A newly upgraded camera that incorporates light sensors developed at Berkeley Lab is now one of the best cameras on the planet for studying outer space at red wavelengths that are too red for the human eye to see.
Why do humans and dolphins evolve large brains relative to the size of their bodies while blue whales and hippos have brains that are relatively puny? While there has been much speculation regarding brain size and intelligence, a new paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences confirms that species with brains that are large relative to their body are more intelligent.
Researchers assumed that tiny objects would instantly blow up when hit by extremely intense light from the world’s most powerful X-ray laser at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. But to their astonishment, these nanoparticles initially shrank instead – a finding that provides a glimpse of the unusual world of superheated nanomaterials that could eventually also help scientists further develop X-ray techniques for taking atomic images of individual molecules.
Promising new calibration tools, called laser frequency combs, could allow astronomers to take a major step in discovering and characterizing earthlike planets around other stars. These devices generate evenly spaced lines of light, much like the teeth on a comb for styling hair or the tick marks on a ruler—hence their nickname of "optical rulers."
Building on nearly two decades’ worth of research, a multidisciplinary team at Cornell has blazed a new trail by creating a self-assembled, three-dimensional gyroidal superconductor.
The finding by Stony Brook University researchers, published in Structure, may be a foundation to better understanding the cellular process and age-related disease.
UCLA-led research reconstructs massive crash, which took place 4.5 billion years ago.
University of Notre Dame astrophysicist Nicolas Lehner and his collaborators have now determined that the Smith Cloud, a giant gas cloud plummeting toward the Milky Way, contains elements similar to our sun, which means the cloud originated in the Milky Way’s outer edges and not in intergalactic space as some have speculated.
Imagine a polymer with removable parts that can deliver something to the environment and then be chemically regenerated to function again. Or a polymer that can contract and expand the way muscles do. These functions require polymers with both rigid and soft nano-sized compartments with extremely different properties. Northwestern University researchers have developed a hybrid polymer of this type that might one day be used in artificial muscles; for delivery of drugs or biomolecules; in self-repairing materials; and for replaceable energy sources.
NASA satellites obtained a number of different views of the great winter storm that left many snowfall records from Virginia to New York City from January 22 to 24, 2016. RapidScat provided a look at the strong winds that led to flooding in southern New Jersey, while NASA's Aqua satellite and NASA/USGS's Landsat satellite provided images of the post-storm snowy blanket.
Using observations by the Hubble Space Telescope, an international research team, including astronomers from the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics and Northwestern University, has for the first time found young populations of stars within globular clusters that have apparently developed courtesy of star-forming gas flowing in from outside of the clusters themselves. This method stands in contrast to the conventional idea of the clusters’ initial stars shedding gas as they age in order to spark future rounds of star birth.
WCS announced today that a team of scientists discovered a new species of chameleon in Tanzania.
A new analysis of ice-core climate data, archeological evidence and ancient pollen samples strongly suggests that agriculture by humans 7,000 years ago likely slowed a natural cooling process of the global climate, playing a role in the relatively warmer climate we experience today.
When scientists from McGill University learned that some fish were proliferating in water polluted by oil extraction in Southern Trinidad, they thought they had found a rare example of a species able to adapt to crude oil pollution. But when they tested them, these guppies were actually less adapted to pollution than similar fish from non-polluted areas.
A Florida State University researcher and his team have developed a comprehensive analysis of oil in the Gulf of Mexico and determined how much of it occurs naturally and how much came from the 2010 Deepwater Horizon spill. And more importantly, their data creates a map, showing where the active natural oil seeps are located.
A new study suggests that current ‘hotspots’ of shark activity are at risk of overfishing, and that the introduction of catch quotas might be necessary to protect oceanic sharks.
Black holes sound too strange to be real. But they are actually pretty common in space. There are dozens known and probably millions more in the Milky Way and a billion times that lurking outside. The makings and dynamics of these monstrous warpings of spacetime have been confounding scientists for centuries.
A team of researchers has observed the brightest ultra metal-poor star ever discovered. The star is a rare relic from the Milky Way’s formative years. As such, it offers astronomers a precious opportunity to explore the origin of the first stars that sprung to life within our galaxy and the universe.
Research recently published in the journal Plos One is part of a study to measure the psychological predictors of tolerance for tigers in the Bangladesh Sundarbans, where the large carnivores have a rocky and sometimes violent relationship with local communities.
Life on other planets would probably go extinct soon after its origin, due to runaway heating or cooling on their fledgling planets.
Having the wrong coat color during shorter winters is deadly for snowshoe hares and could lead to a steep population decline by mid-century. However, wide variance in molting times could enable natural selection to work.
Resembling an opulent diamond tapestry, this Hubble image of Trumpler 14 located 8,000 light-years away in the Carina Nebula, shows a glittering star cluster that contains a collection of some of the brightest stars seen in our Milky Way galaxy.
Juvenile theropod possibly oldest known Jurassic dinosaur from UK.
USGS identifies research and management actions
A new study published in Nature Climate Change pinpoints the temperature increases caused by CO¬2 emissions in different regions around the world.
Latest research reveals why geckos are the largest animals able to scale smooth vertical walls - even larger climbers would require unmanageably large sticky footpads.
Jackie Goordial, a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Natural Resource Sciences at McGill University has spent the past four years looking for signs of active microbial life in permafrost soil taken from one of the coldest, oldest and driest places on Earth: in University Valley, located in the high elevation McMurdo Dry Valleys of Antarctica, where extremely cold and dry conditions have persisted for over 150,000 years. The reason that scientists are looking for life in this area is that it is thought to be the place on Earth that most closely resembles the permafrost found in the northern polar region of Mars at the Phoenix landing site.
A new scientific journal article reports that carbon dioxide can emerge from the deep ocean in a surprising way — a new piece of the global carbon “puzzle” that researchers must solve to fully understand major issues like climate change.
Around 720-640 million years ago, much of the Earth’s surface was covered in ice during a glaciation that lasted millions of years. Explosive underwater volcanoes were a major feature of this ‘Snowball Earth’, according to new research led by the University of Southampton.
Possible missing link in black hole evolution.
The most luminous galaxy in the Universe – a so-called obscured quasar 12.4 billion light-years away – is so violently turbulent that it may eventually jettison its entire supply of star-forming gas, according to new observations with ALMA.
Astronomers have spotted what may be the most powerful supernova ever seen—and discovered a mysterious object at its center.
A North Dakota State University faculty member is among a group of international researchers studying why older parents produce offspring who tend to have shorter lives. Britt J. Heidinger, assistant professor of biological sciences at NDSU, Fargo, has joined colleagues in Scotland to address this question through the study of a long-lived seabird, the European shag. The results appear in "Parental age influences offspring telomere loss," published in Functional Ecology.
A recently released study from WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) details a new method using “detection dogs,” genetic analysis, and scientific models to assess habitat suitability for bears in an area linking the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) to the northern U.S. Rockies.
A new study by WCS and other groups offers a glimmer of hope for some amphibian populations decimated by the deadly chytrid fungus.
Results can help provide warning of red tide conditions in Florida’s coastal regions.
Bioengineers and cognitive scientists have developed the first portable, 64-channel wearable brain activity monitoring system that’s comparable to state-of-the-art equipment found in research laboratories. The system is a better fit for real-world applications because it is equipped with dry EEG sensors that are easier to apply than wet sensors, while still providing high-density brain activity data.
University of Utah lab experiments found that when temperatures get warmer, woodrats suffer a reduced ability to live on their normal diet of toxic creosote – suggesting that global warming may hurt plant-eating animals.
The Greenland Ice Sheet is the second largest ice sheet in the world and it’s melting rapidly, likely driving almost a third of global sea level rise. A new study shows clouds are playing a larger role in that process than scientists previously believed.
More people in Europe are dying than are being born, according to a new report co-authored by a Texas A&M University demographer. In contrast, births exceed deaths, by significant margins, in Texas and elsewhere in the U.S., with few exceptions.
A team of scientists from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory say they've found a way to make a battery cathode with a hierarchical structure where the reactive material is abundant yet protected--key points for high capacity and long battery life.
While Dungeness crab captured headlines, record levels of the neurotoxin domoic acid were found in a range of species, and the toxin showed up in new places.
The Galápagos Islands have long offered researchers a natural laboratory in which to study unique volcanic features and a diverse population of native plants and animals.
Astronomers have made the most detailed study yet of an extremely massive young galaxy cluster using three of NASA's Great Observatories. This multiwavelength image shows this galaxy cluster, called IDCS J1426.5+3508, in X-rays recorded by Chandra in blue, visible light observed by Hubble in green, and infrared light detected by Spitzer in red. is so far away that the light detected is from when the universe was roughly a quarter of its current age. This is the most massive galaxy cluster detected at such an early age.
Advocates of huge hydroelectric dam projects on the Amazon, Congo, and Mekong rivers often overestimate economic benefits and underestimate far-reaching effects on biodiversity, according to an article in the Jan. 8 issue of Science.
Global Temperature Report: December 2015
7th graders conducted classroom experiments using live Trinidadian guppies to test questions related to evolution, increasing both knowledge about and acceptance of evolutionary concepts.
Some corals may cope with climate change by changing markings on their DNA to modify what the DNA produces.
Eta Carinae, the most luminous and massive stellar system located within 10,000 light-years of Earth, is best known for an enormous eruption seen in the mid-19th century that hurled an amount of material at least 10 times the sun's mass into space. Still shrouded by this expanding veil of gas and dust, Eta Carinae is the only object of its kind known in our galaxy. Now a study using archival data from NASA's Spitzer and Hubble space telescopes has found five similar objects in other galaxies for the first time.
The International Union for Pure and Applied Chemistry has announced formal verification of four new chemical elements, recognizing the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory and its collaborators for the discovery of elements 115 and 117.
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