Science
Scientific discoveries and research
40,000-year-old Stone Age symbols may have paved the way for writing, long before Mesopotamia
Over 40,000 years ago, our early ancestors were already carving signs into tools and sculptures. According to a new analysis by linguist Christian Bentz at Saar...
Global greening: Study shows Earth's green wave is shifting northeast
A team of scientists led by the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), the Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research (UFZ), and Leipzig U...
Scientists isolate climatic fingerprints of wildfires and volcanic eruptions
Volcanoes and wildfires can inject millions of tons of gases and aerosol particles into the air, affecting temperatures on a global scale. But picking out the s...
Prussian blue goes from pigment to purification
The deep, murky pigment known as Prussian blue put the "blue" in traditional blueprints, colored Hokusai's "Great Wave off Kanagawa" and today is used for indus...
Hair-width LEDs could eventually replace lasers
LEDs no wider than a human hair could soon take on work traditionally handled by lasers, from moving data inside server racks to powering next-generation displa...
Jupiter's Galilean moons may have gained life's building blocks at birth
Southwest Research Institute was part of an international team that demonstrated how complex organic molecules (COMs), key chemical precursors to life, could ha...
Tuning in to fluorescence to farm smarter: Monitoring plant light use saves indoor farm energy costs
Plant owners with a so-called green thumb often seem to have a more finely tuned sense of what their plants need than the rest of us. A new "smart lighting" sys...
Finding the honey bee dance floor: New method shows how it moves within the hive
When honey bees find a good source of food, they return to their hive and perform a waggle dance. It consists of a series of movements that communicate the dire...
Alloy-engineered valleytronics: Microscopic mechanism gives scientists precise control over how excitons behave
Scientists have observed a new microscopic mechanism enabling precise control of the magneto-optical properties of excitons in alloys of two-dimensional semicon...
From algae to biofuel: Study opens doors to cheaper, cleaner fuel sources
A researcher's keen eye and spirit of curiosity led to the discovery of a new method for cell engineering—a finding that opens doors to more sustainable sources...
Curiosity rover captures Martian spiderwebs up close
For about six months, NASA's Curiosity Mars rover has been exploring a region full of geologic formations called boxwork, low ridges standing roughly 3 to 6 fee...
Between the Pampa and Patagonia: New clues about how ancient hunter-gatherers fed themselves
An archaeological study reveals how ancient hunter-gatherer groups lived—and survived—more than a thousand years ago in the transition zone between the Pampas a...