Tag: Science

What if a common herb found in the kitchen could help farmers grow healthier crops? As the global population grows and agriculture faces increasing environmental challenges, scientists are searching for innovative ways to improve crop productivity while reducing reliance on chemical inputs.

A research team led by Davoud Jafari at the University of Twente, in collaboration with the University of Pisa, has completed a series of parabolic flight experiments to investigate advanced smart surfaces under rapidly changing gravity conditions. Conducted aboard the Air Zero G aircraft operated by Novespace, the campaign integrated additive manufacturing, boiling heat transfer and electric field control into a single experimental platform as part of the #SmartSkin project.

Astronomers have employed the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) on the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to perform deep spectroscopic observations of a peculiar spiral galaxy known as W2246f. Results of the observational campaign, published May 27 on the pre-print server arXiv, offer new insights into how this galaxy evolved and shed more light on its nature.

One of the most important changes to New Zealand's environmental regulations in recent years came into force this week. Yet outside policy circles, the forestry sector and a handful of councils, few people are likely to have noticed.

Imagine a future where cancer treatment affects only the tumor, where eye injections are no longer required and brain surgeries don't result in large incisions or long recovery times. That's the future researchers at Michigan State University are working toward.

The Canadian government recently announced that it will lease a fleet of 10 firefighting aircraft and other support assets to be deployed for the 2026 wildfire season. The plan will see these 10 leased aircraft being managed by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Center deployed strategically across the country and made available to provinces as they face intense wildfires.

Large volcanic eruptions may have played a bigger role in triggering historical famines across China than previously understood, according to a new study that traced links between eruptions, climate disruption, and food shortages over more than four centuries.

Plenty of studies have linked exposure to nature to a wide variety of health benefits, from improved cognitive function to lower blood pressure to better mental health. Other research has found connections between the human microbiome and time spent outside. But an overlooked, understudied player in that connection is the assemblage of microbes found in the nose, or the nasal microbiome.

The surge in caravan and camper usage within Australia could place extra pressure on regional wastewater treatment systems because of the chemicals commonly used in caravan and camper toilet systems, according to new research from Flinders University. When people using caravans empty their toilet waste at roadside dumpsites, caravan parks and regional dump stations, the wastewater—which contains concentrated detergent, deodorizer and sanitizer chemicals—is transported to local wastewater treatment plants.

A spin qubit, in which quantum information is encoded in the spin state of an electron, is one of the most promising platforms for quantum computing. Spin qubits exhibit long coherence times and are compatible with advanced semiconductor manufacturing technologies. The leading implementation of spin qubits involves confined electrons inside quantum dots, a nanoscale semiconductor architecture that behaves like a controllable artificial atom. Recent advances have enabled high-fidelity operation of single- and two-qubit gates, exceeding the threshold required for certain surface code quantum error correction techniques.

Professor Jeremy Howick, University of Leicester, receiving the 2025 Professor Sir Paul Curran award from Lady Curran, at a celebration of authors’ work.

The Conversation invites academics across the UK and Ireland to write a poem inspired by climate change research.

The Conversation Prize is back in 2026.

The Conversation UK is delighted to announce that Professor Paul Boyle, Vice-Chancellor of Swansea University, will be the new Chair of its Board of Trustees.

December 16 marked 250 years since the writer’s birth – but at The Conversation, we have been celebrating all year.

There is a gap between the affection of graduates for universities and the relative scepticism of those that have not attended higher education.

Prototypes For Humanity brings in research talent from more than 800 universities around the world.

Prof Nishan Canagarajah, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Leicester, is to step down as Chair of The Conversation UK’s Board of Trustees.

Conferences that bring people of different backgrounds together and propose solutions are more likely to create change.

Podcast series from The Conversation where children ask academics questions wins gold at the British Podcast Awards.

Locally, mangroves can sometimes adapt to rising seas, but global trends look troubling.

Frequent impacts from asteroids and planetesimals in Earth’s earliest days shaped the planet’s crust and created environments that may have supported prebiotic chemistry, and possibly even early life.

New research has revealed that significant amounts of excess nitrogen in coastal waters are buried as oyster reefs grow and that some reefs trap more nitrogen than others.

With unique monsoon, mesoscale and submesoscale processes, the Indian Ocean offers critical insights and new challenges to achieving a full understanding of marine environments and the Earth system.

The Trump administration’s National Science Foundation (NSF) has begun dismantling the infrastructure of a $368 million deep-ocean observing program critical to monitoring marine ecosystems, global currents, marine heat waves, and more, according to a 21 May announcement.

In the fluxART project, scientists using eddy covariance to study atmospheric flux partnered with artists to help communicate the “breath of the biosphere.”

通过解析古老岩石中的磁信号，我们得以重新认识这块古大陆在埃迪卡拉纪时期的位置。

Authors and Editors reflect on the lasting impacts of their books in honor of the AGU Books Program’s 70th anniversary.

New data from Ol Doinyo Lengai in Tanzania suggest that carbon-rich volcanic activity could be responsible for the mysterious “hollows” observed on the surface of Mercury.

A new study shows that atmospheric rivers may be responsible for up to 90% of Antarctica’s annual precipitation.

From time to time, we announce housekeeping items that cover various changes in the Skeptical Science (SkS) web site. Today, it's an important one for all people who are posting comments on our articles: an update to the Comments Policy. Reasons for the Updates The Comments Policy is an important document at SkS: not only does it provide guidance for the behaviour of commenters, but it also provides guidance to the moderators on how to deal with comment threads that are starting to go off the rails. The moderation team strives to apply a reasonably uniform level of moderation, and the Comments Policy is the set of rules we follow. We have been discussing some updates internally over the past few weeks, and now it is time to have the changes go live. The changes have been prompted by a few recent comments that started to use AI to generate text. (W

Open access notables Historical Volcanic Eruptions Mitigated the Expected Rapid Arctic Sea Ice Decline Prior to 2000, Wang et al., Geophysical Research Letters Arctic sea ice has declined at sharply contrasting rates over the past four decades—modest before 2000 and rapid thereafter. Using observational and model evidence, we show that large tropical volcanic eruptions can trigger decade-long Arctic sea ice recoveries, and that without the 1982 El Chichón and 1991 Pinatubo eruptions, Arctic sea ice would have declined approximately 1.5 times faster before 2000. We further show a model's sensitivity to volcanic aerosol forcing scales with its sens

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler I’ve long been struck by how hard it is to predict the evolution of our energy system, even a few years in advance, never mind 25 or 30 years. I still remember the “peak oil” craze in the mid 2000s, when people were telling me the end of oil was nigh. It sounded convincing right up until it turned out to be wrong. In this post, let me show you how bad previous predictions have been for the electricity sector. evolution of our energy system in 6 charts Each plot below shows annual predictions of how a particular source of electricity will evolve as well as what actually happened. The data come from the Energ

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Do electric vehicles almost always have a lower carbon footprint than gasoline-powered cars? The EPA, IPCC, and many independent studies have found that electric vehicles have lower lifetime emissions than gas-powered vehicles in nearly all cases. “Lifetime” calculations include emissions released during EV manufacture, as well as the generation o

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Thanks to the transition from fossil fuels to clean technologies, what used to be considered the worst-case climate change scenario now appears to be outside the realm of plausibility, climate scientists said in a recent study. That study made headlines in May when President Donald Trump falsely claimed that climate scientists had admitted that their projections had been wrong, a claim akin to an anti-vaxxer gloating that the official end of the pandemic proved that COVID was never a problem. And the study contained sobering news: The best-case climate scenario is close to slipping out of reach, and a business-as-usual scenario is still a very dangerous one, with high risks of

A listing of 28 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, May 24, 2026 thru Sat, May 30, 2026. Stories we promoted this week, by category: Climate Change Impacts (7 articles) Malnourished Gray Whales of the Eastern North Pacific Are in `Serious Trouble` The population has plummeted over the past seven years as climate change triggers mass starvation in warming Arctic waters. Inside Climate News, By Blaine Harden, May 24, 2026. An Unusually Early Heat Wave Breaks Temp

Open access notables Climate Change Communication in the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Schäfer et al., Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews Climate Chang Artificial intelligence (AI), and especially generative AI (GenAI), is rapidly reshaping climate change communication (CCC). Once dominated by news coverage and public campaigns, CCC now extends across scientists, NGOs, corporations, journalists, influencers, and citizens—all increasingly encountering and adopting AI tools. This article provides a comprehensive review of scholarship on the nexus of AI and CCC, synthesizing insights scattered across disciplines from social and computer science, and inter

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Jeff Masters In brief: Scientists expect dramatic swings between active and inactive hurricane seasons in the future. The risk of back-to-back hurricanes is growing.  Hurricanes are expected to get more damaging and deadly.  Wild year-to-year swings — from punishing hyperactive seasons to quiet years with little activity — could well become the norm for future Atlantic hurricane seasons, according to recent climate change research.  The latest science paints a complex but alarming

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Zeke Hausfather, Glen Peters, and Piers Forster With the release of the new van Vuuren et al 2026 paper on the emissions scenarios that will be used in the upcoming IPCC 7th Assessment Report, the internet has been abuzz with debate over the implications of the formal retirement of the RCP8.5/SSP5-8.5 scenario. The president of the United States even weighed in over the weekend in his own unique style, posting that “the United Nations TOP Climate Committee just admitted that its own projections (RCP8.5) were WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!”. van Vuuren et al justify this move by noting

This is a re-post from And Then There's Physics If you’ve been paying attention to the climate debate on social media you might have noticed the RCP8.5 debate rearing it’s ugly head again. This is because a new set of emission/concentration projections have been developed for the climate modelling community (CMIP7). These new projections no longer include an RCP8.5-like projection and so all of those