Science & Technology

The symbiotic organisms that live in corals and provide them with their dramatic colors contain fragments of ancient RNA viruses that are as much as 160 million years old.

The results of a new clinical trial suggest that the first drug therapy to slow the progression of nearsightedness in kids could be on the horizon. The three-year study found that a daily drop in each eye of a low dose of atropine, a drug used to dilat…

The seafloor is home to around one-third of all the microorganisms on the Earth and is inhabited even at a depth of several kilometers. Only when it becomes too hot does the abundance of microorganisms appear to decline. But how, and from what, do micr…

Researchers using dashcam footage of real-world collisions involving large trucks to analyze driver and vehicle behavior has found that anti-drowsiness alarms or similar technologies to prevent falling asleep at the wheel need to go beyond a focus on m…

Researchers have achieved a breakthrough power-conversion efficiency (PCE) of 19.31% with organic solar cells (OSCs), also known as polymer solar cells. This remarkable binary OSC efficiency will help enhance applications of these advanced solar energy…

Scientists have identified the neurons that are activated when perceiving others, as well as the neurons that represent value information associated with others in the CA1 region of the hippocampus using a novel social recognition experiment.

Rising temperatures could push ocean plankton and other single-celled creatures toward a carbon tipping point that fuels more warming. The carbon-eaters could become carbon-emitters. But new research shows it’s also possible to detect early distress si…

Portable ultrasound devices could provide an alternative to x-ray machines for diagnosing forearm fractures in children in a move that could alleviate waiting times for families in hospital emergency departments (ED). Researchers compared functional ou…

Plastic made from cane sugar also threatens the environment. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg have found that perch change their behavior when exposed to so-called bioplastic.

Scientists investigated numerically the interaction between a quantized vortex and a normal-fluid. Based on the experimental results, researchers decided the most consistent of several theoretical models. They found that a model that accounts for chang…

Researchers have gained new insights into the unique chemical properties of spherical molecules composed entirely of carbon atoms, called fullerenes. They did it by making flat fragments of the molecules, which surprisingly retained and even enhanced s…

An international team of surface scientists has now developed a simple method to produce large and very clean 2D samples from a range of materials using three different substrates.

Scientists have identified a method for improving the thermal conductivity of thin metal films in semiconductors using surface waves for the first time in the world.

Underwater volcanism and its hydrothermal activity play an important role in marine biogeochemical cycles, especially the carbon cycle. But the nature of hydrothermal activity at ‘petit-spot’ volcanoes have not been revealed at all. Now, scientists rev…

Health professionals are in urgent need of new antibiotics to tackle resistant bacteria. Researchers have now modified the chemical structure of naturally occurring peptides to develop antimicrobial molecules that bind to novel targets in the bacteria’…

Palaeontologists studying a British dinosaur tooth have concluded that several distinct groups of spinosaurs — dinosaurs with fearsome crocodile-like skulls — inhabited southern England over 100 million years ago.

Symbiotic and pathogenic fungi that interact with plants are distantly related and don’t share many genetic similarities. Comparing plant pathogenic fungi and plant symbiotic fungi, scientists at the Sainsbury Laboratory Cambridge University (SLCU) hav…

In crisis, the nucleus calls antioxidant enzymes to the rescue. The nucleus being metabolically active is a profound paradigm shift with implications for cancer research.

A recent study shows blacklegged ticks (Ixodes scapularis) are actually really good at surviving extreme cold and heat in nature. Previous lab research suggests that even short periods of especially warm or cold conditions should easily kill ticks, but…

While ingestible video capsule endoscopes have been around for many years, the capsules have been limited by the fact that they could not be controlled by physicians. They moved passively, driven only by gravity and the natural movement of the body. No…