We know we got here from somewhere, but who would have suspected it was by way of a fish that used electrical currents to hunt and communicate and locate itself?
A few strands of DNA could help solve the mystery of dark matter. A newly proposed detector aims to use DNA to resolve the conflicting claims from current dark matter detectors. Dark matter is thought to make up about 85% of the matter in the universe. The prime suspects are so-called weakly interacting massive particles,…
Scientists have measured the fastest winds yet observed from a stellar-mass black hole, shedding light on the behavior of these curious cosmic objects. The winds, clocked by astronomers using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, are racing through space at 20 million mph, or about 3 percent the speed of light. That’s nearly 10 times faster than…
The Commission on Science and Technology, in collaboration with the UN Conference on Trade and Development, plans to publish a series of case studies highlighting best practice in gender equality policies in science, technology and innovation (STI) of governments around the world. The goal is to promote more effective STI policies, by taking a greater…
Farmers, used to betting on the weather, are changing their tactics to cope with changes in the rules of the game
Not long ago, the story was simple. A vanguard of modern humans left their African birthplace 50,000–60,000 years ago and quickly conquered Asia. They turned left into Europe some 40,000 years ago, later crossing the Bering Strait and marching southward into the Americas. With their advance, Neanderthals and other earlier peoples dwindled and vanished. But…
Facing an ever-increasing din of background noise from traffic and other human activities, many animals are adapting by changing their behavior or just moving to quitter locales. In turn, noise pollution is altering the landscape of plants and trees, which depend on noise-affected animals to pollinate them and spread their seeds. Some plants do worse…