Latest science news, discoveries and scientific developments.
High temperatures change how mealybugs feed, and that could help explain why some pasture mealybug infestations do far more damage than others, according to early findings from Texas A&M AgriLife Research scientists.
New toxicology tests of Incan mummies found the kids were given not just cocaine but also alcohol and chemicals found in ayahuasca before the ceremony
Physicists have found evidence of a particle decay so rare that it is expected to occur only around once in every 10 billion "beauty" particles. The result, from the upgraded LHCb experiment at CERN's Large Hadron Collider (LHC), follows a search spanning more than 40 years and brings physicists closer to exploring the "Zeptoverse"—an unexplored world that exists at distances of a billionth of a trillionth of a meter, or a "zeptometer," where new particles and forces of nature may be hiding.
Recent media reports of alleged sexual assaults by teenage boys draw attention to an uncomfortable truth: Young people sometimes perpetrate harmful sexual behavior against their peers.
Tree planting provides wood, biomass and climate benefits, but the location where those new forests are established matters. An international study by researchers in Spain, Chile and Finland shows that converting nonforested land into planted forests can increase wildfire activity, with contrasting outcomes across temperate regions.
More than a century after they were excavated from beneath Cairo, almost 3,000 stone tools from Heliopolis show that specialized work was already reshaping village life before Egypt became a state.
Astrophysicists think that the supermassive black holes (SMBH) we see in the modern universe are the result of a long, drawn-out process. That process is referred to as the hierarchical black hole mergers framework. It explains how some SMBHs can reach such staggering masses. Some of the most massive appear to have billions of solar masses.
Yale research scientist Saúl Domínguez-Guerrero didn't set out to catch "evolution in the act" when he traveled to the Caribbean with a team of Yale researchers a few years ago. At the time, the team from the lab of evolutionary biologist Martha Muñoz planned to do fieldwork on Caribbean anoles, colorful, tree-dwelling lizards native to warmer regions of the Americas.
It was a frightening time.
A child died after contracting the disease amid the largest national measles outbreak in more than three decades
University at Buffalo scientists have found evidence that different species of yeast have shared genes originally acquired from an ancient virus—and the guts and droppings of beetles may have helped make it happen.
During his renowned excavations at the Shanidar Cave in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, American archaeologist Ralph Solecki located burial sites containing pollen and flower fragments from various species of wildflowers. He interpreted this as evidence that Neanderthals may have placed flowers around their dead at their burial sites around 60,000 years ago.
When fishers are out working their boats, they are typically targeting a specific type of fish. However, other species often end up in their nets or trawls as well. This is known as "bycatch"—seafood for which the fishers receive no payment. Although it is illegal to discard bycatch back into the sea, it still happens.
Stanford engineers and colleagues designed a chip that can take a muddled mixture of light from multiple lasers and output clean beams of light. It's the first time researchers have demonstrated a device that can take in mixed, or partially coherent, light and sort its photons into a clear set of separate beams.
WA Police are using live facial recognition technology to help identify and arrest criminals, with significant results. The trial is the first of its kind in Australia.
A faint red object spotted by the James Webb Space Telescope originally appeared to offer a possible glimpse of the universe's first galaxies. But images taken about 3½ years apart revealed a giveaway: The object, nicknamed Capotauro, had moved.
Researchers at The University of Queensland have developed a way to quantify how wheat varieties capture and convert soil water. Dr. Raul Gimenez from the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation said the technique could be used to identify drought-tolerant crops.
People experiencing unsheltered homelessness in Salt Lake City face hours of dangerous daytime heat and hot nights that offer little relief, according to a University of Utah study. Researchers also found that tree shade helps people feel measurably cooler, making it a critical resource for those without access to shelter.
A surprising new discovery suggests that fear may cause the brain to blur the line between danger and safety rather than distinguish them more clearly. By observing brain activity in mice using augmented reality, scientists found that memories of threatening and harmless environments began to overlap, potentially allowing faster responses to danger. This "better safe than sorry" survival mechanism could help explain why people with anxiety or PTSD sometimes experience intense fear in completely safe situations.
Consumers often protect their sentimentally valuable possessions by storing them away, which precludes them from being used. Across five studies, research from the University of Missouri-St. Louis and the University of Oregon shows that usage of sentimentally valuable objects increases their sentimental value.