Phys.org

For centuries, people across South and Southeast Asia recorded religious teachings, literary works, legal regulations and scientific knowledge on palm leaves. Before they could be inscribed or written on, the leaves had to undergo extensive preparation, with processing techniques varying across regions and potentially leaving distinct material signatures.

The World Health Organization on Thursday told countries to do more to prevent lead exposure, with hundreds of millions of children affected worldwide.

When the first Polynesian settlers arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand some 750 years ago, they found an environment very different from the lands they left behind.

Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to break down the cause of a remarkable formation of radio waves they have nicknamed the "Treble Clef" because its distinct shape strongly resembles the musical symbol.

In 2024, a collaborative Penn venture introduced a more objective way for people to examine how different outlets cover the same events and ultimately decide how they perceive and use information shared in the media. The Media Bias Detector, conceived in Penn's Computational Social Science (CSS) Lab, a joint venture of Penn Engineering, the Annenberg School for Communication and the Wharton School, uses artificial intelligence to analyze news articles for characteristics including topic, tone, political lean, and the facts and people included in coverage.

It was perhaps fitting, in a twisted, only-in-America way.

Fireworks are an integral part of many celebrations and cultural events. With their pretty colors, spectacular sights and big bangs, fireworks are a popular attraction for many people.

When light hits a tiny defect embedded in a solid material like diamond or silicon carbide, it can kick the defect's electrons into an excited state. These spin defects have the potential to be used as stable, readable qubits for quantum technologies, for example, quantum sensing. But modeling the full physics of their energetics over time—a key step in developing spin defects into new technologies—is a challenging task.

They can't fly or swim, so why do their closest relatives appear on different continents? Grey Gustafson, an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, discovered through DNA sequencing that the ancestors of some of today's tiger beetles existed in South America and Africa before the two continents separated. What's more, North America's largest tiger beetles are related to these ancestral South American giant tiger beetles.

Where researchers go, their knowledge goes. And that shapes where innovation happens. "Recruiting researchers is one way institutions gain new knowledge and steer their research in particular directions," explains Vito D. P. Servedio, senior scientist at CSH.

A round hole in the shoulder blade (scapula) of a Neanderthal whose partial remains were unearthed in a cave in Iraqi Kurdistan may be the earliest known example of lethal interpersonal violence with a wooden spear in the hominin fossil record.

The latest Healthy NDC Scorecard, published by the Global Climate and Health Alliance, finds that, Colombia integrates health most deeply into its national climate plan, closely followed by Nigeria and Cambodia. Conversely, the climate commitments of the governments of Japan, New Zealand and India fail to adequately consider health, while high-emitting economies, including EU members, China, Brazil and the U.K., refer to health in their national climate plans but do not match this with the ambitious emissions reduction targets required to protect health.

A study of more than 6,000 people in the U.K. and Sweden suggests that although scientists are generally regarded as credible, their status as experts is more contested when they discuss issues such as health, education and employment.

Blood clots that develop after spinal surgery can lead to serious complications. When blood accumulates around the spinal cord, it may increase pressure on surrounding nerves, potentially causing severe pain, muscle weakness or even paralysis. Early detection and timely treatment are therefore essential. However, continuously monitoring these complications remains challenging, and conventional treatments may require additional surgery.

A research team led by Dr. Lorenzo Marchetti of the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin described the earliest archosauriform footprints (Pachychirotherium gardenaensis) from the GEOPARC Bletterbach—UNESCO World Heritage Dolomites, Italy.

Researchers from the Bazaruto Center for Scientific Studies (BCSS) Ocean Observatory have documented ancient forests that grew on the Mozambican coast thousands of years ago and have been found beneath the sea, where they now serve as hotspots teeming with marine life similar in biodiversity to coral reefs.

Even when we are silent, we often talk to ourselves in our heads, using words to guide our thoughts and actions. This "inner speech" is thought to be involved in thinking and self-control.

Vegan honey alternatives could be engineered to have antimicrobial properties similar to those of prized mānuka honey from New Zealand, according to research at Aston University.

A major international study of the role cortisol plays in reproduction has found it may not be the villain it has been depicted as, and it may actually promote healthy reproduction.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) is increasingly being investigated by forensic scientists as a tool to help solve criminal cases that lack biological traces—and attention is also turning to collecting trace airborne eDNA left behind by intruders in residential burglaries.