Science & Technology

Among regretful parents, fear of missing out is a key motivator for having children.

Scientists have discovered a simple and reliable test for signs of past or present life on other planets — ‘the holy grail of astrobiology.’ Researchers report that, with 90% accuracy, their artificial intelligence-based method distinguished modern an…

Enforcement is one of the biggest challenges to international cooperation on mitigating climate change in the Paris Agreement. The agreement has no formal enforcement mechanism; instead, it is designed to be transparent so countries that fail to meet t…

New research has validated at scale, one of the theories that has underpinned ecology for over half a century. In doing so, the findings raise further questions about whether models should be revised to capture human impacts on natural systems.

A new study shows unprecedented heat is likely to lead to the next mass extinction, akin to when the dinosaurs died out, eliminating nearly all mammals in some 250 million years time.

New research shows that the immune cells, known as ‘killer T cells,’ in older adults resemble those in newborns and children, but have difficulty identifying infected cells. This discovery opens the door to tailored, age-specific vaccines and therapies.

Tiny waterfleas could play a pivotal role in removing persistent chemical pollutants from wastewater — making it safe to use in factories, farms and homes, a new study reveals.

Inflammation is the sign that our body is defending itself against an aggression. But when this response escalates, for example in the brain, it can lead to serious neurological or psychiatric diseases. A team investigated a marker protein targeted by …

Astronomers have found a striking link between the amount of dust surrounding a supermassive black hole and the strength of the radio emission produced in extremely bright galaxies.

New study reveals drivers of rare cancer and provides a possible alternative solution to surgery.

Scientists have successfully developed nanomaterials using a so-called bottom-up approach. They exploit the fact that crystals often grow in a specific direction during crystallization. These resulting nanostructures, which appear as ‘worm-like and dec…

People differ significantly in their memory performance. Researchers have now discovered that certain brain signals are related to these differences.

New research has used machine learning to find the properties of atomic pieces of geometry, in pioneering work that could drive the development of new results in mathematics.

Copper-based catalysts developed by materials scientists help speed up the rate of carbon dioxide-to-methane conversion.

Research shows that birds with more complex skeletons are more specialized and so are less species rich.

New research represents the first combined analysis of microplastics in water, sediment and air around a major river system. It found significant quantities of microplastics trapped in riverbed sediments, and also found they were being transported thro…

Ecological disturbances like wildfires disrupt microbial communities. Researchers found that dispersal played a pivotal role in re-establishing surface-level communities.

In a warming Pacific Northwest, summers are getting hotter and winters less cold, but the atmospheric patterns that influence the weather aren’t necessarily expected to become stronger or more frequent by the end of the century, according to a new study.

Boosting virtual screening with machine learning allowed for a 10-fold time reduction in the processing of 1.56 billion drug-like molecules. Researchers teamed up with industry and supercomputers to carry out one of the world’s largest virtual drug scr…

It is impossible to imagine modern agriculture without plastics. 12 million tons are used every year. But what about the consequences for the environment? An international team of authors addresses this question in a recent study. The research shows th…