Science

When cats fall, they flip themselves rightside-up with seemingly little effort — which has perplexed scientists for decades. Our feline friends appear to defy the laws of physics by reconfiguring themselves mid-air without intervention from another force. So how do they do it? Several factors affect how a cat is able to land on all … Read more

Households with gas or propane stoves regularly breathe unhealthy levels of nitrogen dioxide, a study of air pollution in U.S. homes found. “I didn’t expect to see pollutant concentrations breach health benchmarks in bedrooms within an hour of gas stove use, and stay there for hours after the stove is turned off,” said Stanford Doerr … Read more

See What Gives Sourdough Its Distinctive Taste and Smell You can thank yeast and bacteria cultivated over generations for the distinctive taste and smell of the oldest leavened bread in history By Daniel Veghte & The Conversation US Microbes make a home among the starch grains of your sourdough starter. The following essay is reprinted … Read more

Simulations of the crust of early Earth show that cycles of pressure caused by geysers or tidal forces could have generated cell-like structures and even very simple proteins #Protocells #early #Earth #formed #squeezing #geysers

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine feels like a really pivotal moment in this narrative. In the autumn of 2022, energy prices in the UK were skyrocketing, and yet the response of Liz Truss, prime minister at the time, was to double down on oil and gas exploration and refuse to ask people to cut down their … Read more

The presence of parasitic microbes has for the first time been found literally altering the metabolism of their hosts. The culprits are tiny, parasitic archaea of the species Candidatus Nanohaloarchaeum antarcticus that parasitize other single-celled organisms, the host archaeon species Halorubrum lacusprofundi. And researchers have found that these parasites are very selective about the resources … Read more

U.S. college students can recognize signs of an opioid overdose and want to help when they witness one. But many do not know how to reverse an overdose with the drug naloxone. Among surveyed undergraduate and graduate students, 62 percent could identify at least one symptom of an opioid overdose and 67 percent were comfortable … Read more

Egyptologists have discovered the remains of a “rest house” in the northern Sinai desert. The structure may have temporarily housed ancient Egyptian forces, and possibly even royalty, during the reign of Thutmose III, or from about 1479 to 1425 B.C.  Ancient Egyptian rulers often launched military campaigns into the eastern Mediterranean, and one route Egyptian … Read more

A team of chemists and bioengineers at Rice University and the University of Houston have achieved a significant milestone in their work to create a biomaterial that can be used to grow biological tissues outside the human body. The development of a novel fabrication process to create aligned nanofiber hydrogels could offer new possibilities for … Read more

How to Move the World’s Largest Camera from a California Lab to an Andes Mountaintop A multimillion-dollar digital camera could revolutionize astronomy. But first it needs to climb a mountain halfway around the globe By Rahul Rao A worker shines a flashlight into the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s camera. J. Ramseyer Orrell/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory/NOIRLab … Read more