SCIENCE

Peatlands are extremely effective at storing carbon, but an international study featuring a University of Queensland researcher has found climate change could stop that. The group investigated how peatlands — swamps and bogs with organic rich soils — have responded to climate variability between 850 BCE and 1850 CE. Associate …

For the 30 per cent of Canadians who live within 500 metres of a major roadway, a new study reveals that the type of vehicles rolling past their homes can matter more than total traffic volume in determining the amount of air pollution they breathe. A two-year U of T …

Scientists at Southwest Research Institute studied an unusual pair of asteroids and discovered that their existence points to an early planetary rearrangement in our solar system. These bodies, called Patroclus and Menoetius, are targets of NASA’s upcoming Lucy mission. They are around 70 miles wide and orbit around each other …

For every one-degree-Celsius increase in temperature, mountaintop species shift upslope 100 metres, shrinking their inhabited area and resulting in dramatic population declines, new research by University of British Columbia zoologists has found. The study — the first broad review of its kind — analyzed shifts in elevation range in 975 …

Humans have long been masters of dexterity, a skill that can largely be credited to the help of our eyes. Robots, meanwhile, are still catching up. Certainly there’s been some progress: for decades robots in controlled environments like assembly lines have been able to pick up the same object over …

One of the great puzzles of evolutional biology is what induced certain living creatures to abandon solitary existence in favor of living in collaborative societies, as seen in the case of ants and other social, colony-forming insects. A major characteristic of so-called eusocial species is the division of labor between …

Scientists from Waseda University, the National Defense Medical College, and the Japan Science and Technology Agency developed a new bioadhesive, wirelessly-powered light-emitting device which could better treat cancers in delicate organs. Conventional photodynamic therapy induces cancer cell death by using photosensitizing agents, which localize in tumors and activate with exposure …

Fuel cells hold promise as a clean, renewable source of energy. But keeping them dry has long been a challenge, as they produce water during the process of converting hydrogen and oxygen into electricity. Now University of British Columbia researchers say they may have found a solution: pre-treating the electrode …

Several new medicines have been found to be more effective than traditional ones used to treat multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB), according to a new international collaborative study led by Dr. Dick Menzies, senior scientist at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre (RI-MUHC) in Montreal. These findings precipitated a …

The cloud forests of Honduras can seem like an otherworldly place, where the trees are thick with life that takes in water straight from the air around it, and the soundscape is littered with the calls of animals singing back and forth. Otherworldly, yes, but scientists have found that the …

Writing in the current online issue of the journal Stem Cells and Development, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine describe development of a rapid, cost-effective method to create human cortical organoids directly from primary cells. Experimental studies of developing human brain function are limited. Research involving …

A team of scientists at the University of Wyoming has provided the first empirical evidence that ungulates (hooved mammals) must learn where and when to migrate, and that they maintain their seasonal migrations by passing cultural knowledge across generations. The results were reported today in Science. Biologists have long suspected …

Wind and solar farms are known to have local effects on heat, humidity and other factors that may be beneficial — or detrimental — to the regions in which they are situated. A new climate-modeling study finds that a massive wind and solar installation in the Sahara Desert and neighboring …

For the first time, a powerful “wind” of molecules has been detected in a galaxy located 12 billion light-years away. Probing a time when the universe was less than 10 percent of its current age, University of Texas at Austin astronomer Justin Spilker’s research sheds light on how the earliest …

Millennia ago, ancient farmers cleared land to plant wheat and maize, potatoes and squash. They flooded fields to grow rice. They began to raise livestock. And unknowingly, they may have been fundamentally altering the climate of Earth. A study published in the journal Scientific Reports provides new evidence that ancient …

Scientists have arrived at a key understanding about how cancers in individual patients spread, or metastasize, a study from the Stanford University School of Medicine and other collaborating institutions reports. The study found that mutations that drive cancer growth are common among metastases in a single patient. Most cancer-related deaths …

In major legislation passed at the end of August, California committed to creating a 100 percent carbon-free electricity grid — once again leading other nations, states, and cities in setting aggressive policies for slashing greenhouse gas emissions. Now, a study by MIT researchers provides guidelines for cost-effective and reliable ways …

Scientists from the University of Leicester have shed new light on why mass extinctions have occurred through history — and how this knowledge could help in predicting upcoming ecological catastrophes. The international team has investigated sudden ecological transitions throughout history, from mass mortality events in the far past to more …

Evidence from the teeth of Anglo Saxon children could help identify modern children most at risk from conditions such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease. Researchers from the University of Bradford found that analysis of milk teeth of children’s skeletons from a 10th Century site in Northamptonshire, England, gave a …

Semi-autonomous and autonomous machines and robots can become moral machines using annotated decision trees containing ethical assumptions or justifications for interactions with animals. Machine ethics is a young, dynamic discipline, which primarily targets people, not animals. However, it is important that animals are kept from harm when encountering these machines …