The mighty king cobra — the world’s longest venomous snake — is actually four distinct species, scientists have confirmed in a new study. For 188 years, the king cobra has been represented by a single species, Ophiophagus hannah. But this widely distributed species shows huge differences in body coloration and other physical characteristics across different […]
In an Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) collision, interactions between a virtual photon emitted by the colliding electron can reveal the arrangement of quarks and gluons within a hadron—in this case a proton that is part of a larger nucleus. Credit: Tiffany Bowman / Brookhaven National Laboratory Nuclear physics theorists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) […]
The Enterprise Bridge passes over a section of Lake Oroville that was nearly dry on Sept. 30, 2014, in Oroville, California. Credit: Andrew Innerarity/California Department of Water Resources Higher temperatures caused by anthropogenic climate change made an ordinary drought into an exceptional drought that parched the American West from 2020–2022. A study by UCLA and […]
While it can’t be credited with winning the Los Angeles Dodgers their eighth World Series championship, baseball’s “magic mud” is the stuff of lore. Each Major League Baseball (MLB) team’s equipment manager applies it to every game ball. It improves the grip on the ball, can dull the shine on a new ball, and keep […]
by Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague) Protective effect of HelD against rifampicin. Credit: Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences (IOCB Prague) One of the main challenges of contemporary medicine is posed by the resistance of pathogens to antibiotics. An important […]
Early-careers researchers in China need highly sought-after grants to progress in their career.Credit: Xinhua/Shutterstock Scientists in many countries face intense competition for research funding, but the situation in China is particularly fierce, say researchers, especially for those in their early-career. To address this, one of the country’s largest funders of basic research, the National Natural […]
Astronomers have discovered one of the largest carbon-based molecules found in deep space, located within the Taurus molecular cloud, 430 light-years from Earth. The finding is significant because it provides further clues that might help solve a longstanding mystery in astrochemistry: Where does carbon, the building block of life, come from? The molecule, called pyrene, […]
Sardines collected during NOAA Fisheries 2023 Coastal Pelagic Species Survey. Genomic analysis later revealed that the catch contained both Pacific and Japanese sardine. The two species look so similar that they can be distinguished only through their DNA. Credit: Kelsey James/NOAA Fisheries When research scientist Gary Longo first saw the results of his genomic analysis […]
By Ben Goldfarb Photographs by Mette Lampcov The 28th question of the hardest exam I’d taken since college was a smudged footprint pressed lightly into damp sand. The track possessed four teardrop-shaped toes and a vaguely trapezoidal heel pad; one toe, third from the left, jutted above the others, like a human’s middle finger. I […]
By Alex Fox Correspondent Many penguin species huddle together in massive colonies, but pairs of yellow-eyed penguins go out of their way to be alone, nesting deep in New Zealand’s scrublands and forests out of sight of other penguins. When pairs reunite at the nest after one has been away fishing, they greet each other […]
