Antarctica's glaciers were changing long before satellites, weather stations or cameras captured their transformations, and they left behind clues. Along Marguerite Bay on the western Antarctic Peninsula, ridges of rocks and debris mark former glacier margins. For decades, scientists lacked direct evidence about when many of these ridges formed.
Since the production of graphene in 2004, two-dimensional materials have been sparking scientific and technological interest. As they are only a few atomic layers thick, or even just a single atomic layer, they can exhibit special electronic, magnetic or chemical properties—which make them particularly interesting for applications such as electronics, catalysis and energy storage.
University of Missouri researchers have created rice plants that resist bacterial blight, a devastating disease that threatens one of the world's most important food crops. The advance could help farmers in parts of Asia and Africa, where the disease can destroy harvests and threaten livelihoods.
Ancient genomes from coastal Ecuador reveal 1,500 years of genetic continuity in an understudied part of the ancient world. John Lindo and colleagues sequenced four genomes from individuals excavated at Salango on Ecuador's central coast, dating to around 2,300 years ago, 1,900 years ago and 740 years ago.
How did the human brain become so much larger than that of our closest evolutionary relatives? Part of the answer lies not in new genes, but in how humans and non-human apes use the genes they share. Using brain organoids grown from stem cells, an international team led by Prof. Mareike Albert at TUD Dresden University of Technology compared early brain development in humans, chimpanzees, and gorillas.
There is a problem in low Earth orbit, and it's growing. According to the European Space Agency, there are about 19,440 satellites on orbit, 3,540 of which are nonfunctioning and/or not emitting a signal to warn other spacecraft of their location. The need to service these sleepwalking satellites in space will only increase as more are launched.
In some group-living animals, individuals other than the parents help care for offspring. This breeding system, known as cooperative breeding, is thought to have evolved from monogamous family groups in which offspring remain in their natal group and engage in various cooperative behaviors, including helping to care for younger siblings. Cooperative breeding has been documented in mammals and birds.
A study analyzing the effects of climate change on vascular plants in the United States finds that the fate of individual plant species tends to be a regional phenomenon.
Making complex molecules often means joining smaller chemical building blocks together, a process facilitated by catalysts, compounds that make such reactions possible or speed them up without being consumed themselves. Many widely used reactions also require chemists to modify their starting molecules before joining them. These added chemical "handles" make the molecules reactive, but preparing them means extra steps and, often, additional waste.
New research from the University of Sydney expands the potential medicinal benefits of honey and propolis (the plant resin and beeswax mixture bees use to build their nests) produced by Australia's stingless bees. Building on earlier research, a study led by Ph.D. candidate Jasmin Li tested the honey and propolis against bacterial and fungal pathogens. The honey was active against all bacteria tested, including species that are a growing concern for antimicrobial resistance, such as hard-to-treat hospital bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae.
