Climate action is falling behind on the goals as stated in the Paris Agreement. To meet those goals, countries must act according to their ‘fair share’ targets. However, researchers from Utrecht University found a bias in how ambition and fairness assessments were calculated until now: “previous studies assessing countries climate ambition share a feature that […]

The Earth supports the only known life in the universe, all of it depending heavily on the presence of liquid water to facilitate chemical reactions. While single-celled life has existed almost as long as the Earth itself, it took roughly three billion years for multicellular life to form. Human life has existed for less than […]

The European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter mission has split the flood of energetic particles flung out into space from the Sun into two groups, tracing each back to a different kind of outburst from our star. The Sun is the most energetic particle accelerator in the Solar System. It whips up electrons to nearly the […]

Small fold – big role: A tissue fold known as the cephalic furrow, an evolutionary novelty that forms between the head and the trunk of fly embryos, plays a mechanical role in stabilizing embryonic tissues during the development of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Combining theory and experiment: Researchers integrated computer simulations with their experiments […]

The PET-alternative PDCA is biodegradable and has superior physical properties. A Kobe University team of bioengineers engineered E. coli bacteria to produce the compound from glucose at unprecedented levels and without byproducts — and opened up a realm of possibilities for the future of bioengineering. The durability of plastics is both the reason why they […]

Experts have uncovered the earliest known example of a fish with extra teeth deep inside its mouth – a 310-million-year-old fossilized ray-finned fish that evolved a unique way of devouring prey. Platysomus parvulus had a unique way of eating never seen in ray-finned fish from that time – a ‘tongue bite’, using a special set […]

Researchers from Delft University of Technology in The Netherlands have been able to see the magnetic nucleus of an atom switch back and forth in real time. They read out the nuclear ‘spin’ via the electrons in the same atom through the needle of a scanning tunneling microscope. To their surprise, the spin remained stable […]

An international team of astronomers has discovered a massive cloud of gas and dust located in a little-known region of our Milky Way galaxy. The Giant Molecular Cloud (GMC) is about 60 parsecs — or 200 light years — long. In a new study published in the Astrophysical Journal, researchers using the U.S. National Science […]

A small team led by Sihao Cheng, Martin A. and Helen Chooljian Member in the Institute for Advanced Study’s School of Natural Sciences, has discovered an extraordinary trans-Neptunian object (TNO), named 2017 OF201, at the edge of our solar system. The TNO is potentially large enough to qualify as a dwarf planet, the same category […]

During the dry season in Central America (generally between December and April), northern trade winds generate upwelling events in the ocean waters of the Gulf of Panama. Upwelling is a process that allows cold, nutrient-rich waters from the depths of the ocean to rise to the surface. This dynamic supports highly productive fisheries and helps […]