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Pocked with craters, the surfaces of many celestial bodies in our solar system provide clear evidence of a 4.6-billion-year battering by meteoroids and other space debris. But on some worlds, including the giant asteroid Vesta that NASA's Dawn mission explored, the surfaces also contain deep channels, or gullies, whose origins are not fully understood.

Researchers at Rice University have made a meaningful advance in the simulation of molecular electron transfer—a fundamental process underpinning countless physical, chemical and biological processes. The study, published in Science Advances, details the use of a trapped-ion quantum simulator to model electron transfer dynamics with unprecedented tunability, unlocking new opportunities for scientific exploration in fields ranging from molecular electronics to photosynthesis.

A team of materials scientists and chemists at ETH Zürich has developed a way to make "living" ceramics that can detect small amounts of formaldehyde and capture carbon dioxide from the air. In their project, reported in the journal Advanced Materials, the group developed a multi-step process that allows bacteria to grow in a ceramic material.

Researchers have developed a new way of understanding international relations by analyzing almost 200 years of alliances, hostilities and neutrality between countries.

Local governments in developing countries are crucial for providing public services that promote human development and address challenges like extreme weather, unemployment and crumbling infrastructure. Yet, they often face difficulties in implementing cost-effective programs that meet citizens' diverse needs, particularly in areas with significant socioeconomic inequalities.

A breakthrough in understanding how a single-cell parasite makes ergosterol (its version of cholesterol) could lead to more effective drugs for human leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease that afflicts about 1 million people and kills about 30,000 people around the world every year.

Land use and land cover (LULC) analysis has become increasingly significant in environmental studies due to its direct impact on the environment. Changes in LULC affect the ecological and climatic balance, in addition to increasing the terrain's susceptibility to hazardous phenomena.

Monitoring electrical signals in biological systems helps scientists understand how cells communicate, which can aid in the diagnosis and treatment of conditions like arrhythmia and Alzheimer's.

New research published in Science Advances reveals that right whales can survive for more than 130 years—almost twice as long as previously understood.

Throughout human evolution, body and facial hair have notably diminished, yet eyelashes have remained a distinguishing feature. The physiological or functional purpose of eyelashes—traditionally thought to be for catching dust or filtering air—has long been debated.

Dubai has many images. Being a hub for international research probably isn’t one, yet

What Universal Impact has learnt from a year of producing the Research Reach Roundup newsletter

The latest Independent Social Research Foundation conference heard how refugees have died after becoming trapped at the border between Poland and Belarus

Alfred Hermida: ‘The scholars who write for The Conversation are taking on journalistic practices, guided and mentored by our team of professional journalists’

The Conversation UK, Curtis Brown and Faber are pleased to announce our three judges for The Conversation Prize for writers: Miriam Frankel, senior science editor at The Conversation UK, Priya Atwal, historian…

The 3MT® competition was sponsored by The Conversation’s Universal Impact subsidiary

Our articles are about 4,000 words in length, and have a distinct storytelling style with rounded characters and compelling narrative arcs.

Are you an academic keen to develop a writing career? Do you have a book idea that has the potential to be a nonfiction bestseller? The Conversation Insights, in partnership with talent agency The Curtis…

Getting into a taxi with a stranger at 11pm could be an awkward experience. The Conversation makes things easier though.

A new series delves into the big questions surrounding the nature of our universe.

A planetary collision 1,800 light-years away birthed a body that has cooled in unexpected ways.

The first analysis of extreme calving events in Antarctica finds no correlation with climate change, highlighting the significance of common, smaller calving events for ice loss and instability.

Thirty-seven years of observations reveal the meteorological conditions that lead to persistent, thick fast ice in Antarctica.

A lengthening observational record is being used to test predictions and improve understanding of the mechanisms behind changing circulation.

Reservoirs of magma and fluids in the crust create gravity anomalies detectable by altimetry, which can help find submarine volcanoes and provide key insights into their depth, shape and volume.

Free surface reflection and fault geometric asperities can excite backward propagation in the form of an interface wave or high-order re-rupture.

Iceland’s recent basalt eruptions originated at the crust-mantle boundary and show chemical variability over remarkably short timescales of weeks, suggesting exchanges between diverse magma sources.

Around the surface rupture of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, a new study documents an anti-correlation between pre-existing fracture damage and earthquake slip – implying that damage inhibited slip.

Economic geology, mining, and mineral resources programs are working to meet the needs of an industry that’s struggling to find employees—at a time when some say they’re needed more than ever.

Surging demand for lithium and other elements is redefining the relationship between the geosciences and the mining industry.

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park from the Gigafact team in collaboration with members from our team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Are we heading into an ‘ice age’? The planet has been getting warmer since the Industrial Revolution, not colder. Historically, ice ages have followed changes in the Earth’s relationship to the sun. Natural cycles affect the tilt of

Open access notables An intensification of surface Earth’s energy imbalance since the late 20th century, Li et al., Communications Earth & Environment: Tracking the energy balance of the Earth system is a key method for studying the contribution of human activities to climate change. However, accurately estimating the surface energy balance has long been a challenge, primarily due to uncertainties that dwarf the energy flux changes induced and a lack of precise observational data at the surface. We have employed the Bayesian Model Averaging (BMA) method, integrating it with recent developments in surface solar radiation ob

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections by Bob Henson In this aerial view, fingers of meltwater flow from the melting Isunnguata Sermia glacier descending from the Greenland Ice Sheet on July 11, 2024, near Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. According to the Programme for Monitoring of the Greenland Ice Sheet (PROMICE), the Greenland Ice Sheet has been losing mass continuously since 1996, with an accumulated loss since 1986 approaching 6,000 metric gigatons, or 6 trillion

A listing of 23 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 8, 2024 thru Sat, December 14, 2024. Listing by Category Like last week's summary this one contains the list of articles twice: based on categories and based on publication date. Please feel free to let us know in the comments - if you haven't already - which one you prefer. Checking if we assigned the (most) relevant category is also appreciated. Thanks for your help with this! Climate change impacts New York Isn`t Ready to Fight More Wildfires  New York could see more frequent and destructive blazes, but the state doesn’t have enough forest rangers and firefighters

Open access notables: Regional Impacts Poorly Constrained by Climate Sensitivity, Swaminathan et al., Earth's Future: Climate risk assessments must account for a wide range of possible futures, so scientists often use simulations made by numerous global climate models to explore potential changes in regional climates and their impacts. Some of the latest-generation models have high effective climate sensitivities (EffCS). It has been argued these “hot” models are unrealistic and should therefore be excluded from analyses of climate change impacts. Whether this would improve regional impact assessments, or make them worse, is unclear. Here we show there is no uni

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink As I noted a few months back, despite the end of El Niño conditions in May, global temperatures have remained worryingly elevated. This raises the question of whether this reflects unusual El Niño behavior, or a more persistent change in the underlying climate forcings or feedbacks. At the time I did a fairly basic analysis comparing the current 2023/2024 El Niño event to the two other recent strong El Niño events – those in 1997/1998 and 2015/2016. However, an “N” of two does not tell us all that much, and the approach was overly simplified in not actually accounting for differing El Niño timing or accurately normalizing for the warming between El N

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections Climate pollution caused by burning fossil fuels hit a record 37.4 billion metric tons in 2024, marking a 0.8% rise from the previous year – and dashing hopes that a peak in global emissions might occur thi

A listing of 24 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, December 1, 2024 thru Sat, December 7, 2024. Alternative listing prototype Instead of a "Story of the Week" we added a listing by assigned category, so this installment will have the same list of articles twice, first by category and then by publication date. Please let us know in the comments which format you prefer, if the manually assigned categories actually fit the articles and if additional categories might make sense without getting too fine grained. To keep things simple, an article can only be assigned to one category. Climate change impacts Doomsday Glacier collapse! Time for MORE human intervention??   by Dave Borlace, "Just have a

In March, John Cook met with Adam Ford from Science, Technology & the Future to talk about his work researching misinformation and how to counter it. The interview - published on October 10 - explored the complex and evolving landscape of climate misinformation, covering a range of topics including the different types of misinformation, the role of social media and AI in spreading and combating it, the psychological barriers that prevent people from accepting climate science, and the importance of communicating effectively about climate change. Key takeaways include: The nature of climate misinformation: Misinformation takes many forms, including outright denial of climate science, attacks on climate scientists and solutions, and promotion of conspiracy theories. It is often emotionally driven and tailored to specific audiences. The role of social media and AI:

Open access notables Global emergence of regional heatwave hotspots outpaces climate model simulations, Kornhuber et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: Multiple recent record-shattering weather events raise questions about the adequacy of climate models to effectively predict and prepare for unprecedented climate impacts on human life, infrastructure, and ecosystems. He