The hunt for planets beyond our solar system has turned up more than 4,000 far-flung worlds, orbiting stars thousands of  light years from Earth. These extrasolar planets are a veritable menagerie, from rocky super-Earths and miniature Neptunes to colossal gas giants. Among the more confounding planets discovered to date are “hot Jupiters” —  massive balls […]

New York and Johannesburg – An international team of scientists from New York University, the University of the Witwatersrand and 15 other institutions announced today in the open access journal e-Life, the discovery of two-million-year-old fossil vertebrae from an extinct species of ancient human relative. The recovery of new lumbar vertebrae from the lower back of […]

A new therapeutic approach prevents the growth of metastatic tumors in mice by forcing cancer cells into a dormant state in which they are unable to proliferate. The study, published November 23 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), could lead to new treatments that prevent the recurrence or spread of various cancer types, including breast cancer and […]

The ocean’s dark depths hold many secrets. For more than three decades, the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute has been exploring the deep waters off the coast of central California. During an expedition aboard the R/V Western Flyer in 2019, MBARI remotely operated vehicle pilot Randy Prickett and scientist Steven Haddock made a peculiar observation. While exploring […]

“No human can calculate patterns from large databases in their head. If we want humans to make data-driven decisions, machine learning can help with that,” Cynthia Rudin explained regarding the opportunities that artificial intelligence (AI) presents for a wide range of issues, including criminal justice. On November 15th, Rudin, Duke professor of computer science and recipient of the […]

A new Northwestern University study on the effectiveness of COVID-19 boosters shows they generate a stronger antibody response than after a full two-dose vaccination. These are the first findings showing the antibody response to booster doses is much larger than the response after the second vaccine dose and even higher than the responses among people […]

Our galaxy is not alone. Swirling around the Milky Way are several smaller, dwarf galaxies — the biggest of which are the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, visible in the night sky of the Southern Hemisphere. During their dance around the Milky Way over billions of years, the Magellanic Clouds’ gravity has ripped from each […]

A recent virtual event that included prominent members of the Stanford University community focused on the racial profiling of scientists of Chinese descent and the negative impact such profiling is having on scientific research in the United States. The Committee of 100, a nonpartisan leadership organization of prominent Chinese Americans in business, government, academia and the arts, […]

Like a mirage on the horizon, an innovative process for converting a potent greenhouse gas into a food security solution has been stalled by economic uncertainty. Now, a first-of-its-kind Stanford University analysis evaluates the market potential of the approach, in which bacteria fed captured methane grow into protein-rich fishmeal. The study, published Nov. 22 in Nature […]

Researchers have visualised, for the first time, why perovskites – materials which could replace silicon in next-generation solar cells – are seemingly so tolerant of defects in their structure. The findings, led by researchers from the University of Cambridge, are published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology. We now much better understand the nanoscale landscape in these fascinating […]