For The Better

Transmission of respiratory viruses depends partly on the rate of close social contacts in a population. A study suggests that during the most restrictive period of lockdown in the United Kingdom, the number of reported contacts decreased by 75 percent…

Many coronal loops — ropey strands of plasma that scientists have long thought existed in the sun’s atmosphere — may actually be optical illusions, according to a new paper that challenges prevailing assumptions of what we know, and don’t know, about…

Many people impacted by COVID-19 experienced changes in their sense of smell, taste, hearing, balance and in some cases, tinnitus, ‘ringing’ in the ears. Among the various causes of tinnitus is stress. What’s unclear, however, is whether the psychologi…

Researchers have shown for the first time how to design the basic elements needed for logic operations using a kind of material called a liquid crystal — paving the way for a completely novel way of performing computations.

A study into tooth wear in a group of wild Japanese macaques has significant implications for the study of human evolution, a new study has shown.

A rare spectroscopy technique directly quantifies the energy required to bind two excitons together. The experiment harnessed interactions between real and virtual states to ‘switch’ the electronic state of an atomically-thin (2D) material. As well as …

The molecular evolution of placental protein NRK and its function in regulating placental growth has finally been clarified. They elucidated that eutherian NRK regulates placental development by a novel mechanism, modulating the CK2-PTEN-AKT pathway. T…

A team of researchers has developed a simple lab-based system for growing human muscle cells that are capable of vigorously contracting.

In 2020, astronomers reported the closest black hole to Earth, located just 1000 light-years away in the HR 6819 system. But the results of their study were contested by other researchers. In a new paper, these two teams have united to report that ther…

In a study of more than 1,200 women in the U.S., average age 63 years, 10 kinds of oral bacteria were associated with a higher risk of developing high blood pressure, while five strains of bacteria were linked with lower hypertension risk. The observat…

Abrupt shifts in the evolution of animals — short periods of time when an organism rapidly changes size or form — have long been a challenge for theorists including Darwin. Now a newly published research paper supports the idea that even these abrupt…

Every time it rains, fish living downstream of storm drains are exposed to pollutants, including the tire-derived compound 6PPD-quinone, in the runoff. Recently, this substance has been linked to massive die-offs of coho salmon across the U.S. West Coa…

Membrane filters don’t require much energy to purify water, making them popular for wastewater treatment. To keep these materials in tip-top condition, they’re commonly cleaned with large amounts of strong chemicals, but some of these agents destroy th…