Flaviu Costin on Unsplash Singing has been linked to numerous benefits for health, wellbeing, disease resistance, and recovery from injury, but when singing in a group, these benefits are seen to be superior to those seen in solo singers. The research, though not new, still makes for a pretty darn good reason to join a … Read more
Cphotos – via Unsplash+ Danish researchers have found a molecular switch that lets plants partner with nitrogen-fixing bacteria instead of fighting them, opening the way to self-fertilizing cereal crops like wheat and barley. Their new research highlights an important biological clue that could help reduce agriculture’s heavy reliance on artificial nitrogen fertilizer. Plants require nitrogen … Read more
A lumbar puncture – credit, BruceBlaus CC 3.0. via Wikimedia Commons A single-dose gene replacement therapy is found to transform the capabilities for movement in children over 2 years of age and teenagers with spinal muscular atrophy, according to research published in Nature Medicine. The effects allowed these minors who could sit but not stand … Read more
The Carreras Pampas trackways – credit, Raúl Esperante In Bolivia, the largest number of dinosaur footprints ever recorded in a single spot is yielding fascinating insight on how these prehistoric animals moved in a way that bones just can’t. 16,600 footprints, forming dozens of “trackways,” have been so far documented on what would have been … Read more
The submersible Fendouzhe being deployed off a Chinese icebreaker in the Arctic Ocean. Credit: Courtesy of the Fendouzhe Research Team One of the most remote and unexplored parts of the planet has been visited by a submersible crewed by Chinese geophysicists and marine scientists for the first time ever. Having been researched from the surface … Read more
– credit, Society for Science A young man has folded his origami hobby into to a potential career path as an innovator, having used the Japanese artform to create a structure capable of holding 10,000 times its own weight. His demonstration, which included extensive testing and personal invention, took first prize at the Thermo Fisher … Read more
Courtesy of Kiley Riffell / UW There are dozens of ways to implement mosquito control, but none have proved a cure-all against the deadliest animal on Earth. Now, researchers have genetically-engineered a natural enemy of the mosquito—with millions of years of evolution backing up its deadly design—to attract and kill the insects even when humans … Read more
The Butterfly Nebula, taken by the Gemini South Telescope – credit, Noirlab / NSF There are a lot of nebulae in the universe, and they often get given catchy names like the Crab Nebula or Cat’s Paw Nebula. There needs no explaining the name of this nebula—seen in an image taken from the Gemini South … Read more
Device uses ultrasonic waves to harvest water 45x faster – Credit: Ikra Iftekhar / MIT (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) Even in desert conditions, there exists some level of humidity that, with the right material, can be soaked up and squeezed out to produce clean drinking water. In recent years, scientists have developed a host of promising … Read more
Coral on the Great Barrier Reef – Toby Hudson CC 3.0. At the Australian Institute of Marine Science, artificial intelligence is being leveraged to help restore coral reefs after recent bleaching events. Following the autumn spawning season on the Great Barrier Reef, AIMS scientists are looking to give the corals a helping hand by dropping … Read more