Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Everyone indulges in wishful thinking now and again. But when is that most likely to happen, and when could it actually be harmful? A new study led by the University of Amsterdam (UvA) demonstrates unequivocally that the greater the insecurity and anxiety of a situation, the more likely people are to … Read more
Headshot of a Formica cinerea queen. Credit: Giulia Scarparo/UCR An ant colony is sustained through complex social dynamics, with each member—the queen, males and workers (sterile females)—contributing to the greater community. Some species add complexity to this dynamic with the addition of rather small queens. Researchers at UC Riverside tackled why these additional queens are … Read more
Emissions of SF6 in China. Credit: Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46084-3 To achieve the aspirational goal of the Paris Agreement on climate change—limiting the increase in global average surface temperature to 1.5 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels—will require its 196 signatories to dramatically reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Those greenhouse gases differ widely in … Read more
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A new analysis of adolescent TV and films on Netflix suggests that too often, it shows misleading depictions of pain, portraying pain as something arising only through a violent act or injury. Instead of trivializing the experience, it could do more to educate young people about much more common, everyday pain. … Read more
Cnemaspis vangoghi sp. nov., in life A adult male (holotype, NRC-AA-8342). Credit: Photos by Akshay Khandekar, ZooKeys (2024). DOI: 10.3897/zookeys.1196.117947 You’ve probably seen nature depicted in art, but how often do you see an artwork hiding in nature? When they saw the back of a lizard in the Southern Western Ghats, a group of scientists … Read more
Bovine tuberculosis is an infectious disease of cattle that results in large economic costs and health impacts across the world. Credit: Jacqueline Garget Vaccination not only reduces the severity of TB in infected cattle, but reduces its spread in dairy herds by 89%, research finds. The research, led by the University of Cambridge and Penn … Read more
Based on a small amount of basic information about a crystal’s structure, the Oldenburg researchers’ program calculates the properties of complex new materials. Credit: University of Oldenburg / EST group Computer-based methods are becoming an increasingly powerful tool in the search for new materials for key technologies such as photovoltaics, batteries, and data transmission. Prof. … Read more
Light probing a chiral graviton mode in a fractional quantum Hall effect liquid. Credit: Lingjie Du, Nanjing University A team of scientists from Columbia, Nanjing University, Princeton, and the University of Munster, writing in the journal Nature, have presented the first experimental evidence of collective excitations with spin called chiral graviton modes (CGMs) in a … Read more
Schematic diagram of the modeled trajectories of computationally-released radiocaesium particles, which can be split into three pattern clusters: transport along the Kuroshio-Oyashio current transition zone (a,d), the Kuroshio Extension (b, e) and the North Atlantic subtropical mode water recirculation gyre (c, f). Credit: Kim et al. 2024. Fukushima is now notorious for the nuclear disaster … Read more
Biogeographic isolation strongly influenced the bat functional richness in the Eastern and Western Hemispheres, according to new research from Michigan State University. Credit: Williams, P. J. et al. Nat. Commun. 2024, 15 (1), 2457. https://www.nature.com/articles/41467-024-46757-z A new study led by Michigan State University researcher Peter Williams sheds light on the profound influence of deep geographic … Read more
