Science
Scientific discoveries and research
Scientists discover new jellyfish species in waters off Alicante in Spain
The Mediterranean Sea still holds species unknown to science. One of them is Copula lucentia, a tiny jellyfish measuring just a few millimeters. Discovered off...
Heavy rain can more than double glacier speeds in Alaska
Glaciers are often thought of as unyielding blocks of ice that slowly carve out the landscape as they move downhill by gravity. But sometimes their slow crawl b...
Theory predicting an older universe without dark matter or dark energy passes key cosmological tests
An alternative model in which the universe is 26.7 billion years old and needs neither dark matter nor dark energy has held up against several major cosmology t...
Why treating soil acidity crop by crop is no longer enough for prairie farmers
To protect their future harvests, Western Canadian farmers need to manage soil acidity across their entire multiyear rotation rather than crop by crop, long-ter...
Polar vortex faltering weeks earlier than ever recorded
Meteorologists said Friday they were observing an unprecedented early disruption of the polar vortex, raising the risk of cold snaps across the Northern Hemisph...
Disasters and debt. Escaping the 'climate-debt doom loop'
It took around 480,000 trucks to haul away 4.8 million metric tons (5.3 million tons) of rubble across western Jamaica after Hurricane Melissa tore through the...
Untangling the patterns of the cosmic microwave background to better understand the early universe
A figure in red trudges across a blanket of white. Snow squeaks under the scientist's feet, too dry to be slick or soft. Only a line of flags and a few large bu...
The wasps that horrified Darwin reveal evolution's one-way streets
Few insects have a more gruesome lifestyle than Darwin wasps. Rather than simply hunting other animals, these parasitic wasps lay their eggs on or inside living...
Air holes turn silicon wafers into flat ultraviolet focusing mirrors for compact optics
Traditional lenses and mirrors focus light using curved surfaces. Metasurfaces can achieve similar functions with a flat layer of nanoscale structures that loca...
How a metabolite protects the enzyme that consumes it
Metabolites are consumed by enzymes to produce other vital molecules as well as to control metabolite levels. But how do cells avoid consuming too much? Researc...
New method measures microplastics in the air using an uncrewed aerial system
Microplastics have been found in our bodies and the food we eat—and even in remote environments around the world, including seawater and ice in the Arctic. Desp...
Future warming events will outdo the extreme heat waves of the recent past, new study finds
The extreme heat waves we have seen over the last few years may only serve as a preview of what is to come as a result of climate change. A new study led by res...