Extremely remote islands are more likely than less isolated ones to have a high number of endemic languages.

Yakamoz Kizildas collects the DNA of humpback whales to learn about their behaviour in the North Atlantic ocean.

Can science be a route to peace and common understanding? A glance at the history of one institution shows: only when scientists actively commit to it.

Artificial-intelligence models are typically used online, but a host of openly available tools is changing that. Here’s how to get started with local AIs.

An epic exploration of human history examines how the poor and powerless have fought back — time and again — against those seeking to profit from the planet’s natural resources.

How our neuron activity drops in high-stakes situations, meet the organizations fighting for Ukrainian science and discover a chatbot that can pop the conspiracy-thinking bubble.

A survey at one of the biggest UK research universities finds that staff often end up flying to meetings despite a preference to avoid air travel.

Advancement of air conditioning systems is a key focus because of high energy usage and rising demand for better air quality. Desiccant air conditioning offers enhanced energy management and sustainability features. Phase change material (PCM) based thermal energy storage systems are effective for efficient thermal energy storage applications. Hence, the practicality of integrating PCM with desiccant

Multi-energy load forecasting forms the foundation of the operation and scheduling of integrated energy systems. Nevertheless, insufficient data and underutilization of the coupling relationship between the multi-energy load limit the accuracy of load forecasting. This paper presents a predictive model combining neural network Gaussian processes and multi-task learning. The approach is tailored to

Scientists create textiles with just the right weave and yarn to keep biting insects at bay.

Study of a reverberation that rang around the world reveals a new type of geological event fuelled by global warming.

Study links this phenomenon to the brain region that controls movement.

Discovery could help to identify ways to prevent relapse into opioid usage.

A controversial theory about Rapa Nui has been conclusively debunked. Plus, what Harris and Trump said about science in their debate and the reviewers churning out suspicious reviews for personal gain.

Large-language-model trial suggests facts and evidence really can change people’s minds.

Daily dose of the common medication metformin preserved cognition and delayed decline of some tissues.

To synergistically exploit plastic and biomass, a hybrid system combining pyrolysis and gasification has been proposed, which has been dedicated towards the conversion of non-recycled plastic and biomass to the coproduction of oil, electricity, and protein. Non-recycled plastic is transformed into high-value pyrolysis oil, char, and gas through pyrolysis. Simultaneously, biomass undergoes gasification

Based on synthetic natural gas, existing natural gas markets and infrastructures can be used to make renewable sources of energy from sun- and/or wind-rich regions available on a global scale. To overcome the challenge of providing non-fossil CO for the production of this synthetic natural gas, a novel concept analyzed in this paper envisages to reform the synthetic natural gas in the importing country

Family-based genome-wide association studies (GWASs) are often claimed to provide an unbiased estimate of the average causal effects (or average treatment effects; ATEs) of alleles, on the basis of an analogy between the random transmission of alleles from parents to children and a randomized controlled trial. We show that this claim does not hold in general. Because Mendelian segregation only randomizes

One of the longstanding aims of network neuroscience is to link a connectome’s topological properties—i.e., features defined from connectivity alone–with an organism’s neurobiology. One approach for doing so is to compare connectome properties with annotational maps. This type of analysis is popular at the meso-/macroscale, but is less common at the nano-scale, owing to a paucity of neuron-level connectome

The acquisition of new RNA functions through evolutionary processes was essential for the diversification of RNA-based primordial biology and its subsequent transition to modern biology. However, the mechanisms by which RNAs access new functions remain unclear. Do RNA enzymes need completely new folds to support new but related functions, or is reoptimization of the active site sufficient? What are

Liquid–liquid phase separation, whereby two liquids spontaneously demix, is ubiquitous in industrial, environmental, and biological processes. While isotropic fluids are known to condense into spherical droplets in the binodal region, these dynamics are poorly understood for structured fluids. Here, we report the unique observation of condensate networks, which spontaneously assemble during the demixing

Synechococcus elongatus is an important cyanobacterium that serves as a versatile and robust model for studying circadian biology and photosynthetic metabolism. Its transcriptional regulatory network (TRN) is of fundamental interest, as it orchestrates the cell’s adaptation to the environment, including its response to sunlight. Despite the previous characterization of constituent parts of the S. elongatus

A mysterious afterglow in a pandemic side project leads to a new method for observing proteins that interact in living cells.

Jane Kilcoyne and colleagues took action after calculating that their biotoxin chemistry lab produced 4000 kilograms of waste per year, none of which was recyled.

The Polaris Dawn crew are testing a new spacesuit design and running 36 experiments while orbiting Earth.

Genomic analysis reveals a host of genetic variants that affect how quickly fertility ends, among them one that reduces reproductive span by six years.

Family connections.

More than two years after Russia invaded Ukraine, initiatives supporting Ukrainian researchers are counting the long-term career costs of the conflict.

Genes linked to ovarian ageing pinpointed.

One of the best known model species, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, is infected by a newly described parasitoid wasp.

Ancient Rapa Nui genomes overturn ideas about pre-colonial collapse.

Enhancing hormone activity enduringly lowers blood pressure.

Dozens of labs around the world are striving to grow models of human embryos to study development, fertility and therapies. They are entering uncharted ethical territory.

Genome analysis adds to mounting evidence against the idea that Rapa Nui’s population collapsed owing to overexploitation of natural resources.

We’re heading to Jupiter’s moon Europa. Plus, the ethical issues raised by ever-more-realistic human embryo models and why 4 in 10 of us have a tiny knee bone linked to the risk of arthritis.

How macrophage cells drive immunosuppression and brain tumour growth.

Timescale of convection on R Doradus revealed.

An approach for changing the density of charge carriers in perovskites.

Neurons in the vagus nerve control lipid uptake in the small intestine.

Geneticists are trying to understand the elevated risks of heart and metabolic disease among people of South Asian ancestry, but some question whether a purely biological approach is best.

How to customize proteins to enable their sequences to be probed.

Hear the biggest stories from the world of science | 11 September 2024

A simulation that uses machine learning predicts neural-circuit function in the fly brain from the connectivity between neurons.

Images of bacterial chaperonin complexes in cells shed light on how the chaperonin cycle functions and mediates protein folding.

Neurons and microglia trade materials.

Structures of an ‘eraser’ enzyme show it bends its tubulin target out of shape.

Presidential hopefuls Kamala Harris and Donald Trump touched on competition with China, women’s health and energy at key event in a close race.

Photoenzymes are light-powered biocatalysts that typically rely on the excitation of cofactors or unnatural amino acids for their catalytic activities1,2. A notable natural example is the fatty acid photodecarboxylase (FAP), which uses light energy to convert aliphatic carboxylic acids to achiral hydrocarbons3. Here, we report a way to design a non-natural photodecarboxylase based on the excitation

After resolving a threat to the spacecraft’s circuitry, the US space agency is now weeks away from launching the orbiter.

Questions surrounding an often-repeated statistic about Indigenous Peoples and biodiversity show that researchers should take more care when sourcing facts.

The world’s first successful face transplant including a whole eye, the US and China inch towards renewing a science-cooperation pact and how ‘likes’ fuel a spiral of misinformation.