New research by geoscientists shines a light on this hidden world from ridgetops to valley floors and shows how rainfall shapes the part of our planet that is just beyond where we can see.

Cancer scientists have combined 'liquid biopsy,' epigenetic alterations and machine learning to develop a blood test to detect and classify cancer at its earliest stages.

Slow-motion collisions of tectonic plates under the ocean drag about three times more water down into the deep Earth than previously estimated, according to a first-of-its-kind seismic study that spans the Mariana Trench.

Up to 15 million hectares of the Brazilian Amazon is at risk of losing its legal protection, according to a new study.

New supercomputer simulations by climate scientists have shown that climate change intensified the amount of rainfall in recent hurricanes such as Katrina, Irma, and Maria by 5 to 10 percent. They further found that if those hurricanes were to occur in a future world that is warmer than present, those storms would have even more rainfall and stronger winds.

In the most comprehensive study of its kind, biologists have found that tropical and subtropical forests across South America's Andes Mountains are responding to warming temperatures by migrating to higher, cooler elevations, but probably not quickly enough to avoid the loss of their biodiversity, functional collapse, or even extinction.

Scientists have uncovered a novel mechanism in plants that controls an important decision step in stomatal lineage to divide asymmetrically or to differentiate. This is a decisive step for the formation of stomata, tiny pores on the plant surface, produced by asymmetric cell division.

Researchers at Tokyo Tech have succeeded in constructing protein nanotubes from tiny scaffolds made by cross-linking of engineered protein crystals. The achievement could accelerate the development of artificial enzymes, nano-sized carriers and delivery systems for a host of biomedical and biotechnological applications.

For the first time astronomers have detected gravitational waves from a merged, hyper-massive neutron star.

The nearest single star to the Sun hosts an exoplanet at least 3.2 times as massive as Earth -- a so-called super-Earth. One of the largest observing campaigns to date using data from a world-wide array of telescopes has revealed this frozen, dimly lit world. The newly discovered planet is the second-closest known exoplanet to the Earth. Barnard's star is the fastest moving star in the night sky.

A potentially rocky super-Earth exoplanet orbits one of our closest stellar neighbors, Barnard’s star, only 6 light-years away. Barnard’s star is a low-mass red dwarf star located in the constellation Ophiuchus. At nearly 6 light-years away, the star is the next closest star to the Sun after the Alpha Centauri triple stellar system. “Barnard’s star [...]

A study led by Pennsylvania State University’s Dr. Asher Rosinger suggests that those who don’t feel well after a night of poor sleep may want to consider dehydration — not simply poor sleep — as a cause, and drink more water. “Short and long sleep duration are linked to reduced kidney function, but little research [...]

A research team discovers atomic-level processes which can provide new approaches to improving material properties.

Kerogen is a waxy, insoluble organic substance dispersed in sedimentary rocks and is the precursor of oil and gas. In a new study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, researchers from MIT and elsewhere have captured 3D images of kerogen’s internal structure, with a level of detail more than 50 times [...]

A new study has uncovered a major problem - a lack of graphene production standards has led to many cases of poor quality products from suppliers. Such practices can impede the progress of research that depend fundamentally on the use of high-quality graphene.

Scheduling and coordinating air traffic can be difficult, but taking the airlines' and passengers' delay costs into account can actually save airlines money and result in fewer delays, according to a new study.

Astronomers using data from ESA’s Gaia satellite have discovered a new dwarf satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The dwarf galaxy, named Antlia 2, is located roughly 130,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation Antlia. It has avoided detection until now thanks to its extremely low density as well as a perfectly-chosen hiding place — [...]

An international team of botanists has discovered and described two new species of the African palm genus Raphia from Cameroon and Gabon. Raphia is the most species-rich genus of African palms with 22 species currently recognized to date. One of the newly-discovered Raphia species, named R. zamiana, occurs in southern Cameroon (Central and South regions) [...]

Lifting weights for less than an hour a week may reduce your risk for a heart attack or stroke by 40 to 70 percent, according to a new study. Spending more than an hour in the weight room did not yield any additional benefit, the researchers found. The results show benefits of strength training are independent of running, walking or other aerobic activity.

The fifth-leading risk factor for mortality worldwide, air pollution presents a major heart health risk. A simple intervention could help people breathe easier at home.