Duke University engineers believe that continued advances in creating ever-more exotic and sophisticated man-made materials will greatly improve their ability to control light at will.
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are providing sea turtles with an ideal habitat for foraging and may be keeping them safe from the threats of fishing. A study by an international team of scientists led by the University of Exeter, published today (Thursday 15 March), shows that 35 per cent of the worl...
Like any law-abiding train passenger, a molecule called oskar RNA carries a stamped ticket detailing its destination and form of transport, scientists at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, have found. They show that for this molecule, moving in the right directi...
A 'see-sawing' atmosphere over 2.5 billion years ago preceded the oxygenation of our planet and the development of complex life on Earth, a new study has shown.
Near the Mato Grosso-Saõ Paulo border in Brazil, the Paraná River appears as a wide, blue strip with the muddy brown water of the smaller Verde River entering from the northwest (top left). An extensive wetland (dark green) occupies most of the left half of this astronaut photograph, and the f...
When a proton - the bare nucleus of a hydrogen atom - transfers from one molecule to another, or moves within a molecule, the result is a hydrogen bond, in which the proton and another atom like nitrogen or oxygen share electrons. Conventional wisdom has it that proton transfers can only happen usin...
Tackling pollution, not freeing up trade, is regarded as the solution to a global shortage of rare earths, the metals that are the building blocks of the 21st century.
Collapsing natural gas prices have yielded an unexpected boon for North Dakota's shale oil bonanza, easing a shortage of fracking crews that had tempered the biggest U.S. oil boom in a generation.
A sub-scale solid rocket motor designed to mimic NASA's Space Launch System, or SLS, booster design successfully was tested today by engineers at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala. The 20-second firing tested new insulation materials on the 24-inch-diameter, 109-inch-long motor....
A few weeks ago, NASA's Terra satellite flew over East Antarctica and detected swirls of green amidst the ice off the Princess Astrid Coast. For three weeks since, we have been trying to figure out what Terra saw in this remote region of the world's most remote continent.
Obesity appears to significantly increase the risk of death tied to sleeping pills, nearly doubling the rate of mortality even among those prescribed 18 or fewer pills in a year, researchers reported Friday.
As the desert Southwest becomes hotter and drier, semi-arid grasslands are slowly being replaced by a landscape dominated by mesquite trees, such as Prosopis velutina, and other woody shrubs, a team of University of Arizona researchers has found.
