Plastic waste, amounting to 8 million tons annually, turns into microplastics(MPs) through constant exposure to UV rays and sea waves. These MPs are consumed by lower-level organisms such as plankton, posing a threat to humans at the top of the food chain. The research team conducted an experiment in which MPs of 2㎛ or less […]

A new report about migration, co-authored by MIT scholars, shows that economic distress is the main factor pushing migrants from Central America to the U.S. — and highlights the personal costs borne by people as they seek to move abroad. “The core issue is economics, at the end of the day, and this is where […]

By heating water far above its boiling point inside a closed flask, scientists can use it instead of an organic solvent to prepare a covalent organic framework (COF) material – a method they dubbed geomimetic hydrothermal synthesis because it recreates some of the extreme conditions deep under the Earth’s crust. COFs are synthesised by connecting […]

No one will disagree that an active lifestyle is good for you, but it remains unclear how physical activity improves brain health, particularly in Alzheimer’s disease. The benefits may come about through decreased immune cell activation, according to new research published in JNeurosci. Microglia, the brain’s resident immune cells, activate to clear debris and foreign invaders […]

Today, the two major political parties are often blamed for a plethora of problems in American governance. But for most of the last century and a half, political party competition has had positive effects on the welfare of Americans. That’s according to new research by Gerald Gamm, a professor of political science and history at the University […]

If you brush against the wings of a butterfly, you will likely come away with a fine sprinkling of powder. This lepidopteran dust is made up of tiny microscopic scales, hundreds of thousands of which paper a butterfly’s wings like shingles on a wafer-thin roof. The structure and arrangement of these scales give a butterfly […]

Quantum dots, discovered in the 1990s, have a wide range of applications and are perhaps best known for producing vivid colors in some high-end televisions. But for some potential uses, such as tracking biochemical pathways of a drug as it interacts with living cells, progress has been hampered by one seemingly uncontrollable characteristic: a tendency […]

Every 20 hours, an Australian child is born with cerebral palsy (CP), a neurodevelopmental disability that affects their motor movements, such as the ability to walk, run and maintain balance. A lifelong condition with no known cure, children with cerebral palsy can find it difficult to participate in sports and physical activities with their school peers, which […]

In an age of online restaurant reviews and product ratings, landing in first place on a “top 10” list can confer great benefits on the top-ranked option, magnifying the differences between it and all other choices and blinding people to important details that might otherwise affect their decision-making, according to research published by the American […]

A team of scientists has identified an additional force that likely contributed to a mass extinction event 250 million years ago. Its analysis of minerals in southern China indicate that volcano eruptions produced a “volcanic winter” that drastically lowered earth’s temperatures–a change that added to the environmental effects resulting from other phenomena at the time. […]