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

A research team from The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) and East China Normal University (ECNU) has published a meta-analysis demonstrating the impact of digital textbooks (DTs) on student motivation. Synthesizing 27 experimental and quasi-experimental studies conducte

BotChallenge.com adds daily bots and robots quiz rounds and challenges and more — today's student signal.

After taking a pill, the drugs it contains are distributed throughout the body, reaching the tissues and cells affected by disease and performing their intended function. However, they also enter healthy cells, where they often cause more harm than good.

Cities trying to cool sweltering streets often set broad tree canopy targets. But those targets can overlook the reality that not all shade is equally useful, and not every neighborhood has room for more trees.

When Pliny the Younger recorded his firsthand experience of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius 2,000 years ago—a cataclysm that buried Pompeii and killed his uncle, Pliny the Elder—he provided enough detail about the date to allow scientists to benchmark methods for dating volcanic e

Are there any geographical differences in how people experience weather conditions? This question was investigated in the citizen science project Kallt och svettigt (Cold and sweaty) for a year with the help of school pupils throughout Sweden.

Wild African elephants living in the Mount Elgon region of Kenya appear to seek out specific plants when unwell. Local experts also reported mothers administering plant-based "medicine" to their offspring.

Scientists discovered two strange new sea spider species in the Salish Sea, including a hairy-legged, red-eyed species that can groom itself with comb-like appendages. Another is frequently covered in tiny parasites, and researchers say many more undiscovered sea spiders may stil

Scientists have captured a subduction zone off Vancouver Island in the process of tearing itself apart, revealing that these massive tectonic systems may die piece by piece rather than all at once. The discovery could help explain ancient plate fragments, volcanic activity, and h

The use of racially discriminatory housing maps in the 1930s, a practice known as "redlining," perpetuated multigenerational cycles of poverty and segregation that continue today. While redlining shaped cities, its legacy does not fully explain current urban patterns of privilege

High-tech canopy maps reveal how tropical birds use Amazon forests and more — today's student signal.

A research team from The Education University of Hong Kong (EdUHK) and East China Normal University (ECNU) has published a meta-analysis demonstrating the impact of digital textbooks (DTs) on student motivation. Synthesizing 27 experimental and quasi-experimental studies conducte

A woman in her 40s scrolls through Instagram. Between photos of friends, recipes and vacation photos, she comes across a video about perimenopause. The woman on screen explains that perimenopause is to blame for feeling tired, having trouble remembering things, struggling to slee

Galaxies are enormous and hold hundreds of billions of stars. These stars form from cold, dense gas. Every large galaxy, including the Milky Way, is wrapped in a huge envelope of gas called the circumgalactic medium, or CGM. This reservoir of raw material stretches 10–20 times th

Earwigs, small, elongated insects with distinctive pincers at the rear of their abdomens, have little reason to enter open water. While many earwig species are attracted to damp environments, they typically avoid open water. Yet past studies have found that European earwigs infec

Peanut allergy is one of the most serious food allergies and can lead to sudden, life-threatening reactions. Researchers from Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences, in collaboration with Wroclaw Medical University, investigated whether a natural enzyme obtained fr

Docking with the ISS may seem simple. However, actually doing so shows how difficult orbital mechanics can be. It's like traveling down a highway at 28,000 km/hr (17,000 mph) and parallel parking in an open garage on a multibillion-dollar laboratory traveling at the same speed. I

Electrolysis can reduce CO2 to CO, a raw material for chemical products such as fuels. Within the GreenQUEST project, an international team led by HZB chemist Prashanth Menezes has systematically investigated catalyst layers made of silver nanoparticles, varying both particle siz

When a spacecraft reenters Earth's atmosphere at hypersonic velocities, its protective heat shield faces extreme conditions, including temperatures beyond 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,650 degrees Celsius). To survive, the shield relies on specialized materials that absorb heat as

A team of INRAE scientists, in collaboration with Université Côte d'Azur and Nanjing Agricultural University in China, has used an innovative AI-based method to identify the sex pheromone of the lily moth1 and the olfactory receptors associated with it. The insect pest, whose cat

Scientists have found that a famous 2-billion-year-old chemical signature, once thought to record a massive global change in Earth’s carbon cycle, may instead have been produced by local magma, hydrocarbons, and methane-eating microbes. The discovery raises new questions about wh

Scientists discovered that tiny amounts of lead in ancient ink can make writing inside burned papyrus scrolls stand out dramatically in X-ray scans. The technique could help unlock lost Greek and Roman texts preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius nearly 2,000 years ago.

Scientists recreated a particle-forming process linked to the extreme physics of the early universe using a 13-ion quantum simulator. The breakthrough suggests quantum computers could eventually help researchers investigate how matter formed and evolved after the Big Bang.