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Wind-pollinated plants—including trees, grasses, and weeds—produce most of the pollen that affects seasonal allergy sufferers. Wind-pollinated plants produce great amounts of pollen grains that are very small in size. For example, one ragweed plant…

A newly identified coronavirus, provisionally termed 2019-nCoV (an acronym for 2019 novel coronavirus) and subsequently named "severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2" (SARS-CoV-2), emerged in central China in November 2019. The disease…

Two new studies offer insight into why infection with SARS-CoV-2—the coronavirus that causes COVID-19—often leads to loss of smell, as well as why some people experience debilitating symptoms months after infection—a condition known as long COVID.…

Among the non-human animals that can be infected with—and become sick from—humans who have the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 are deer, mink, hyenas, pigs, ferrets, dogs, cats, and primates such as rhesus macaque monkeys, baboons, and…

On January 15, 2022, in the South Pacific Kingdom of Tonga, the Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai submarine volcano violently exploded, sending ash 58 kilometers (36 miles) high into the mesosphere and triggering a tsunami with waves towering 15 m (49 ft)…

Food packaging prevents contamination and extends the shelf-life of food products, making food safe and available to the public. Common food-packaging materials include metals, glass, paper, and plastics. Of these, metals, glass, and recyclable…

To bolster food security in a warming world, engineers are developing a coating that could better protect seeds, such as beans, from drought in semiarid regions. The coating mimics a mucilage-based hydrogel produced naturally by some seeds, such as…

Bats are members of the order Chiroptera, which is the second-largest order of living mammals. The geographic distribution of these flying mammals is tremendous as well, ranging from the limit of trees in the Northern Hemisphere to the southern tips…

Although cats are the number one lethal threat to birds, collisions with building glass are not far behind. The number of birds killed each year by glass collisions worldwide is estimated to be in the billons. In the United States, the U.S. Fish &…

Genealogists and anthropologists have long disputed the provenance of domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris). Although genetic analyses and fossil evidence indicate that the domestic dog descended from the gray wolf (Canis lupus), the exact location…

Food waste occurs at all levels of the supply chain and beyond, from farm to table, for reasons ranging from spoilage to over-buying. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service defines food waste as “the edible amount of…

A serious outbreak of equine herpesvirus type 1 (EHV-1), an infectious viral disease, is currently spreading among horse populations in Europe. This outbreak was first detected in Valencia, Spain, in February 2021 during a month-long equestrian…

Many new-model electric vehicles (EVs) now have a driving range greater than 320 kilometers (200 miles). Consequently, range anxiety—the fear of running out of battery power before completing a trip or reaching a charging station—is becoming less…

The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest remnant of previous ice-age glaciations. Glaciers flow out from this ice sheet and feed into floating ice shelves along one-third of the Antarctic coastline. One of the largest ice shelves is the Filchner-Ronne…

In a breakthrough in the global fight against malaria, the World Health Organization (WHO) is recommending widespread administration of the first-ever malaria vaccine. This first-generation vaccine is intended for children considered to be at high…

Pasta comes in various sizes and shapes, ranging from long and flat (such as linguine and spaghetti) to short types in the shape of shells (conchiglie), corkscrews (fusilli), and many others. Shaped pastas contain a larger volume of air, resulting…

In recent years, researchers have made considerable progress toward producing renewable energy in the form of hydrogen fuel through the electrolysis of water. In the most basic electrolytic cell, an electric current drives a chemical reaction at two…

The Hudson River estuary in the United States experiences a tide from New York Harbor (river kilometer 0/river mile 0) to Troy, New York (river kilometer 244/river mile 152). In the lower 60 kilometers (37 miles) of the Hudson River, the water is…

Atmospheric ozone plays a critical role in the biosphere by absorbing harmful ultraviolet radiation in the stratosphere—the layer of the atmosphere about 10 to 50 km (6 to 30 mi) above Earth’s surface. Since the adoption of the Montreal Protocol in…

The diverse totality of microorganisms regularly found on and in the human body is collectively referred to as the human microbiota or microbial flora, with the largest microbial community in the body residing in the large intestine, or colon.…

In the future, will global demand for coffee outstrip supply? The International Coffee Organization thinks so, based on droughts in Central America, crop-destroying freezing weather in Brazil, and global climate change. In general, coffee is a very…

In many animals, including humans, the sense of smell performs an important threat-detection function by helping to identify potential sources of harm, such as rotting food and toxic fumes. Little is known, however, about the initial neural…

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to avoid the major impacts of climate change, such as deadly heat and decreased crop yields, will require limiting global warming to a maximum increase of 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius.…

Foams are materials composed of gas bubbles separated from one another by liquid or solid sheets. Plastic foams are solid foams in which the gas can be considered as a lightweight filler or extender of the plastic phase. One of the major…

Driven by global warming, sea level is rising. The extent of sea-level rise depends on how fast glaciers and ice sheets melt. According to the U.S. Interagency Sea Level Rise Taskforce, by the year 2100, global sea level will likely increase by at…

The Paris Agreement is a treaty signed by 196 member nations of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in an effort to reduce greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions, primarily of carbon dioxide and methane, thereby limiting the…

Peatlands, also known as bogs and fens, are a type of wetland in which, over the course of hundreds to thousands of years, vegetation—mosses, sedges, trees, and other plants—have accumulated as partially decomposed organic matter. Peat itself covers…

Forest fires are becoming more problematic across the globe. For example, climate change has extended fire season in the United States by about 80 days since 1970 because of extreme weather events, such as prolonged drought, according to the U.S.…

The field of vaccination has been enhanced significantly by the successful development of two approved vaccines based on messenger RNA (mRNA) technologies. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic that spread from China in 2019 to the rest of the world in…

On April 7, 2021, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that a genetic variant of SARS-CoV-2—the coronavirus that causes COVID-19—that was initially identified in the United Kingdom is the dominant form of the virus…

Scrap tires are a common waste material, although markets do exist. According to the U.S. Tire Manufacturers Association, of the roughly 270 million scrap rubber tires generated each year in this country, about 100 million tires are used as fuel;…

In response to the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic—which has dramatically affected the entire world, causing high morbidity, mortality, and massive social and economic disruption—and in addition to finding efficacious treatments for…

Researchers at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois, USA, have developed a virus catcher of sorts—that is, a sticky and absorbent surface coating that traps droplets and aerosols (microdroplets) that land on the coating. Most often, fine…

An investigation of 890-million-year-old limestone rocks excavated from the mountains of Canada's Northwest Territories has revealed possible evidence of the oldest animal life on Earth. Prior to this study, the oldest undisputed fossils of animal…

Scientists predict that Earth’s climate will continue changing, depending in large part on the additional amount of greenhouse gases that humans emit into the atmosphere, leading to negative consequences for life on Earth. To avoid the most harmful…

Ample evidence—from lake-, river-, and delta-like geological features to aqueous mineralogy—supports the inference that Mars once had vast quantities of water pooling and flowing across its surface. A longstanding question has centered around what…

Researchers at Purdue University in Indiana, United States, have developed the whitest white paint on record, based on its ultrahigh reflection rating. By incorporating a pigment called barium sulfate (BaSO4) at the highest concentration possible,…

Wildfires are a natural phenomenon in many ecosystems, including forests along the U.S. Pacific West Coast, as natural fires serve to rejuvenate ecological communities. However, from mid-August through mid-September 2020, forests in California,…

Using traditional welding methods, rocket engine nozzles and combustion chambers are some of the most difficult parts to fabricate, requiring up to a year to produce a single part. Now, however, the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration…

There is a growing body of evidence that many of the thousands of prescription and over-the-counter medications ultimately make their way into water bodies and drinking-water supplies. Typical wastewater treatment plants may not be effective at…

Microplastics are raining down on national parks and other protected areas in the western United States at the rate of about 132 pieces of microplastic per square meter every day, according to a report in the journal Science (June 2020).…

Although asphalt (also known as bitumen) is a naturally occurring substance found in deposits within the earth, it is also a by-product of petroleum processing. Almost all the bitumen used for asphalt pavement and roofs comes from petroleum refining…

Many questions concerning the sustainable production of biofuels have emerged over recent years in terms of land and water use, pollution from fertilizer and pest-control chemicals, greenhouse-gas production, net energy production, and whether…

Obscured by a hazy atmosphere 100 times thicker than Earth's, Venus is a notoriously difficult world to study. Ground temperatures on Venus exceed 450°C (842°F)—enough to melt lead and to have quickly degraded the Soviet robotic landers last placed…

Scientists have suggested a possible connection between ancient Neandertals (Homo neanderthalensis) and the severity of disease in patients affected by COVID-19. In short, certain genes acquired from Neandertals during instances of interbreeding…

The novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that emerged in central China in late 2019 and subsequently spread across the world in 2020 led to the COVID-19 pandemic. The emergence of a previously unknown pathogen—such as the novel coronavirus—that could affect…

The world’s oceans and coasts provide a natural sink for excess carbon in the atmosphere. Scientists refer to carbon that is captured and stored this way as blue carbon. Well-known blue-carbon examples include mangroves and salt marshes—wetland…

If you think converting seawater to fuels that can power ships is a fantasy, think again. Researchers at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., have, in fact, accomplished this feat. In addition, the U.S. Navy has received a patent…

Using an artificial intelligence technique known as deep learning and high-resolution remote sensing, scientists have counted and mapped the location of trees in 11,000 satellite images covering more than 1.3 million square kilometers (500,000…

During the past decade, the automotive industry has converted more than 50 percent of its internal combustion engines from a traditional technology called port fuel injection (PFI) to a new technology called gasoline direct injection (GDI). The…