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

Most of us spend much of our day staring at organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, which convert electricity into light to produce the colorful displays on smartphones, computer monitors and televisions. Although metal-free light-emitting materials that produce all colors are i

At first glance, the canal near which Ibrahim Yildiz grazes his sheep in the southern Adana province appears idyllic, framed by rows of clementine trees—until the mountains of plastic shavings come into view.

Light-pulse pairs reveal the femtosecond decay of an inner-shell hole in xenon atoms and more — today's news signal.

Researchers at the UVSOR Synchrotron Facility (Institute for Molecular Science, Japan) and partner institutions have observed the decay of a xenon 4d core hole, an inner-shell vacancy, directly in the time domain. They used pairs of phase-coherent extreme ultraviolet pulses from

Dehydrating milk to turn it into powder is, today, an energy-intensive process that subjects the product to high temperatures. Powdered milk is widely used by the food industry and allows the product to be stored and transported in a stable condition for long periods of time with

Every time your heart beats, your lungs expand, or your skin stretches, a remarkable protein called elastin helps your body return to its original shape. But what exactly gives this protein its elasticity? For more than 50 years, scientists have debated whether elastin's ability

Most of us are familiar with the urge to pick up a seashell from the beach or keep a stone from a hiking trip. The object itself may be ordinary, but to the person who keeps it, it serves as a reminder of a particular moment, place or person. Where did this behavior come from? Di

Every year, fungal infections kill around 2.5 million people worldwide, more than tuberculosis and malaria combined. Yet most people may have never heard of the fungi responsible, and few health systems track them in any organized way.

Preserved in amber for about 53 million years, a beetle has been described as a new species by researchers in Spain and France. Named Cnopus twentyonepilotorum, it is the first puppet beetle (family Aderidae) to be formally described from the Oise amber of northern France. The fi

Iran and Afghanistan have a certain iconic status as largely inhospitable areas, rich in raw materials. But where does this remarkable geology come from? Researchers from the University of Central Asia and Utrecht University have now reconstructed the history of this 'geological

A research team led by professor Zhang Yuanming from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography (XIEG) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has revealed that the outcomes of desert plant-herbivore interactions are strongly context-dependent. The paper is published in the journ

Tiny levitated magnets are able to avoid contact friction, making them useful for detecting extremely weak forces and magnetic fields and acting as ultralow-noise quantum sensors and precision measurement tools. Combining levitation with extreme cold further reduces unwanted moti

Waste separation and recycling are essential to achieving a circular economy and sustainable resource management; however, the long-term success of well-established recycling systems depends on the continued participation of local residents. This study examined how social capital

A fresh excavation of the eastern deposit at Riparo Mochi, a rock shelter near today's French–Italian border, has pushed back the timeline for when Ice Age hunter-gatherers from Spain first entered Italy.

Imagine two people standing on a stretchy sheet. When one pulls, the other feels the fabric move and responds with a pull of their own. Each adjustment changes what the other feels. Something similar happens between living cells. They tug on the material around them, sense the st

The university experience has changed drastically since artificial intelligence (AI) became widely available four years ago.

Theft is almost universally considered an exploitative behavior. The conventional view underlying judicial systems is that the act of taking resources from others without offering compensation stems from moral and personal failings. As a result, these systems rely on the assumpti

Most of us spend much of our day staring at organic light-emitting diodes, or OLEDs, which convert electricity into light to produce the colorful displays on smartphones, computer monitors and televisions. Although metal-free light-emitting materials that produce all colors are i

The average person might be willing to pay a 10% premium for vehicle tires labeled as "salmon safe," according to a new study led by Washington State University.

Cobalt phosphide (CoP) is a promising alternative to platinum for producing hydrogen from water. However, scientists have struggled to explain why it performs so well. Computer models have suggested that CoP should become unstable under the conditions used to produce hydrogen, ye

In 2031, Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft will arrive at the near-Earth asteroid 1998 KY26: a tiny body that is accelerating in a way that astronomers have struggled to explain. Some studies have suggested that the asteroid is pushed along by water escaping from it as gas, making it

As demand grows for safer and more capable rechargeable batteries, scientists are looking beyond the familiar metal-centered chemistry of conventional cathodes. A promising route is to draw additional charge from anions—the negatively charged atoms in a material—rather than relyi

The scale, quality and regional coverage of public cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) data resources have been insufficient, severely limiting data reuse, cross-regional comparisons and the development of automated analysis methods. A new resource aims to help fill that gap, prov

Physicists at the ALPS II collaboration have reported the first results from the Any-Light-Particle-Search (ALPS) II experiment: the most sensitive instrument of its kind in the search for hypothetical "axions." Headed by Axel Lindner at the DESY Research Centre in Germany, the c