The EU’s research programme Horizon Europe will receive an additional €100 million (£84 million) next year following negotiations over the bloc’s budget. The agreement will see support for the programme rise to €12.2 billion in 2022. Horizon Europe is the EU’s main mechanism for financing fundamental research and innovation across the continent. The programme, launched […]

An atom’s electrons are arranged in energy shells. Like concertgoers in an arena, each electron occupies a single chair and cannot drop to a lower tier if all its chairs are occupied. This fundamental property of atomic physics is known as the Pauli exclusion principle, and it explains the shell structure of atoms, the diversity […]

Bubbles are common in nature and can form when ocean waves break and when raindrops impact surfaces. When bubbles burst, they send tiny jets of water and other materials into the air. A new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign examines how the interplay between bubble surfaces and water that contains organic materials contributes […]

Could a tank of ice or hot water be a battery? Yes! If a battery is a device for storing energy, then storing hot or cold water to power a building’s heating or air-conditioning system is a different type of energy storage. Known as thermal energy storage, the technology has been around for a long time […]

Dr. Cathy Williams knew something wasn’t right. The veterinarian had felt off for weeks after her 2014 trip to Madagascar. At first she just felt bloated and uncomfortable and wasn’t interested in eating much. But eventually she developed a fever and chills that sent her to the emergency room. When tested, doctors found that what […]

In a new study, researchers examined the association between distressing and persistent psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) in youth and important risk factors for psychopathology. The researchers found that youth who indicate they have persistent, distressing PLEs show impairment in a variety of areas such as cognition and reported psychopathology, highlighting the long-term challenges these children may […]

Lung autopsy and plasma samples from people who died of COVID-19 have provided a clearer picture of how the SARS-CoV-2 virus spreads and damages lung tissue. Scientists at the National Institutes of Health and their collaborators say the information, published in Science Translational Medicine, could help predict severe and prolonged COVID-19 cases, particularly among high-risk people, and […]

In a viral infection, what’s the signal from the virus that alerts the immune system to produce protective neutralizing antibodies? That’s a big question that scientists seek to answer when trying to understand disease or develop drugs to treat or vaccinate against COVID-19 and other viruses. Wei Cheng “The answer to this question is not […]

Carbon dioxide (CO2), a product of burning fossil fuels and the most prevalent greenhouse gas, has the potential to be sustainably converted back into useful fuels. A promising route for turning CO2 emissions into a fuel feedstock is a process known as electrochemical reduction. But to be commercially viable, the process needs to be improved, to select […]

Russia sucessfully tested a direct-ascent anti-satellite missile on Monday, creating a debris field of more than 1,500 pieces of trackable orbital debris — space junk — whizzing around the planet. The crew aboard the International Space Station was ordered into their spacesuits to help them survive if one of the shards hit their home. The […]