Science

The sail-backed predator Dimetrodon is one of the most iconic animals of the early Permian—long before dinosaurs dominated Earth. Most known species of this early relative of mammals reached large body sizes, sometimes up to 3 meters (10 feet) in length and 250 kilograms (550 pounds). Yet some species remained surprisingly small. A new study by an international research team led by Dr. Aurore Canoville of the Friedenstein Stiftung Gotha and the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin now shows that these small body sizes were achieved through very different growth strategies.

In an effort to open the door to new and useful products, chemistry researchers are on the continual lookout for processes that unlock important molecules and the bonds that can put them together. Such is the case for UC Santa Barbara chemistry professor Yang Yang, who builds his research around discovering novel biocatalytic methods, processes that facilitate chemical reactions with biocatalysts from evolved natural proteins.

The UNESCO World Heritage Site, which features 40,000 near-perfect hexagonal columns, formed roughly 60 million years ago during a period of intense volcanic activity

Life on Earth has evolved under an uninterrupted rhythm of day and night. While light provides the energy that powers countless molecular processes, periods of darkness often allow biological systems to reorganize, recover and transform that energy into functional outcomes. Inspired by this natural balance, an international team led by Javier Montenegro at the Center for Research in Biological Chemistry and Molecular Materials (CiQUS) of the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela has demonstrated that the same principle can govern the behavior of simple synthetic molecular systems.

Experimental atomic physicists have discovered there is a maximum amount of electrical resistance, or resistivity, that can result from collisions between electrons.

As is the case with cameras, the best multitool is the one you have on you. Following that line of thinking, the K-Smart X might just be one of the best, as it's designed to clip unobtrusively right onto your belt.Continue ReadingCategory: Knives and Multitools, Gear, OutdoorsTags: Multitools, EDC, Titanium, Kickstarter, xxKickbooster

The Dan David Prize will award nine historians and archaeologists with $300,000 to recognize their work and support future research, the foundation announced Tuesday.

An Ariane 6 heavy-lift rocket will launch a record-breaking load to orbit early on Wednesday morning (June 17), and you can watch the action live.

Using an innovative combination of biochemical experiments and ultra-high-resolution microscopy, a research team at Kiel University has solved the long-standing mystery of how the bacterium B. subtilis regulates its cell division.

A new fluorescent reporter capable of visualizing biologically active iron and oxygen inside living cells at single-cell resolution has been developed, as reported by researchers from Science Tokyo. Using this new tool, they revealed striking differences in the distribution of iron and oxygen across organs and even between neighboring cells of the same type. This innovation could serve as a platform for studying cancer, liver diseases, neurodegeneration and aging.

A research team from Tohoku University and Kyocera Corp. has developed a new magneto-optical material—a nanocomposite magnetic garnet film—that can be deposited directly onto silicon substrates while delivering a magneto-optical figure of merit four times higher than conventional polycrystalline films.

Researchers at the University of Houston's College of Pharmacy have discovered an unexpectedly simple strategy to improve the performance of mRNA vaccines and gene therapeutics: adding salt. The findings, published in Small, address one of the biggest challenges facing modern gene medicine—getting fragile therapeutic material to the right place inside cells.

A new study by Prof. Gabriel Weimann, a senior researcher at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at Reichman University and professor emeritus in the Department of Communication at the University of Haifa, and Daniel Haberfeld, a researcher and head of the Cyberterrorism Desk at ICT, explored the activities of the Handala hacker group, which is linked to Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS). The study sought to determine whether the group's operations are best characterized as cyberterrorism or psychological warfare.

A new study demonstrates that honeybees can evaluate the reliability of their own communication, actively adjusting the vigor of their "waggle dance" based on the truthfulness of the information they provide. By manipulating whether a dancing bee's followers successfully found food, experiments revealed that only bees with verified, "honest" information increased their recruitment effort over time when advertising a new location, whereas "liar" or "unverified" bees did not. This internal self-control mechanism naturally filters out ambiguous or misleading signals, allowing the hive to function efficiently as a cooperative superorganism.

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