Earth
One of the planet's most active ecosystems is one most people rarely encounter and scientists are only starting to explore. The open ocean contains tiny organisms -- phytoplankton -- that perform half the photosynthesis on Earth, helping generate oxygen for animals on land.
A study by University of Washington oceanographers, published this summer in Nature Microbiology, looks at how photosynthetic microbes and ocean bacteria use sulfur, a plentiful marine nutrient.
In the wet-dry topics of Australia, drinking water in remote communities is often sourced from groundwater bores. The geochemistry of that groundwater impacts the occurrence of opportunistic pathogens in the drinking water supply, researchers now report in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.
Teams from the New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute (NYSCF) and the University of Michigan have used the NYSCF Institutional Report Card for Gender Equality (Report Card) to evaluate the representation of women in STEM across more than 500 institutions over the past four years. NYSCF designed and collected the Report Cards and the University of Michigan analyzed the over 1,200 Report Cards received. The findings indicate that promotion, recruitment, and retention of women to senior roles are lacking, as are policies to support women in science.
Researchers have successfully sequenced the first genome of an individual from the Harappan civilization, also called the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC). The DNA, which belongs to an individual who lived four to five millennia ago, suggests that modern people in India are likely to be largely descended from people of this ancient culture. It also offers a surprising insight into how farming began in South Asia, showing that it was not brought by large-scale movement of people from the Fertile Crescent where farming first arose.
Changes to the environmental conditions that underpin the reproductive success of some corals may be causing their highly synchronized mass-spawning strategy to break down, a new study finds. This desynchronization - a previously unnoticed threat - could drive aging coral populations to extinction. When the water temperature and the moon align just so each year, entire colonies of coral reef release millions of tiny eggs and sperm into the ocean.
Results from a rapid-response oceanographic expedition in the North Pacific reveal a surprise about how lava from the K?lauea Volcano, which erupted on the island of Hawai'i during the summer of 2018, triggered a vast phytoplankton bloom. The study - a unique opportunity to study this rarely observed phenomenon in real time - informs how nutrient-poor marine ecosystems respond to both a massive influx of molten lava and nutrients.
In power electronics, semiconductors are based on the element silicon - but the energy efficiency of silicon carbide would be much higher. Physicists of the University of Basel, the Paul Scherrer Institute and ABB explain what exactly is preventing the use of this combination of silicon and carbon in the scientific journal Applied Physics Letters.
Intuitively, it is tempting to think that a child who has an elder brother or sister will grow up in a stimulating linguistic environment and will develop their language skills faster than the family's firstborn. However, several studies have shown the contrary: the acquisition of language in a child with an elder sibling is reported to be slower than a child who has none.
An international team of researchers has reported a new way to safeguard drones, surveillance cameras and other equipment against laser attacks, which can disable or destroy the equipment. The capability is known as optical limiting.
How important is mom? What about dad?
According to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the well-being of a child's primary caregiver is one of the most important factors associated with fixing and preventing health disparities among children.
SILVER SPRING, Md. - Scientists from the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research joined a network of African scientists, the Plasmodium Diversity Network Africa, and Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute to publish a groundbreaking study about the genetic diversity of the world's most dangerous and prevalent species of malaria, Plasmodium falciparum across sub-Saharan Africa.
The important nutrient phosphate may be less abundant in the global ocean than previously thought, according to a new paper in Science Advances. The researchers compiled data collected using highly sensitive techniques that measure phosphate to create a more accurate dataset to power global ocean models.
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- An overwhelming scientific consensus affirms that for thousands of species across the globe, climate change is an immediate and existential threat.
For the loggerhead turtle, whose vast range extends from the chilly shores of Newfoundland to the blistering beaches of Australia, the story isn't so cut and dried.
The future of technology relies, to a great extent, on new materials, but the work of developing those materials begins years before any specific application for them is known. Stephen Wilson, a professor of materials in UC Santa Barbara's College of Engineering, works in that "long before" realm, seeking to create new materials that exhibit desirable new states.
CORVALLIS, Ore. - Storms, boat traffic, animal noises and more contribute to the underwater sound environment in the ocean, even in areas considered protected, a new study from Oregon State University shows.
Using underwater acoustic monitors, researchers listened in on Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Boston; Glacier Bay National Park and Preserve in Alaska; National Park of American Samoa; and Buck Island Reef National Monument in the Virgin Islands.