The shrinking of the clouds of the Great Red Spot on Jupiter has been well documented with photographic evidence from the last decade. However, researchers said there is no evidence the vortex itself has changed in size or intensity.

Global coal-fired power, a key driver of climate change, is set to fall a record 3.0 percent this year, largely led by developed countries although much-criticised China and India play their part too, analysis showed Monday.

Longevity genes that helped humans survive ancient airborne toxins may be the same genes that make humans resilient to pollution from fossil fuels and cigarette smoke today, according to a study published in the December 2019 issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology. In "The Exposome in Human Evolution: From Dust to Diesel," Ben Trumble (Arizona State University) and Caleb Finch (University of...

On Mt. Etna volcano, inhabited areas have been inundated repeatedly by lava flows in historical times. The increasing exposure of a larger population, which has almost tripled in the area around Mt. Etna during the last 150 years, has resulted from on a poor assessment of the volcanic hazard and risk, allowing inappropriate land use in vulnerable areas. Thus, the researchers of the Laboratory of...

Air pollution—even at levels below national and international air quality guidelines—is associated with an increased risk of deaths in Canada, according to new UBC research.

A transition from wild collection of herbs to forest farming needs to occur in Appalachia to make the opaque, unstable and unjust supply chain for forest medicinal plants such as ginseng sustainable, according to a team of researchers who have studied the market for more than a decade.

Even when both male and female college students say they want to pursue a major with the best earnings prospects, the majors men choose are higher paying than the majors women choose.

The highly contagious norovirus causes diarrhea and vomiting and is notorious for spreading rapidly through densely populated spaces, such as cruise ships, nursing homes, schools and day care centers. Each year, it is responsible for some 200,000 deaths, mostly in the developing world. There are no treatments for this intestinal virus, often incorrectly referred to as stomach flu.

Researchers at the University of Waterloo have developed a method that could pave the way to establishing universal standards for measuring the performance of quantum computers.

A study involving scientists at the University of Arizona and the University of Queensland provides new insight into how the small brains of mantis shrimp—fierce predators with keen vision that are among the fastest strikers in the animal kingdom—are able to make sense of a breathtaking amount of visual input.

Extreme drought's impact on plants will become more dominant under future climate change, as noted in a paper out today in the journal Nature Climate Change. Analysis shows that not only will droughts become more frequent under future climates, but more of those events will be extreme, adding to the reduction of plant production essential to human and animal populations.

Researchers have discovered a gene that controls the regulation of iron uptake in plants, according to a new study from Dartmouth College.

Crystallization describes the formation of ordered structures from the disordered constituents of a liquid. Although the fundamental theory of crystal formation has been widely investigated and is generally well established, gaps in the understanding still remain. Researchers from The University of Tokyo, Institute of Industrial Science, and Tokyo Metropolitan University have reported experimental...

Biologists from Utrecht University have described a new molecular mechanism that allows plants to optimize their growth under suboptimal high-temperature conditions. The study offers promising leads for the development of climate warming-tolerant crops, which maintain a high yield under stressful high ambient temperatures, according to research leader Martijn van Zanten. They publish their...

New research led by scientists at the University of Bristol has shown that the feedback mechanisms that were thought to keep the marine nitrogen cycle relatively stable over geological time can break down when oxygen levels in the ocean decline significantly.

Women's appearance enhancement is driven partly by status anxiety and income inequality, according to new research.

Encased in a neon orange plastic shell, a collection of electronic sensors bobbed along the surface of the Monterey Bay, waiting to be retrieved by Stanford University researchers. A lunchbox-sized speck in the vast waters, it held cargo of outsized importance: the first-ever recording of a blue whale's heart rate.

Providing seeds with a protective coating that also supplies essential nutrients to the germinating plant could make it possible to grow crops in otherwise unproductive soils, according to new research at MIT.

Scientists placed honey bee hives next to soybean fields in Iowa and tracked how the bees fared over the growing season. To the researchers' surprise, the bees did well for much of the summer. The colonies thrived and gained weight, building up their honey stores. But in August, the trend reversed. By mid-October, most of the honey was gone and the overwintering brood was malnourished, the team...

Researchers from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine (LSTM) and ZSL (Zoological Society of London) have worked with a team of scientists from institutions across the globe—to uncover the truth behind the origin of venom in some very unusual mammals.

A new study provides a fundamental understanding of the diversification of small molecules called respiratory quinones and its adaptive consequences in bacterial species. Bioengineers at the University of California San Diego specifically examined how respiration is affected by different types of quinones present in bacteria growing in aerobic environments.

Air-quality alerts often include the levels of particulate matter, small clumps of molecules in the lower atmosphere that can range in size from microscopic to visible. These particles can contribute to haze, clouds, and fog and also can pose a health risk, especially those at the smaller end of the spectrum. Particles known as PM10 and PM2.5, referring to clumps that are 2.5 to 10 micrometers in...

In a world of rising levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide, plants should be happy, right? Experiments have shown that, yes, increased carbon dioxide does allow plants to photosynthesize more and use less water.

Sometimes it's best to let the magnets do all the work.