For The Better

Small pieces of plastic are everywhere, stretching from urban environments to pristine wilderness. Left to their own devices, it can take hundreds of years for them to degrade completely. Catalysts activated by sunlight could speed up the process, but …

New research finds that the target asteroid of NASA’s Psyche mission may not be as metallic or dense as previously predicted, hinting that it might not be an exposed planetary core after all.

Biological engineers have demonstrated a way to easily retrieve data files stored as DNA. This could be a step toward using DNA archives to store enormous quantities of photos, images, and other digital content.

Researchers have developed an innovative way to use the clumped isotope method to reconstruct climate in the geological past on the seasonal scale. They show that dinosaurs had to deal with hotter summers than previously thought. The results suggest th…

A new technique uses high-throughput sequencing, instead of a microscope, to obtain ultra-high-resolution images of gene expression from a tissue slide.

Researchers used a hydraulic model to consider the degree to which human-caused climate change may have affected flooding in Houston in 2017 during Hurricane Harvey. Resources were used to quantify the increase in Houston flood area and depth and to ho…

Researchers have identified how tumors cause immune cells to lose their ability to fight cancer, by producing harmful fats the energy-hungry immune cells ingest, impairing their functionality. The understanding opens new avenues for novel immunotherapi…

Lack of water, floods, or crop losses: As a result of climate change, pronounced periods of drought and rainfall are causing human suffering and major economic damage. Precise seasonal forecasts can help to mitigate these consequences. A research team …

The annual number of new HIV infections among men who have sex with men in England is likely to have fallen dramatically, from 2,770 in 2013 to 854 in 2018, showing elimination of HIV transmission by 2030 to be within reach — suggests new work.

Scientists summarize and critically appraise the current approaches to determining the concentrations of antimicrobials that increase AMR. By collating and assessing available data, they have recommended what these safe thresholds could be, to enable g…

Researchers have developed a new method which makes CRISPR gene editing more precise than conventional methods. The method selects the molecules best suited for helping the CRISPR-Cas9 protein with high-precision editing at the correct location in our …

Using a new 3D printing process, researchers have discovered how to tailor-make artificial body parts and other medical devices with built-in functionality that offers better shape and durability, while cutting the risk of bacterial infection at the sa…

Plant researchers have discovered an unusual and previously unknown reproductive strategy in plants: the Greek pipevine species ‘Aristolochia microstoma’ produces a unique mixture of volatiles that resembles the smell of dead and decaying insects to at…

The type of material present under glaciers has a big impact on how fast they slide towards the ocean. Scientists face a challenging task to acquire data of this under-ice landscape. Choosing the wrong equations for the under-ice landscape can have the…

Acoustic waves in gases, liquids, and solids usually travel at an almost constant speed of sound. Rotons are an exception: their speed of sound changes significantly with the wavelength, it is also possible that the waves travel backwards. Researchers …

What is already established for inorganic semiconductors stays a challenge for their organic counterparts: Tuning the energy gap by blending different semiconducting molecules to optimize device performance. Now, scientists demonstrated how to reach th…

Soot particles from oil and wood heating systems as well as road traffic can pollute the air in Europe on a much larger scale than previously assumed. The evaluation of the sources during a measuring campaign in Germany showed that about half of the so…

It is generally agreed that sperms ‘swim’ by beating or rotating their soft tails. However, a research team has discovered that ray sperms move by rotating both the tail and the head. The team further investigated the motion pattern and demonstrated it…

Inaccessible workplaces, normative departmental cultures and ‘ableist’ academic systems have all contributed to the continued under-representation and exclusion of disabled researchers, according to an expert.

Through the biological fixation of the element nitrogen by the enzyme nitrogenase, organisms gain access to molecular nitrogen (N2) in the Earth’s atmosphere, which is essential for building cellular structures. In addition, a vanadium-dependent varian…