Science & Technology

As smart watches are increasingly able to monitor the vital signs of health, including what’s going on when we sleep, a problem has emerged: those wearable, wireless devices are often disconnected from our body overnight, being charged at the bedside.

Researchers have found that T cells from people who have recovered from COVID-19 or received the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines are still able to recognize several concerning SARS-CoV-2 variants.

A new study calculates the probability of living past age 110, which, though rare, likely will increase this century.

Imaging spectroscopy can help predict water stress in wild blueberry barrens, according to a new study. Researchers deployed a drone with a spectrometer to photograph wild blueberry fields, then process the images to measure reflected light spectra fro…

In COVID-19 patients whose symptoms were mild, researchers found that they were more likely than sicker patients to have signs of prior infection by similar, less virulent coronaviruses.

Hereditary information is passed from parent to offspring in the genetic code, DNA, and epigenetically through chemically induced modifications around the DNA. New research has uncovered a mechanism which adjusts these modifications, altering the way i…

A new technique called sci-Space, combined with data from other technologies, could lead to four-dimensional atlases of gene expression across diverse cells during embryonic development of mammals. Such atlases would map how the gene transcripts in ind…

Scientists have been looking for half an electron as a basis for a quantum computer. They investigated a promising experimental setup just to find that the signals they measured were not telling the truth.

Current rates of plastic emissions globally may trigger effects that we will not be able to reverse, argues a new study. According to the authors, plastic pollution is a global threat, and actions to drastically reduce emissions of plastic to the envir…

Our brains have sensory cells, which process the faces that we see, and memory cells dedicated to storing data from person encounters. But until now, a hybrid neuron capable of linking vision to memory — and explaining how we recall familiar faces — …

Fifteen years ago, an electrical and materials professor pioneered a method for integrating a laser onto a silicon wafer. The technology has since been widely deployed in combination with other silicon photonics devices to replace the copper-wire inter…

Zeolites are extremely porous materials: Ten grams can have an internal surface area the size of a soccer field. Their cavities make them useful in catalyzing chemical reactions and thus saving energy. An international research team has now made new fi…

Metal additive manufacturing (AM) experiments are slow and expensive. Engineers are using physics-informed neural networks to predict the outcomes of complex processes involved in AM. The team trained the model on supercomputers using experimental and …

Researchers have now uncovered their crucial role in closing the period of brain plasticity that follows birth, finding them to be key to the development of sensory and cognitive faculties. Over the longer term, these findings will make it possible to …

Antibiotic sales soared during India’s first surge of COVID-19, suggesting that the drugs were inappropriately used to treat mild and moderate COVID-19 infections, according to new research. The excessive usage is especially concerning because antibiot…

A researcher is reporting that use of a plastic drape during catheter insertion in very low birth-weight newborn babies can lower the rates of hypothermia, and she is recommending replacing cloth blanket and towels with them.

A team of scientists has devised a more accurate way to predict the effects of climate change on plants and animals — and whether some will survive at all.

Scientists have set out to harness the potential of self-assembling peptides (SAPs) in intracellular spaces. They present a de novo designed peptide, Y15, which displays a strong tendency to assemble in cellular environments. The addition of Y15-tagged…

Plastic waste is considered one of the biggest environmental problems of our time. Researchers surveyed consumers in Germany about their use of plastic packaging. Their research reveals that fundamental changes in infrastructures and lifestyles, as wel…

An affordable lab system uses grass blades to turn cells into cultured meat, by creating a scaffold that animal stem cells can attach to and grow on.