zero (i.e., 0 Kelvin [-460°F]). In these states, particles occupy the same quantum state and exhibit interesting collective behaviors, essentially behaving as if they were a single "super-particle."

Comparing yourself with your partner is more common than you'd think. Psychologists even have a term for it: mate value discrepancy (MVD), which is the gap between how attractive, smart or successful each partner feels compared with the other.

Assessing how climate change will affect different regions usually requires running a complex chain of models. While this approach provides valuable insights, it is expensive and can cover only a limited set of scenarios and model runs. Together with partners, IIASA researchers have developed a faster alternative that uses available projections from Earth system or climate impact models to generate new regional climate and impact projections while capturing the uncertainty essential for understa

A New York school district made global headlines this week for plans to trial a humanoid robot named "Sally" in high school classrooms.

Electrons zipping through transistors, powering the screens on our smartphones. Light zooming from distant stars to Earth, moving faster than anything else in the universe. Protons enabling MRI machines to analyze people's injuries.

Nanoplastics—plastic particles smaller than one micrometer—are generated through the degradation and abrasion of plastic products and are increasingly detected in food, drinking water, air and biological tissues. Although the presence of plastic particles in animals and humans is well-established, determining how nanoplastics are distributed within complex organs, such as the brain, remains challenging.

Just over half of England has been declared to be in drought after "record-low rainfall and exceptionally high temperatures," the U.K. government said Wednesday.

Nepal's tiger population has risen by roughly 20% in the past four years to an estimated 429, officials said Wednesday, a conservation milestone despite challenges from human-wildlife conflict.

Researchers at the Centre for Ecosystem Management (CEM), together with scientists from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Cornell University, Great Lakes Fishery Commission and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, have published a paper showing that ecosystems become more resilient to environmental change through "portfolio effects" operating across multiple levels of ecological organization.

Extant and ancient cephalopods—including octopuses, squids, extinct ammonites, cuttlefish and nautiluses—have all had to solve the problem of buoyancy, whether they have hard external shells or not.

Scientists at the Universities of Liverpool and Oxford have developed a promising new way to kill antibiotic-resistant strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes gonorrhea, using a targeted therapy that is activated at the bacterial surface while minimizing damage to human cells.

Plants need nitrogen fertilizers, which are usually ammonia-based. Ammonia is therefore one of the most important chemical products. However, its production is currently extremely energy-intensive. An international team from TU Wien and Soochow University in China has developed a novel catalyst that can convert nitrate from wastewater into ammonia much more efficiently than before—powered by sunlight and about 1.5 volts.

Resolving a long-standing problem in semiconductor physics and optoelectronics, a team of researchers from Skoltech—a VEB.RF group institution—and their colleagues from ITMO University and HSE University have for the first time demonstrated direct electrical pumping of a polariton laser based on a solution-processed halide perovskite microcrystal. Published in Nature, this solution to a decades-long technological challenge ushers in inexpensive nonepitaxial laser diodes operating under continuou

New research, led by the University of Glasgow reveals that adaptation to warmer waters causes fish to display a range of behavioral and biological differences, including obesity, overeating and lower metabolism.

New research from the University of Cambridge offers an easy and readily available solution using AI and satellite data. In a paper published in the journal Science of Remote Sensing, researchers used embeddings by Tessera, a geospatial foundation model, to successfully map tree species across the Trentino region of the Italian Alps.

The chemical synthesis of oligonucleotides (ONs) is central to modern molecular biology, diagnostics and nucleic acid therapeutics. While demand for high-quality ONs is increasing, the conventional synthetic method has long-standing efficiency challenges. Widely adopted P(III)-phosphoramidite-based ON synthesis requires an oxidation step after every nucleotide coupling cycle and uses moisture-sensitive building blocks, adding complexity to the workflow and slowing the process.

The creation of fully artificial organs is a sci-fi dream, and researchers in Japan may have brought it one step closer to reality by developing a new photofabrication technique (i.e., a light-controlled synthetic method) for constructing arteriole-scale tubular hydrogels. Their research is published in the journal Advanced Materials.

Most electronic memory storage devices require the ability to trap large numbers of electrons for each bit of memory. In an ideal world, however, it would take only one electron. This would reduce space requirements and power consumption for devices. Now, a team in China has realized this goal with an ultrathin device capable of minimizing the stray capacitance that plagued earlier attempts. The new study, published in Science, describes how this novel device has overcome challenges in implement

Deploying ocean iron fertilization—a strategy for carbon dioxide capture—in higher latitudes rather than near the equator could reduce environmental impacts while still achieving removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, according to a modeling study published in Nature. The findings offer insight into best practices for maximizing carbon dioxide removal while reducing potential ecological trade-offs typically associated with iron fertilization.

Over the past few decades, scientists have become increasingly interested in developing materials that do not simply withstand mechanical forces but instead respond to them in useful, detectable ways. For example, it is now possible to engineer materials that signal when they are under stress through changes in color or brightness. This growing domain, sometimes called mechanochromic or mechanoresponsive materials science, has found applications in structural sensors and advanced optical technol

He tramples things without intending to. He was created by us. He never permanently goes away. In recent years, metaphorical representations of Donald Trump as the Japanese kaiju Godzilla have become common. Now, a paper published in De Gruyter Brill's The Forum argues that the Showa period Godzilla films (1954–75) can be read as an allegory of Trump's political career from 2016–24.

Climate drives vegetation patterns across the Henan section of China's Yellow River Basin, research in the International Journal of Environmental Engineering shows. However, expanding agriculture and urbanization have a detrimental effect on plant diversity in heavily developed areas, according to the study. The findings are based on satellite observations and ecological modeling of the region.

In many animal tissues, stem cells continually divide to create new cells that replace old or damaged ones. However, this capacity requires strict regulation, as uncontrolled stem cell proliferation can disrupt tissue homeostasis and contribute to tumorigenesis.

You might not often think about the molars of livestock, but everything from the grass they eat to the water they drink can tell a story about how people lived centuries ago. An international collaboration led by University of Michigan researchers examined herd management in medieval Kazakhstan using isotopes embedded in the enamel of sheep's molars. They found that people living in the arid region fine-tuned their animal-management strategies to succeed in a challenging environment.

Since their discovery by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope in 2022, little red dots (LRDs) have been the subject of great interest to astronomers. Understanding the nature of these extremely distant, compact red sources has been a puzzling scientific endeavor.

A simplified machine learning-based low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C) equation provides results that are comparable to the original Martin-Hopkins equation, according to a study published online July 15 in JAMA Cardiology.

The pulp and paper industry, which manufactures everything from tissue paper to cardboard, also generates a significant yet often overlooked byproduct—a complex polymer called lignin. Around 100 million tons of lignin are produced each year. Despite being the largest natural source of aromatic carbon on the planet, most of it is burned for energy. This is due to its complex structure, which is notoriously difficult to process. Researchers are exploring ways to leverage industrial lignin by devel

For lakes across the Northern Hemisphere, winter ice is more than a frozen surface. It is a seasonal regulator that shapes underwater ecosystems and energy balance. But as the planet warms, this frozen season is disappearing faster than expected.

As the U.S. looks to expand domestic seafood production, a new University of Miami study argues that long-term competitiveness will depend on how well fisheries can withstand climate-driven disruptions. The study comes as NOAA advances new efforts to increase domestic seafood production and suggests that producing more seafood will require investments that reduce disruptions to the nation's fisheries and seafood supply chains.

Community energy projects, actively governed and managed by community members, play an essential role in advancing just energy transitions, for example, by providing energy in remote areas, facilitating the adoption of renewable technologies and building resilient electricity networks. However, their adoption remains limited. How does community energy work in practice, and how can it become more widespread?

Firefighters in France on Thursday were hopeful a massive forest fire was no longer spreading, as Spain said there were "almost no flames" left after a similar blaze near Madrid.

Amina Helmi's passion for the Milky Way is clear as soon as one steps into her small office at the University of Groningen, in the north of the Netherlands.

Despite the promise of rebounding green sea turtle numbers, many sea turtle populations continue to flounder under the pressures of changing climates, overfishing and urbanization.

Offshore Northwest reefs Rankin Bank and Glomar Shoal are remote and little known, but Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) researchers are using technology and people power to help us understand them better.

A new framework to cool urban areas which integrates AI-driven technical solutions with cooling schemes that are acceptable and doable for the host community, has been proposed by QUT Urban AI Hub researchers.

Kauri dieback is one of the most serious threats facing Aotearoa New Zealand's kauri forests. The disease is caused by a soil-dwelling microbe, Phytophthora agathidicida, which infects kauri roots and eventually kills the tree. There is no cure, so finding infected trees early and managing them well is critical to protecting the kauri that remain.

The University of Glasgow's Small Animal Hospital is the first in the UK to use a treatment for dogs suffering from serious allergic reactions to bee and wasp stings. The treatment, Hymenoptera Venom Immunotherapy (VIT), has now been successfully used on a number of patients, and while the approach is still relatively new, clinicians believe it offers a way to prevent recurrent anaphylaxis in dogs.

Record-breaking heat waves in May and June led to an estimated 2,877 excess deaths in England, the UK Health Security Agency said Wednesday.

A collaborative research group led by Hiroshi Daimon, a specially appointed research fellow at the Institute for Molecular Science, National Institutes of Natural Sciences, has developed an "atom-holography microscope" capable of directly observing three-dimensional atomic arrangements in nanoscale regions by combining the electron beam of a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with CoDELMA, a newly developed two-dimensional display-type analyzer.

Our DNA is under constant threat. Chemicals, radiation and the everyday errors of cell division all damage it, and if left unrepaired, this can lead to diseases such as cancer. Cells invest heavily in finding and fixing these errors. A new study from EMBL Heidelberg's Pepperkok Group finds that part of the control over this repair process lies in an unexpected place—outside the nucleus, at the Golgi complex.

Every year, thousands of satellites are launched into orbit around our planet. The result is an increasingly congested "space" above Earth populated by equipment that provides services to the surface. At the same time, these satellites affect ground-based astronomy and create the potential for damage when they eventually fall through Earth's atmosphere to the surface. In addition, near-Earth space hosts old rocket bodies and other materials (cameras, gloves, etc.) left in orbit by past missions.

Constant scratching, bumpy skin and tufts of lost fur. Those are just some of the signs that an animal has scabies, a severe and potentially fatal skin disease caused by tiny mites (Sarcoptes scabiei) that burrow into the skin.

The Hiroshima blast on Aug. 6, 1945, was one of the most devastating events in human history. Like all nuclear detonations, it created fleeting moments of extreme heat, pressure, mixing and cooling. These conditions can briefly produce materials that could never form under normal circumstances.

For years, social media companies have faced pressure from users and government watchdogs to stop misinformation from distorting elections, deepening political divisions and undermining Americans' trust in institutions. But what if dramatically reducing people's exposure to unreliable sources that frequently spread misinformation doesn't actually change what they believe?

Scientists have discovered a new way to determine how big an earthquake may become just seconds after it begins. In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Cal Poly Humboldt used signals picked up by fiber-optic cables—the same ones that deliver high-speed internet—to accurately estimate when a moderate to large earthquake is underway using data from the first four seconds of seismic wave arrivals.