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

Researchers find that soil aging of polyethylene microplastics has only a limited effect on their interactions with organic contaminants. Scientists have long worried that aging microplastics in soil could become increasingly effective at interacting with organic contaminants.

University of British Columbia researchers have developed an edible, seaweed-derived coating that can keep strawberries fresh for at least four days at room temperature, outperforming uncoated berries stored in the refrigerator.

Narcissism is associated with selfishness and other negative traits like a grandiose sense of self-importance, a constant need for admiration and a lack of empathy for others. So it may not be surprising that narcissists tend to have a hard time with behaviors associated with bet

The Asian longhorned tick, Haemaphysalis longicornis, spreads serious pathogens, including severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome (SFTS) virus, Rickettsia and Theileria, and its bite can cause a meat allergy in humans. Once confined to Japan, South Korea, North Korea, China

Seagrasses are among the most important foundation species in coastal ecosystems, providing habitat for marine life, stabilizing sediments and helping improve water quality. Yet nearly 20% of the world's historic seagrass cover has been lost, and efforts to restore these vital un

Invar alloys resist expanding or contracting with temperature, a property valuable for precision instruments, but it has been unclear how this "invar effect" plays out separately in each element of complex, multimetal stainless invar alloys.

Photons traveling through a cloud of atoms can emerge so early that they appear to have spent a negative amount of time inside. Researchers tested whether this was merely a misleading feature of the light pulse by making extremely weak measurements of the atoms. Surprisingly, the

US Northwest battles wildfires after Spokane neighborhoods scorched and more — today's student signal.

Wildfires supercharged by drought and intense heat tore through the northwestern U.S. city of Spokane, forcing the evacuation of 65,000 people and reducing hundreds of buildings to cinders as firefighters raced Monday to contain the flames.

Weight loss is not simply a test of willpower. The human brain evolved to protect body fat during times of scarcity, and it can treat a previously higher weight as the new normal, triggering stronger hunger, cravings, and lower energy use after weight loss. This biological “memor

Digital security currently relies on difficult equations to protect data. For example, when you use a credit card online, the information is locked inside a math problem that would take a modern computer thousands of years to solve. However, if someone builds a powerful enough co

A research team led by Professor Hyoyoung Lee of the Department of Chemistry at Sungkyunkwan University has developed a new catalyst that converts carbon dioxide into ethanol with high selectivity. The study, titled "Atomic-scale Cu–Zn synergy directs asymmetric C–C coupling for

When Northeastern University industrial engineering student Sierre Ternoey started her research position in Aachen, Germany, she was challenged to fix an issue that frustrates chemical engineers worldwide.

After tropical cyclones, communities are often left in upheaval. Those that had few resources to begin with tend to be especially vulnerable to external stresses, and people often experience homelessness, health problems and other forms of insecurity as a result. But once the dis

A flowering plant has been confirmed as a new carnivorous lineage, according to research published in Nature Communications. The findings show that Saxifraga candelabrum can attract, trap, digest and absorb nitrogen from insects, supporting a prediction made by Charles Darwin mor

Deeply rooted perennial plants may help build soil carbon (C) stocks, but most research has focused on shallow soils, resulting in gaps in our understanding of how the balance between decomposition and C inputs shifts and drives soil C accumulation with depth. To address this cha

When academic research has explored the impact of school summer vacations, it has often focused on the costs to parents and children's learning and health.

Some mosquitoes really are picky eaters. They will not just stick their proboscis into any old human. We know this anecdotally, with some people claiming they are always bitten while others are completely ignored, though we don't really know why.

The space around Earth is becoming increasingly crowded, with thousands of satellites and pieces of debris now sharing low Earth orbit. Even above this region—at altitudes of several hundred kilometers—the extremely thin upper atmosphere can slow satellites, making accurate infor

Our DNA is often pictured as a simple spiral, like a piece of rope held taut. But inside cells, it folds into a complex three-dimensional structure, with 2 meters (6.6 feet) of DNA scrunched like a headphone wire in a pocket. This bundled architecture plays a crucial role in how

Researchers find that soil aging of polyethylene microplastics has only a limited effect on their interactions with organic contaminants. Scientists have long worried that aging microplastics in soil could become increasingly effective at interacting with organic contaminants.

In a new study by the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI), researchers evaluated oil sorghum lines in Nebraska and Illinois over two years to quantify genotype-by-environment effects on agronomic performance and triacylglycerol accumulation. The rese

Researchers at the 4th Physics Institute of the University of Stuttgart and the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT) in Milan have demonstrated a new mechanism for directing light in a naturally hyperbolic van der Waals material without conventional nanofabricated waveguides. Th

For most of the year, the Barnes Ice Cap in the Canadian Arctic lies quiet under a blanket of snow. By summer, that snow melts back, and the ice cap transforms in texture, its bare ice dotted with turquoise ponds and its surface threaded with meltwater channels. In summer 2026, t