Science & Technology

Systems in which mechanical motion is controlled at the level of individual quanta are emerging as a promising quantum-?technology platform. New experimental work now establishes how quantum properties of such systems can be measured without destroying…

Researchers managed to set larger groups of malaria parasites into motion and to analyze the acquired image data. The collectively moving pathogens form vortex systems that are largely determined by physical principles. Computer simulations helped iden…

Researchers are investigating better ways to predict where road-clogging debris will be most severe after tropical cyclones.

The microbes that help break down food actually tell the gut how to do its job better, according to a new study in mice. The researchers said it appears that the microbes are able to influence which of the gut’s genes are being called into action, and …

How do our cells organize themselves to give their final shape to our organs? The answer lies in morphogenesis, the set of mechanisms that regulate their distribution in space during embryonic development. A team has just made a surprising discovery in…

Researchers have identified how the brain triages emotions during dream sleep to consolidate the storage of positive emotions while dampening the consolidation of negative ones. The work expands the importance of sleep in mental health and opens new wa…

In early research, the oral medication zanubrutinib was found to help most patients with a slow-growing type of cancer known as marginal zone lymphoma.

The transgenic papaya ‘SunUp’ was developed in the 1990s and was widely publicized because of its ability to resist the papaya ringspot virus. A new study has now identified the genomic changes involved and how they influence the transgenic plants.

Researchers have untangled the intricate physics and neural controls that enable dragonflies to right themselves while they’re falling.

Patients prescribed antibiotics in hospital are more likely to get fungal infections because of disruption to the immune system in the gut, according to a new study.

The effect of variability on learning is recognized in many fields: learning is harder when input is variable, but variability leads to better generalization of the knowledge we learned. In this review, researchers bring together over 150 studies on va…

Life-like organ replicas — so-called 3D organoids — are a good way to research disease processes. A team has now presented a kind of blueprint for such a model of the cervix.

A single hormone appears to coordinate the lifespan extension produced by a low-protein diet. Low-protein diets produce beneficial metabolic effects in aged mice, improving metabolic health, reducing frailty, and extending lifespan. These beneficial ef…

For our sake and the environment, there is a considerable amount of research into the reduction of plastic for many and various applications. Researchers have now found a way to imbue relatively sustainable paper materials with some of the useful prope…

A research team has investigated a meteorite from Mars using neutron and X-ray tomography. The technology, which will probably be used when NASA examines samples from the Red Planet in 2030, showed that the meteorite had limited exposure to water, thus…

Human cell division involves hundreds of proteins at its core. Knowing the 3D structure of these proteins is pivotal to understand how our genetic material is duplicated and passed through generations. Scientists are now able to reveal the first detail…

Organisms adjust their cell walls according to environmental conditions such as temperature. Some adaptations involve changes in lipids which may still be preserved long after the rest of the organisms has been degraded. Researchers have studied a spec…

Switching to low carbon fuels for transportation, cooking, heating, power generation and other needs would help fight climate change and also reduce racial and ethnic disparities in exposure to air pollution.

Conservation of sea turtles along much of Africa’s east coast has made good progress in recent decades — but tens of thousands of turtles still die each year due to human activity, researchers say.

Jars of tiny platypus and echidna specimens, collected in the late 1800s by the scientist William Caldwell, have been discovered in the stores of Cambridge’s University Museum of Zoology.