In ecology, the principle holds that the more diverse and heterogeneous a habitat is, the more different species it supports. To promote species diversity in forests, clearings are therefore created for nature conservation purposes, or deadwood is deliberately left in place. For many species, such as birds, bats and beetles, this structural diversity is indeed beneficial.
Australia's Great Southern Reef is built not by coral but by seaweed. The seaweed forests on these rocky reefs stretch more than 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) around southern Australia.
Researchers in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Texas Tech University recently used audio to represent the spectacular explosion of a star in deep space while also delving into the data to better understand how the phenomenon unfolded.
It's an understatement that educators worry about students using AI to offload the cognitive struggle that is critical for learning. That worry is well founded.
Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have developed a new way to use molecules as tiny data storage devices with a new manganese-based material. Until now, this was possible only with iron-containing molecular materials, which require very low temperatures—ranging from 100 to a maximum of 130 Kelvin (minus 173 to minus 143°C)—making their application significantly more difficult.
The first findings from a major survey of more than 800 young people ages 11–17 about social media were revealed to local schoolchildren today by psychology researchers at an event on the University of Kent's Canterbury campus. Dr. Lindsey Cameron and Dr. Katie Goodbun launched The Alternative Consultation following the success of another project, The Social Experiment, in which pupils in Kent secondary schools had the opportunity to swap their smartphones for a "brick" phone for a week and reflect on how they felt.
Researchers at the University of Hong Kong (HKU) have uncovered a critical, underrecognized trade-off in global environmental policies: While essential for improving public health, large-scale air pollution reductions are unintentionally intensifying warm-season surface urban heat islands (UHI) in humid climates. Published in Nature Cities, the findings highlight the urgent need for integrated policies that address both air quality and urban heat adaptation, particularly in rapidly urbanizing, humid regions.
New research led by the University of New England's Dr. Timothy Chapman has uncovered the trigger behind slow earthquakes, providing valuable answers for those living in disaster-prone areas. The research has been published in Geology.
A new study has revealed an unexpected link between solar storms and the flux of high-energy cosmic rays arriving at Earth. The findings, made using one of the world's largest cosmic ray detectors, could open up a new way to probe the magnetic structures inside solar storms—and potentially improve our ability to forecast their effects on Earth. The research has been published in Physical Review Letters.
Trauma from vehicle collisions caused the majority of documented deaths for the Pueo (Hawaiian short-eared owl), according to a statewide study led by researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. The findings represent the most extensive mortality assessment to date for this culturally significant raptor, which is native to the Hawaiian Islands.
