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Magnets for electric cars and wind turbines contain only a small amount of the rare earth metal dysprosium. Yet, this metal is responsible for a large share of the environmental impact and costs, according to research by environmental scientists Stellina Samuel, Robert Istrate and René Kleijn. The study is published in the journal Sustainable Production and Consumption.

Tracks left by some of the earliest complex animals are giving new insights into how they experienced the world. New research reveals how these creatures started to understand their surroundings, paving the way for animal life to spread across the planet.

Sometime between 5.5 and 5.6 million years ago, two shell crushers squared off in the languid currents of an ancient Florida river. The fossils they left behind, discovered by paleontologists at the Florida Museum of Natural History, reveal the identity of the combatants and the outcome of their encounter.

Two French astronauts are to blast into space next year, one of whom will stay on board the world's first commercial space station, under a new deal sealed between France and the U.S. company Vast.

How did life make the leap from single cells to coordinated, multicellular organisms? And how do genetically identical cells still perform a version of that feat every time an embryo begins to take shape?

Megalomaniacal leaders are fascinating. They exude boundless confidence, harbor sometimes excessive ambitions and make decisions that are often out of touch with reality.

Nearly 69 million people in the United States speak a language other than English at home, yet weather warnings have long been issued almost exclusively in English. A new study documents how the National Weather Service is using artificial intelligence to change that, developing a comprehensive translation program that delivers life-saving forecasts and alerts in Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese, Samoan, French and other languages.

Research into a common environmental germ that can cause severe infections in people and animals has raised concern that horses are starting to develop antibiotic resistance towards it. The University of the Sunshine Coast study examined the prevalence of the bug P. aeruginosa in Australian wild birds, native wildlife, livestock and domestic animals.

Bowhead whales have the greatest life span of any mammal on Earth. They can reach over 200 years in age thanks in part to their slow metabolism and cancer-suppressing genes.

Dozens of mathematicians signed a declaration Tuesday calling for the discipline to resist beating the drum for artificial intelligence developers.

Falcons are lauded for their speed and agility. The Eurasian Hobby (Falco subbuteo), skilled at snagging birds and insects out of the air, is no exception. However, during twilight on one day in October, researcher Apostolos Christopoulos observed several hobbies feeding on something else in a protected wetland in Greece—bats from the genus Pipistrellus.

Researchers have uncovered a key mechanism behind Japan's extreme winter weather, revealing how distant climate patterns interact to intensify cold waves and heavy snowfall.

New research has found that masturbation among bird species, including parrots, is natural, despite prevailing assumptions that it is a harmful behavior in response to environmental factors.

The astronauts circling Earth on the Artemis mission sent back beautiful clear photos of the continents, clouds, and oceans. But we might be the exception. Many planets in the universe may be hazed in clouds of soot, according to a new study by University of Chicago scientists. Their analysis explains a curious trend seen by astronomers training telescopes on distant planets beyond our own solar system. Many of these worlds had atmospheres that returned strangely featureless readings.

One of the dilemmas facing anyone in a new and unfamiliar city is where to dine out. You might consult guides, speak to locals, check reviews, and ultimately, try your luck. But if you're there for a while, at some point you're going to be asking yourself whether to visit new eateries or stick to the ones you've already tried and liked.

A collaborative study with the University of Cologne, recently published in Nature Communications, provides compelling evidence that the extreme aridity in the hyperarid core of the Atacama Desert began over 40 million years ago—significantly earlier than previously assumed. The findings require a reconsideration of how deserts form and offer a new perspective on the long-term evolution of Earth's most extreme environments. Researchers from SUERC Centre for the Isotope Sciences are co-authors of a study which casts new light on the history of Earth's driest region, the Atacama Desert in Chile.

As soil health becomes a defining goal of the EU Soil Strategy for 2030, researchers at Aarhus University are rethinking how we model what lives beneath our feet. Their new spatially explicit population model for the soil invertebrate Folsomia candida (springtails) marks a significant step beyond standard laboratory testing.

Genetics influences who of us are more likely to experience a relationship breakdown, and who are more likely to remain together. But genes are not decisive, new research shows. "Our destiny does not lie in our genes, but if a relationship were a jigsaw puzzle, our genetics would make up some of the pieces that can influence the risk of a breakup," says sociologist Ruth Eva Jørgensen.

The oldest cave art in Britain may have been discovered, or more likely rediscovered, in a cave on the Gower Peninsula in South Wales, possibly dating back around 17,000 years.

A team of Israeli scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem has developed a novel method to significantly lower the production costs of cultivated meat. The new study demonstrates that preloading plant-derived cellulose scaffolds with growth factors supports the cost-efficient proliferation and differentiation of bovine stem cells. By binding these vital proteins directly to an anisotropic, directionally frozen framework instead of dispersing them in liquid media, this method achieves high-quality tissue development using up to 10 times fewer expensive factors. Upon multi-week cultivation and subsequent pan-frying, the cell-bound constructs show partially similar mechanical and visual responses to traditional sirloin cuts.

If plants had never learned to grow in multiple directions, our world would look very different. No trees, flowers, or other complex plants—and therefore no animals or humans. New research from the University of Copenhagen now suggests that a specific protein in moss may have been crucial for this key step in plant evolution—a step that made life on land possible.

There is an 80% chance of the warming El Niño phenomenon developing between June and August, increasing the risk of extreme weather events, the World Meteorological Organization said Tuesday.

Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin said Tuesday that last week's rocket explosion spared fuel tanks and some other critical parts of the launch pad.

Wilting in the summer sun, a line of tourists waits to climb Notre Dame cathedral and meet its gargoyles.

Nonstructural disaster measures, including early warnings and evacuation systems, helped improve coastal resilience and reduce storm-surge impacts in Macau, report researchers at Science Tokyo. After analyzing the city's responses to three major typhoons, which included resident interviews, evaluations of early warning systems, evacuation procedures and other typhoon mitigation efforts, the study found that earlier issuance of typhoon warnings, color-coded storm-surge alerts and government-led evacuation guidance significantly improved public trust and reduced disaster impacts.

Stanford scientists have discovered a new type of immune cell that kills surrounding cells via explosion—a cellular detonation so fast and complete that the cell vanishes within minutes, leaving no trace behind. This discovery comes from an unlikely source: planarian flatworms. These aquatic, slithering pancake versions of worms are famous for their ability to survive dismemberment and grow whole new organisms from the sliced-up segments of their formerly unified body. Understanding how these flatworms' immune systems have managed to endure for hundreds of millions of years could hold important insights for modern medicine.

Researchers have developed a fish-like robot that shows how some species of modern fish are able to walk on land, and could help unravel how early vertebrates evolved similar abilities hundreds of millions of years ago.

Water deficit resistance in plants has long been a topic of interest for cultivating reliable crops. Some plants can alter their above-ground structure to lock in moisture, while others develop deep, industrious roots that find hard-to-reach water sources. While such responses are obvious to the naked eye, we know little about how responses to environmental stress occur at the microscopic, cellular level.

Balancing economic growth and environmental protection is not easy. Consider wetlands, which provide flood protection, aid water quality, and are linchpins of larger ecosystems. How can we best preserve wetlands while enhancing economic activity?

Numerical simulations in physics often require estimating a multitude of parameters, making the process computationally expensive and complex. Researchers at University of Tsukuba have introduced a new method called the multiparameter eigenvalue-problem emulator, enabling reliable predictions based directly on relationships among known data by eliminating the need for parameter estimation. This innovation considerably reduces computational costs and enables systematic quantification of predictive uncertainty.