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The so-called 'bullshit jobs theory' -- which argues that a large and rapidly increasing number of workers are undertaking jobs that they themselves recognize as being useless and of no social value -- contains several major flaws, argue researchers from the universities of Cambridge and Birmingham.

An international team of researchers, led by the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Germany, has now succeeded in reconstructing changes in rainfall in Central Asia over the past five million years. The information preserved within the sedimentary succession provides the missing link for understanding land-water feedbacks for global climate.

If insomnia keeps you awake at night, Flinders University researchers recommend a trip to the doctor - not for a sleeping pill prescription but for a short course of intensive behavioural therapy. Researchers have developed new clinical guidelines for Australian doctors to give family GPs insights into the most effective treatment for insomnia - Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for insomnia (or 'CBTi').

A biomarker in the blood of patients with bowel cancer may provide valuable insight into the risk of cancer relapse after surgery and the effectiveness of chemotherapy.Research published in PLOS found circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) measured before and after surgery provided a reliable marker for predicting whether the cancer would recur following chemotherapy treatment.

A group at HZB has worked out theoretically how the communication between two quantum dots can be influenced with light. The team led by Annika Bande also shows ways to control the transfer of information or energy from one quantum dot to another. To this end, the researchers calculated the electronic structure of two nanocrystals, which act as quantum dots. With the results, the movement of electrons in quantum dots can be simulated in real time.

Autism spectrum has a particular impact on social interaction. Bilingual families with an autistic child often tend to forego the use of one of the home languages, so as not to further complicate the development of their child's communicative skills. A team led by UNIGE has shown that bilingualism allows autistic children to partially compensate for deficits in theory of mind and executive functions, which are at the root of many of their challenges.

Regular strength and impact-type training may decrease or even prevent age-related bone deterioration in men, new research at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, shows.

Scientists at the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares (CNIC), have identified Meis transcription factors as essential biomolecules for the formation and antero-posterior patterning of the limbs during embryonic development.

Seismic waves generated by earthquakes travel through Earth's solid iron inner core faster in the direction of the rotation axis than along the equator. UC Berkeley scientists created a core growth model to explain this. To fit seismic data, the model predicts that asymmetric growth of the core leads to crystal movement that preferentially aligns iron-nickel crystals north-south. The model implies that the core is only 0.5-1.5 billion years old, a fraction of Earth's age.

The impact of deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) for radiation cancer therapy in a real-world clinical setting has been tested by Princess Margaret researchers in a unique study involving physicians and their patients.

Dogs may have earned the title "man's best friend" because of how good they are at interacting with people. Those social skills may be present shortly after birth rather than learned, a new study by University of Arizona researchers suggests.

In the world of quantum mechanics, researchers can even make empty space, the lack of something, do their bidding. Scientists from the Katsaros group at the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria together with an international team of researchers have now created a new setup to control the absence of electrons in a solid material. They want to use these holes as a basis for a quantum computer.

What The Study Did: Changes in pregnancy and birth rates before and after COVID-19 lockdown measures were estimated using electronic medical records.

Patients who, perhaps unbeknownst to their health care providers, are in need of genetic testing for rare undiagnosed diseases can be identified en masse based on routine information in electronic health records (EHRs), a research team reported today in the journal Nature Medicine.

Whales are largely protected from direct catch, but many populations' numbers still remain far below what they once were. A study published in the journal Current Biology on June 3 suggests that, in addition to smaller population sizes, those whales that survive are struggling. As evidence, they find that right whales living in the North Atlantic today are significantly shorter than those born 30 to 40 years ago.

Anyone that's ever interacted with a dog knows that they often have an amazing capacity to interact with people. Now researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on June 3 have found that this ability is present in dogs from a very young age and doesn't require much, if any, prior experience or training. But, some of them start off better at it than others based on their genetics.

Using a piece of magnet, researchers have designed a simple system that can control the movement of a small puddle of water, even when it's upside down. The new liquid manipulation strategy, described in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science on June 3, can have a wide range of applications including cleaning hard-to-reach environments or delivering small objects.

Making quantum networks a reality relies crucially on building efficient optical fiber-based quantum light sources. Here, scientists in Germany present an advanced manufacturing approach to accomplish this task. Femtosecond 3D printing is used to create complex micrometer-sized optics to both enhance the single-photon extraction efficiency of semiconductor quantum dots and couple their emission into single-mode optical fibers. This compact on-chip solution enables high coupling efficiency into a single-mode fiber with high-rate single-photon emission.

The system offers an economical way to source essential battery material.

Controlling coherent interaction between optical fields and quantum systems in scalable, integrated platforms is essential for quantum technologies. A German-British research team has developed an on-chip hollow-core light cage that could provide a platform for quantum-storage and quantum-nonlinear applications. Showing stable non-degrading performance and extreme versatility, the laterally accessible light cage could be a compelling candidate for all-on-chip, integrable, low-cost, vapor-based photon delay.