In a finding with implications for the search for extraterrestrial life, researchers have discovered microbial life 13 feet below Earth's most inhospitable desert. The research is published in the journal PNAS Nexus ..read more

The beginning of life is shrouded in mystery. While the intricate dynamics of mitosis are well-studied in the so-called somatic cells—the cells that have a specialized function, like skin and muscle cells—they remain elusive in the first cells of our bodies, the embryonic cells. Embryonic mitosis is notoriously difficult to study in vertebrates, as live functional analyses and imaging of experimental embryos are technically limited, which makes it hard to track cells during embryogenesis ..read more

An international study, led by researchers from Monash University, has revealed crucial insights into black hole dynamics within massive disks at the centers of galaxies ..read more

An international team of archaeologists, paleontologists, evolutionists and geoscientists has analyzed ancient shark fossils from the time of the dinosaurs that were recently unearthed in Mexico. In their paper published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, the group describes the condition of the fossils and where they fit in the shark family ..read more

Despite huge advances in our understanding of COVID-19 over the past four years, the disease is still very much among us—and there remains a lot to learn ..read more

Unlike electrons, particles of light are uncharged, so they do not respond to magnetic fields. Despite this, researchers have now experimentally made light effectively "feel" a magnetic field within a complicated structure called a photonic crystal, which is made of silicon and glass ..read more

AMOLF researchers, in collaboration with Delft University of Technology, have succeeded in bringing light waves to a halt by deforming the two-dimensional photonic crystal that contains them. The researchers show that even a subtle deformation can have a substantial effect on photons in the crystal. This resembles the effect that a magnetic field has on electrons ..read more

As wildfires in Siberia become more common, global climate modeling estimates significant impacts on climate, air quality, health, and economies in East Asia and across the northern hemisphere ..read more

A new study, led by the University of Oxford and MIT, has recovered a 3.7-billion-year-old record of Earth's magnetic field, and found that it appears remarkably similar to the field surrounding Earth today. The findings have been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research ..read more

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