Plants & Animals

Japanese scientists discover how falling cats almost always make perfect landings

When cats fall, they usually land on their feet. This uncanny ability to right themselves before hitting the ground has long puzzled scientists. Now, a team from Yamaguchi University in Japan has the answer, and it's all ...

Planetary Sciences

New exoplanet survey method finds high rates of closely orbiting planets

Up until now, exoplanet surveys have mostly focused on nearby, bright stars that are sun-like or are red dwarfs, which are known to frequently host planets. While astronomers have discovered thousands of planets this way, ...

First absolute dating of Paleolithic paintings in the Dordogne

A research team led by a CNRS researcher has for the first time accurately determined the age of the cave paintings at Font-de-Gaume (Les Eyzies) in Dordogne (southwestern France), according to a study published on March ...

Why averages fail for bacteria in the open ocean

How can bacteria that forage on organic particles survive in vast ocean regions where such particles are extremely sparse? A new study by researchers from ETH Zurich and Queen Mary University of London shows that variability ...

Predicting brain health with a smartwatch

Can smartphones or smartwatches help detect early signs of neurological or mental illness? Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE) monitored a group of participants wearing connected devices, and used artificial intelligence ...

Robot hands so sensitive they can grab a potato chip

A new type of robotic hand developed at The University of Texas at Austin demonstrates such sensitive touch that it can grasp objects as fragile as a potato chip or a raspberry without crushing them. The technology, called ...

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Medical Xpress

Tech Xplore

Probiotic sugar compound blocks norovirus from attaching to cells

Stopping viruses before they strike is a key challenge in public health. A research team led by Associate Professor Li Dan from the Department of Food Science and Technology at National University of Singapore's Faculty of ...

Brain immune cells may help build Alzheimer's plaques

A new study led by researchers from VIB and KU Leuven shows that immune cells called microglia can actively promote the formation of plaques in Alzheimer's disease, challenging the long-standing view that these cells serve ...

A new protein timeline explains plasma membrane repair

In the evolutionary history of life, the ability of a cell to separate its inner world from the external environment was an important turning point. The so-called plasma membrane lets cells control what gets in and out and ...

Distant past may expose companies to claims of hypocrisy

Companies risk being criticized as hypocritical when their words and deeds don't match—even if those discrepancies are decades apart, Cornell-led research finds. In a series of studies involving nearly 5,000 participants, ...

Why March Madness is a perfect storm for betting

Sports betting continues to explode across the country. Online gambling platforms have become mainstream, are heavily marketed by celebrities and star athletes—and increasingly popular among young adults.

Noise at sea: Research on how wind farms affect fish

Human activity is making the underwater world increasingly noisy. Ph.D. candidate Fien Demuynck researched how wind farms affect fish and how to minimize any negative impact. "We don't want animals to become stressed, disoriented ...

NASA's Van Allen Probe A to re-enter atmosphere

NASA's Van Allen Probe A is expected to reenter Earth's atmosphere almost 14 years after launch. From 2012 to 2019, the spacecraft and its twin, Van Allen Probe B, flew through the Van Allen belts, rings of charged particles ...

Heat does not reduce prosociality, study suggests

High temperatures have long been empirically linked to violence, conflict, and aggression at the societal level—a troubling pattern in a warming world. Alessandra Cassar and colleagues sought to explore the effect of high ...

Modernization can increase differences between cultures

Does modernization—economic growth, technological advancement, globalization, increased education, and urbanization—reduce cultural differences? Conventional wisdom suggests that as nations get richer and more educated, ...

How to make farms tree-friendly and boost food production

Farmers could turn more of the UK's farmland into productive agroforestry systems if they had access to trusted advice and real farm examples, according to new research from the University of Reading. Dr. Amelia Hood, from ...

How do we know what asteroids are made out of?

Asteroids are some of the oldest objects in the solar system: leftovers from the chaotic time when planets were assembling from dust and rock. They're time capsules, preserving clues about what the early solar system was ...

How AI could unlock deep‑sea secrets of marine life

Somewhere in the North Atlantic, more than a kilometer beneath its surface, a cold-water coral reef stretches across an unnamed seamount. Despite never appearing on a chart, this underwater forest has existed for centuries, ...

Why lungs age unevenly: Vulnerable cells may guide new therapies

Aging is associated with increased risk for nearly every lung disease, including acute conditions like pneumonia and chronic diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, and lung cancer. ...

Improving AI models' ability to explain their predictions

In high-stakes settings like medical diagnostics, users often want to know what led a computer vision model to make a certain prediction, so they can determine whether to trust its output. Concept bottleneck modeling is one ...

STEM stereotypes begin young, study shows

Children as young as seven begin to internalize stereotypes about who is more or less likely to pursue occupations related to science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM)—beliefs that may influence career choices ...

Artemis II: What's on the menu?

The food flying aboard Artemis II is designed to support crew health and performance during the mission around the moon. With no resupply, refrigeration, or late-load capability, all meals must be carefully selected to remain ...

Forest exhibits resilience after California mega fire

In 2019 and again in 2021, Penn State researchers in the Department of Geography walked a series of 1,000 square foot plots in California's Lassen Volcanic National Park. The goal was to see how the forest that's hands-off ...