Science & Technology

A new study from cognitive scientists offers an answer to why legal documents such as contracts or deeds are often so impenetrable.

Drawing on 48 years of data on the family trees and mate choices of 1,624 wild baboons in Kenya, a new study finds that baboons generally steer clear of mates that are half-siblings or closer. But baboons proved less discriminating with their father’s …

On the big screen, in video games and in our imaginations, lightsabers flare and catch when they clash together. That clashing, or interference, happens only in fiction — and in places with enormous magnetic and electric fields, which happens in natur…

Chronically stressing the retina can weaken it and damage our ability to see. But retinal cells have a remarkable ability to wall off damage, a team of neuroscientists reports. The walling-off or ‘bunkering’ of the damage may be key to preserving our e…

Researchers have created a tool to assess the risk of hybridization among native and non-native fish, a development that could aid natural resource managers trying to protect threatened or endangered freshwater fish species.

Researchers calculate that exposure to car exhaust from leaded gas during childhood stole a collective 824 million IQ points from over 170 million Americans alive today, more than half of the population of the United States.

A new study provides vital clues on when killer whales began feeding on other marine mammals.

Scientists determined that 9/11 first responders to the World Trade Center have increased levels of mutations that escalate their risk for blood cancers or cardiovascular disease, according to a new study.

Researchers evaluated the ability of a polygenic risk score constructed from a genome-wide association study of rheumatoid arthritis susceptibility to predict radiographic progression, which is indicative of structural joint damage in individuals with …

Computer engineers have developed virtual eyes that simulate how humans look at the world accurately enough for companies to train virtual reality and augmented reality programs. Called EyeSyn for short, the program will help developers create applicat…

A new study shows that aging slows to a crawl when yellow-bellied marmots hibernate. These large ground squirrels are able to virtually halt the aging process during the seven to eight months they spend hibernating in their underground burrows, the res…

Researchers have generated new maps of jet contrails over the United States before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, which show a steep reduction in the area covered by contrails in 2020.

A new study challenges a commonly accepted explanation that a ‘sudden stratospheric warming’ caused the unusually cold weather over the U.S. early last year, a view which was widely reported in the media and discussed among scientists at the time.

Researchers have discovered that a micro-protein, which they named Nrs1, supports cell division and proliferation when nutrients are scarce.

A new study asks what drove prehistoric humans to collect and recycle flint tools that had been made, used, and discarded by their predecessors. After examining flint tools from one layer at the 500,000-year-old prehistoric site of Revadim in the south…

Many countries have set carbon neutrality as a policy goal, but according to a new study, there are various risks associated with the reduction of greenhouse gases, especially in the agriculture, forestry, and land use sectors, that need to be consider…

A new model to analyse infectious disease outbreak data has been developed by mathematicians that could be used to improve disease tracking and control.

Ordinary potted house plants can potentially make a significant contribution to reducing air pollution in homes and offices, according to new research.