A worker is still unaccounted for after a large fire and several explosions on 27 August severely damaged buildings at Leeson Polyurethanes plant in Leamington Spa, UK. As of 2 September, emergency services had not been able to access the site to investigate the cause or search for the missing man, as it is still […]

Zinc can have a +3 oxidation state, new theoretical research shows. The work challenges a fundamental concept of chemistry by showing that zinc’s core electrons can take part in chemical bonding. Until recently, zinc was thought to be limited to the +2 oxidation state due to its electron configuration being [Ar] 3d10 4s2. Now, scientists […]

As governments around the world turned to lockdowns and travel restrictions to prevent the spread of the Covid-19 virus, smugglers used social media to find new ways to connect with potential customers. Criminals can be resourceful and unrelenting in their efforts to find a way around obstacles. Wildlife traffickers are no exception. Today’s trade in […]

People who are antagonistic, exploitative and generally disagreeable are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, according to recent study from a University of Oregon researcher. Cameron Kay, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Psychology, found that people who possess personality traits known as the “Dark Tetrad” are more likely to believe Princess Diana’s death […]

A scorpion’s sting tip and the mandibles and fangs that ants and spiders use to puncture prey are made of special materials that form tips and sharp edges. These tools enable them to cut and penetrate things that the limited forces of their small muscles won’t otherwise allow. That knowledge won’t lessen the pain of […]

A new way of anchoring individual iridium atoms to the surface of a catalyst increased its efficiency in splitting water molecules to record levels, scientists from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University reported today. It was the first time this approach had been applied to the oxygen evolution reaction, or […]

In a letter to The New England Journal of Medicine, publishing online September 1, 2021, an interdisciplinary team of physicians and public health experts at University of California San Diego measured the effectiveness of COVID-19 mRNA vaccines among health workers at UC San Diego Health, most notably during the emergence of the highly transmissible delta […]

California bars kids from cannabis dispensaries and shields them from cannabis marketing, but those statewide restrictions aren’t working as well as policymakers had hoped. That’s according to a new study in JAMA Pediatrics that evaluates how these regulations designed to protect minors have held up five years after voters legalized cannabis. The study looked at 700 licensed […]

Trickling down over rocks, surrounded by wildflowers and ferns, Appalachian mountain streams are chock-full of life. They hold some of the world’s greatest diversity of freshwater animals, including many species that can’t be found anywhere else in the world. But this biological diversity is severely threatened by mountaintop coal mining, whose downstream pollution impacts many […]

A new USC study finds that a class of environmental pollutants known as “forever chemicals” may increase the risk of type 2 diabetes in Latino girls. The pollutants, called per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), are a group of man-made chemicals used across the United States in a wide range of industrial and consumer products, including cookware, […]