Science, engineering, and discovery — the research and breakthroughs that matter.

Long polymer chains are everywhere: in synthetic materials, soft matter, biological systems such as chromosomes, and mathematical models of filaments and knots. When many such chains are densely packed, they form what physicists call a polymer melt. In this crowded environment, e

Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon are California's most endangered salmon, with a single surviving population and an average of a few thousand returning fish in recent decades. Shasta Dam blocks their original habitat in cold mountain rivers draining Mount Shasta, leavin

Many people are aware that the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN smashes tiny subatomic particles together at nearly the speed of light to test foundational laws of physics and discover new fundamental particles, but some experiments also help scientists better visualize the ac

Women are more likely to form close-knit friendship groups at work, a Durham University Business School study suggests. The findings are published in the journal Social Networks.

Young Bewick's swans only survive their first spring migration if they stay with their parents long enough. If they lose their parents in winter, they leave later and are unable to keep up with the rest of the population. As a result, there is a greater chance that they will die

Loughborough University physicists and an international team have demonstrated that a grain-of-rice-sized microchip can be used to produce a spectrum of precisely spaced frequencies of light, which is then converted into multiple high-frequency electromagnetic signals known as mi

A University of Staffordshire Ph.D. student has received national recognition for research that could transform how bloodstain evidence at crime scenes is analyzed. Emma Hook has been awarded the Science & Justice Review Award by the Chartered Society of Forensic Sciences for the

What a record-breaking El Niño could mean for the world and more — today's student signal.

This year's El Niño is on track to be the strongest on record, threatening to unleash extreme weather across the globe and make 2027 the hottest recorded year by far.

Scientists have identified exceptionally rare soft tissue preserved in a 450-million-year-old crinoid fossil, more than 200 million years older than the first dinosaurs. Its delicate tube feet offer a remarkable new window into how some of Earth’s earliest reef animals lived, fed

AR and VR glasses once seen only in science fiction may soon be realized not as bulky stacks of lenses but as a single eyeglass-like optical element. That future is now closer to reality.

Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide is boosting grass growth in Africa's water-limited savannas, according to a new study led by the University of Sheffield.

With more young Canadians considering self-employment amid a high youth unemployment rate, entrepreneurship programs are facing growing demand. Applications to Futurpreneur, the national organization that finances young Canadian entrepreneurs, rose 50% last quarter, compared with

If you want to describe a particular color, you could look to the Pantone color wheel to find its exact hue, saturation and brightness, and how it compares with other colors. But nothing like that has existed for complex odors.

When physicists at the ARC Centre for Transformative Meta-Optical Systems (TMOS) needed a key component for their terahertz experiments, they ran into a frustrating problem—they needed tiny optical devices, known as wire-grid polarizers, but these cost thousands of dollars each.

In a new research report, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medicine say they have developed a technology that allows them to capture a 3D molecular "snapshot" of hundreds of hair follicles as they develop and then reconstruct the fourth dimension—time—to create a stop-motion animation

A sea of corrugated metal roofs stretches into the distance across an informal settlement in Makassar, Indonesia.

Earth's inner core, composed primarily of iron with a small percentage of light elements, may enter a superionic state at extreme pressure and temperature, according to experimental results from researchers at Science Tokyo. Using laser-heated and electrically wired diamond-anvil

Long polymer chains are everywhere: in synthetic materials, soft matter, biological systems such as chromosomes, and mathematical models of filaments and knots. When many such chains are densely packed, they form what physicists call a polymer melt. In this crowded environment, e

Quasiparticles arise from the complex interaction of many particles in solids; for example, we describe lattice vibrations in crystals as phonons. Fractons are exotic quasiparticles that occur at the vertices of magnetic domain walls between different spin orders. What makes them

Once a cell has locked into an abnormal state—the way cancer cells do—can it ever be restored to normal? A KAIST research team led by Professor Kwang-Hyun Cho of the Department of Bio and Brain Engineering has, for the first time, identified the causal circuits responsible for ir

Why do some lakes remain plagued by harmful algal blooms even after phosphorus pollution has been reduced? Part of the answer lies beneath the surface. A new Concordia study has uncovered a previously overlooked chemical process that can help trap phosphorus in lake sediments, pr

In the vast, nutrient-poor regions of the world's oceans, there is a constant struggle for survival. Yet tiny organisms known as Collodaria have thrived there for millions of years. These Collodaria host microscopically small algae that are essential for survival.

This year's El Niño weather pattern will be the biggest in more than a century and could make 2027 the hottest year globally, Britain's national weather agency predicted Friday.