/ en-us Â鶹ÒùÔº internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. On September 14, 2015, a signal arrived on Earth, carrying information about a pair of remote black holes that had spiraled together and merged. The signal had traveled about 1.3 billion years to reach us at the speed of light—but it was not made of light. It was a different kind of signal: a quivering of space-time called gravitational waves first predicted by Albert Einstein 100 years prior. /news/2025-09-years-ligo-black-hole-machine.html Astronomy Sun, 14 Sep 2025 10:00:01 EDT news676716292 Canada's record-breaking 2023 wildfires exposed more than 350 million people in North America and Europe to air pollution that likely contributed to tens of thousands of deaths, according to new estimates published Wednesday. /news/2025-09-canada-linked-thousands-deaths.html Environment Wed, 10 Sep 2025 14:50:03 EDT news676734521 Over the course of more than two decades, researchers at the University of Bern have developed the so-called "Bern model," a suite of computer programs that can numerically simulate the formation of planetary systems, thus shedding light on system architecture. These models are, however, very complex: each simulation from the Bern model can take a few days to a few weeks to be computed using modern supercomputers. /news/2025-09-ai-discovery-exoplanets-distant.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 09 Sep 2025 12:43:04 EDT news676640582 Essentially all cells in an organism's body have the same genetic blueprint, or genome, but the set of genes that are actively expressed at any given time in a cell determines what type of cell it will be and its function. How rapidly gene expression in a single cell changes over time can provide insight into how cells might become more specialized, but current measurement approaches are limited. A new method developed by researchers at Penn State and Yale University incorporates spatial information from the cell as well as data from cells processed at different times, improving researchers' ability to understand the nuances of gene expression changes. /news/2025-09-method-tracks-gene-reveal-cell.html Molecular & Computational biology Sat, 06 Sep 2025 09:52:46 EDT news676371155 One of the ways that per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) earn their "forever chemical" nickname and persist in the environment is their acidity. /news/2025-09-chemicals-acidic-thought.html Analytical Chemistry Thu, 04 Sep 2025 14:22:04 EDT news676214521 National anthems are more than music for ceremonies—they reflect the unique cultural and geographical characteristics of nations. A new study published in Scientific Reports has analyzed the emotional characteristics of 176 national anthems using machine learning and music information retrieval (MIR). /news/2025-09-happiest-saddest-national-anthems-globe.html Social Sciences Political science Thu, 04 Sep 2025 11:51:44 EDT news676205502 Strawberries are delicate and hard to harvest—easily bruised and often hidden under a canopy of leaves. This creates headaches for scientists trying to design robotic harvesters. Now a Washington State University-led team has designed one that combines an artificial-intelligence vision system, soft silicone "fingers," and a fan that gently moves leaves out of the way to get at hidden fruit. /news/2025-09-robotic-harvester-ai-vision-soft.html Biotechnology Agriculture Thu, 04 Sep 2025 09:50:03 EDT news676198201 Artificial intelligence relies on machine learning algorithms trained on massive datasets to make predictions—think of how ChatGPT learned language by gorging on the internet. In biology, however, scientists face a frustrating challenge—the high-quality datasets needed to train powerful artificial intelligence models are rare. Without these datasets, we can't harness machine learning to tackle our most pressing health challenges. /news/2025-09-scale-biology-massive-datasets-aiding.html Biotechnology Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 03 Sep 2025 16:00:04 EDT news676133411 Quantum computers promise enormous computational power, but the nature of quantum states makes computation and data inherently "noisy." Rice University computer scientists have developed algorithms that account for noise that is not just random but malicious. Their work could help make quantum computers more accurate and dependable. /news/2025-09-algorithms-malicious-noise-result-accurate.html Quantum Â鶹ÒùÔºics Wed, 03 Sep 2025 15:24:04 EDT news676131841 The conversion of carbon dioxide into clean fuels is regarded as an important route toward carbon neutrality. CO2 methanation, in particular, has drawn increasing interest due to its favorable thermodynamic properties and environmental benefits. Yet, large-scale deployment continues to face challenges such as insufficient catalyst activity at low temperatures and vulnerability to carbon deposition. /news/2025-09-ai-nickel-catalyst-carbon-dioxide.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Wed, 03 Sep 2025 12:06:03 EDT news676119961 What if plants could speak when they were thirsty? Agriculture, in essence, is a dialog among crops, soil and climate. Yet drought, the most insidious stressor, remains largely silent until its damage is visible. /news/2025-08-ai-simple-images-early-drought.html Biotechnology Agriculture Fri, 29 Aug 2025 09:53:40 EDT news675680013 Since January's wildfires flattened entire neighborhoods in Los Angeles, displacing 12,900 households and causing an estimated $30 billion in losses, California's many other fire-prone communities have been eager for solutions to better protect themselves. /news/2025-08-home-hardening-defensible-space-halve.html Environment Thu, 28 Aug 2025 16:36:04 EDT news675617761 One of the big benefits of open-access journals is that they make research articles freely and immediately available to everyone online. This increases exposure for scientists and their work, ensuring there are no barriers, such as cost, to knowledge. Anyone with an internet connection can access the research from anywhere. /news/2025-08-ai-tool-shady-science-journals.html Other Education Thu, 28 Aug 2025 13:30:15 EDT news675606033 EPFL researchers have developed Systema, a new tool to evaluate how well AI models work when predicting the effects of genetic perturbations. /news/2025-08-advanced-ai-simple-genetic-perturbation.html Biotechnology Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 28 Aug 2025 12:20:03 EDT news675602086 New research from the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery is tackling a complex packing problem. Thanks to the development of a powerful new computational tool introduced in a study published in the journal Genome Research, scientists can better investigate how genomes fit into the tiny confines of a cell nucleus, how they are repackaged across different biological dimensions and how that influences gene expression and disease risk. /news/2025-08-tool-genome-dna-3d.html Biotechnology Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 28 Aug 2025 10:30:03 EDT news675595801 The thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, roamed the Australian mainland, Tasmania and New Guinea for millions of years, up until the last one died in Tasmania in 1936. Despite the names, the thylacine was neither a tiger nor a wolf, but actually a marsupial relative of the Tasmanian devil. /news/2025-08-tasmanian-tiger-extinction-ancestral-gene.html Plants & Animals Evolution Wed, 27 Aug 2025 10:30:01 EDT news675509128 Volcanic eruptions can have dramatic consequences. But how can we anticipate this phenomenon, which unfolds up to tens of kilometers beneath the surface? /news/2025-08-heart-volcanoes.html Earth Sciences Wed, 27 Aug 2025 09:33:04 EDT news675505981 The Southern Ocean plays an important role in global climate and carbon cycling. Understanding carbon export in this region is critical for modeling Earth's changing climate and evaluating potential ocean-based climate interventions. /news/2025-08-ai-approach-sharpens-picture-carbon.html Earth Sciences Environment Wed, 27 Aug 2025 08:23:07 EDT news675501781 The Northwest can expect a widespread increase in days with cloud-to-ground lightning in the years to come, along with heightened wildfire risk, according to projections made with a unique machine-learning approach developed at Washington State University. /news/2025-08-lightning-wildfire-northwest.html Earth Sciences Environment Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:22:04 EDT news675444121 Environmental scientists are increasingly using enormous artificial intelligence models to make predictions about changes in weather and climate, but a new study by MIT researchers shows that bigger models are not always better. /news/2025-08-simpler-outperform-deep-climate.html Earth Sciences Environment Tue, 26 Aug 2025 12:04:05 EDT news675428641 Different countries have different cultures, and social scientists have developed theories about which values are most important in differentiating the world's cultures. Abhishek Sheetal and colleagues used the power of machine learning to identify the crucial distinguishing characteristics of the world's national cultures in a theory-blind manner. The findings are published in the journal PNAS Nexus. /news/2025-08-ai-nationality-beliefs-values.html Social Sciences Tue, 26 Aug 2025 10:06:03 EDT news675421561 How is an animal feeling at a given moment? Humans have long recognized certain well-known behavior like a cat hissing as a warning, but in many cases we've had little clue of what's going on inside an animal's head. /news/2025-08-ai-decodes-animals-emotional-states.html Biotechnology Veterinary medicine Mon, 25 Aug 2025 14:28:24 EDT news675350897 A study by University of HawaiÊ»i researchers is advancing how we learn the laws that govern complex systems—from predator-prey relationships to traffic patterns in cities to how populations grow and shift—using artificial intelligence (AI) and physics. /news/2025-08-statistical-mechanics-method-machines-complex.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Mon, 25 Aug 2025 14:11:04 EDT news675349862 Phytoplankton—microscopic algae that form the base of ocean food webs—have long been viewed as transient players in the global carbon cycle: They bloom, die, and the carbon they contain is quickly recycled back into the ecosystem. /news/2025-08-analysis-reveals-phytoplankton-contribution-centuries.html Earth Sciences Environment Fri, 22 Aug 2025 13:04:46 EDT news675086682 One of the most fundamental processes in all of biology is the spontaneous organization of cells into clusters that divide and eventually turn into shapes—be they organs, wings or limbs. /news/2025-08-optimizing-cells-framework-genetic.html Cell & Microbiology Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 21 Aug 2025 10:36:23 EDT news674991377 Each year, billions upon billions of tons of CO2 are pumped into the atmosphere. A significant proportion of this ends up in Earth's oceans, where it can react with water to form carbonic acid, which causes ocean acidification. /news/2025-08-mechanism-reveals-carbon-dioxide-reacts.html Earth Sciences Environment Wed, 20 Aug 2025 15:20:03 EDT news674922001 Baryons, composite particles made up of three quarks bound together via the so-called strong force, make up the most visible matter and have thus been the focus of numerous physics studies. Studying the rare processes via which unstable baryons decay into other particles could potentially contribute to the discovery of new physics that is not explained by the Standard Model of particle physics. /news/2025-08-lhcb-collaboration-ultra-rare-baryon.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Tue, 19 Aug 2025 10:10:33 EDT news674817018 Using machine learning, MIT chemical engineers have created a computational model that can predict how well any given molecule will dissolve in an organic solvent—a key step in the synthesis of nearly any pharmaceutical. This type of prediction could make it much easier to develop new ways to produce drugs and other useful molecules. /news/2025-08-freely-molecules-dissolve-solvents.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 19 Aug 2025 09:50:42 EDT news674815837 Human activities, such as deforestation and the expansion of agricultural areas, have a massive impact on the natural state of ecosystems. As a result, large amounts of carbon are released into the atmosphere, contributing substantially to anthropogenic climate change. /news/2025-08-human-natural-carbon-stocks.html Earth Sciences Environment Mon, 18 Aug 2025 14:01:09 EDT news674744466 Based on simulations, researchers report that the next big earthquake along the San Andreas fault is unlikely to resemble previous quakes. Researchers at the intersection of algebra, geometry, particle physics and cosmology are making headway in describing the shape of the universe. And common food thickeners based on derivatives of cellulose don't just pass through your digestive tract as previously believed—gut bacteria are able to feed on them. /news/2025-08-saturday-citations-category-supernovas-neurons.html Other Sat, 16 Aug 2025 08:30:01 EDT news674476215