Mechanical thinning alone can calm the intensity of future wildfires for many years, and prescribed burns lengthen thinning’s effectiveness, according to Oregon State University research involving a seasonally dry ponderosa pine forest in northeastern Oregon. Findings of the study, led by OSU research associate James Johnston and published in Forest Ecology and Management, are important […]

The chemical methane, as the largest component in natural gas, is a familiar fuel, but it is also a greenhouse gas many times more potent than carbon dioxide in trapping the sun’s warming rays in the atmosphere. Vehicle engines spew lots of methane, and excess methane is burned up in flares that are a common […]

For decades, the general-purpose central processing unit—the CPU—has been the workhorse of the computer industry. It could handle any task—literally—even if most of those capabilities were unnecessary. This model was all well and good as chips grew smaller, faster and more efficient by the day, but less so as the pace of progress has slowed, […]

The UK’s sixth science minister in as many years, has been welcomed by the research community as it anxiously awaits the outcome of next month’s spending review. George Freeman, the former – and only – life sciences minister to date, returned to the Department of Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in this month’s reshuffle. […]

The existential threat of Covid-19 has highlighted an acute need to develop working therapeutics against emerging health concerns. One of the luxuries deep learning has afforded us is the ability to modify the landscape as it unfolds — so long as we can keep up with the viral threat, and access the right data.  As […]

Your crumbling steps riseto greet the sun,towering overhead likemonolithic icebergsthat betray their craggy depths.Revealed in scattered light,the geometric dreamsof ancient engineersdance tellinglybeneath the surface.Hidden hands that reachthrough time toalign interactionswith this sharedand broken landscape.A maquette of excavations,with every layer exposeda new and future past. The Pyramid of the Moon in Teotihuacán, Mexico (Image Credit: Ricardo […]

We put “save the chimps” on t-shirts and posters. But you’ll never see anyone walking around in a shirt that says “save the chimpanzee lice.” People seem to be more aware of the plight of endangered gorillas than of the gorillas’ gut worms, or are understandably more enamored with mouse lemurs than their mites. Our […]

Vampire bats that form bonds in captivity and continue those “friendships” in the wild also hunt together, meeting up over a meal after independent departures from the roost, according to a new study. Researchers attached tiny “backpack” computers to 50 vampire bats – some that had previously been in captivity together and others that had lived only […]

Researchers can predict what syllables a bird will sing—and when it will sing them—by reading electrical signals in its brain, reports a new study from the University of California San Diego. Having the ability to predict a bird’s vocal behavior from its brain activity is an early step toward building vocal prostheses for humans who […]

Lysergic acid diethylamide, or LSD, is a potent hallucinogen that alters the perception of reality and triggers altered behaviors. At Baylor College of Medicine, Dr. Daoyun Ji and his colleagues hope that studying the drug will reveal new perspectives into how the brain generates behavior. “Our lab is investigating how LSD influences brain activity,” said Ji, professor of neuroscience at […]