Nepal's tiger population has risen by roughly 20% in the past four years to an estimated 429, officials said Wednesday, a conservation milestone despite challenges from human-wildlife conflict.
Scientists have discovered a previously unknown law of geometry that explains why some growing surfaces, whether in nature or in engineered materials, suddenly stop being able to stay smooth and instead form dimples and folds. Until now, researchers believed they understood the geometric rules behind these shape changes, but this study reveals a new kind of "geometric frustration" that arises even when all the known rules are satisfied.
Hundreds of feet below Earth's surface, rocks and water teem with fungi and support complex ecosystems of tiny organisms, according to a University of Michigan study that finds fungi are far more abundant deep underground than researchers previously thought.
Shoppers would pay more for their weekly groceries if it meant improved welfare for farm animals, according to new research from the University of Reading.
Researchers at the Centre for Ecosystem Management (CEM), together with scientists from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Cornell University, Great Lakes Fishery Commission and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, have published a paper showing that ecosystems become more resilient to environmental change through "portfolio effects" operating across multiple levels of ecological organization.
A multidisciplinary study has uncovered a critical component in the formation of biofilms, the complex structures used by bacteria to colonize surfaces. The research may have implications for future infection treatments, including for people with cystic fibrosis.
Just over half of England has been declared to be in drought after "record-low rainfall and exceptionally high temperatures," the U.K. government said Wednesday.
Scientists have discovered a new way to determine how big an earthquake may become just seconds after it begins. In a new study published in Nature Communications, researchers from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and Cal Poly Humboldt used signals picked up by fiber-optic cables—the same ones that deliver high-speed internet—to accurately estimate when a moderate to large earthquake is underway using data from the first four seconds of seismic wave arrivals.
Comparing yourself with your partner is more common than you'd think. Psychologists even have a term for it: mate value discrepancy (MVD), which is the gap between how attractive, smart or successful each partner feels compared with the other.
Scientists have long wondered whether loud, human-caused noise interferes with wild animals' cognition—their ability to think and learn—by causing stress, distraction or making it harder for them to focus. The results of a novel study of eastern bluebirds conducted by a team of researchers at Penn State suggest that, at least in some cases, short-term noise doesn't affect them much.
