Science

The percentage of adults suffering from diabetes across the world has doubled over the past three decades, the biggest rises coming in developing countries, a study said Wednesday.

The serious health condition affected around 14 percent of all adults worldwide in 2022, compared to seven percent in 1990, according to the new analysis in The Lancet journal.

Scientists say they have found the world's largest coral near the Pacific's Solomon Islands, announcing Thursday a major discovery "pulsing with life and colour".

The coral is so immense that researchers sailing the crystal waters of the Solomon archipelago initially thought they had stumbled across a hulking shipwreck.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) taunted Defense Department officials by declaring "the Earth is flat" at a hearing on unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAPs) and unidentified flying objects (UFOs).

During Wednesday's House Oversight Committee hearing, Boebert said she had been cautioned not to discuss the Defense Department's Immaculate Constellation program, which collects information about UAP encounters.

Anyone following the rhetoric around artificial intelligence in recent years has heard one version or another of the claim that AI is inevitable. Common themes are that AI is already here, it is indispensable, and people who are bearish on it harm themselves.

In the business world, AI advocates tell companies and workers that they will fall behind if they fail to integrate generative AI into their operations. In the sciences, AI advocates promise that AI will aid in curing hitherto intractable diseases.

Astrocytes — named for their star-like shape — are a type of brain cell as abundant as neurons in the central nervous system, but little is known about their role in brain health and disease.

Many neurological diseases are caused by or result in the loss of cells in the central nervous system. Some diseases are a result of the loss of specific cells, such as the loss of motor neurons in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), the loss of dopaminergic neurons in Parkinson’s disease and the loss of GABAergic neurons in Huntington’s disease.

Almost half of all warm-water species of coral are threatened with extinction -- and climate change is the chief culprit, a new report said on Wednesday.

The updated risk assessment from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) was announced at the COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan, which is being skipped by the leaders of many top polluting nations.

"We used to hate elephants a lot," Kenyan farmer Charity Mwangome says, pausing from her work under the shade of a baobab tree.

The bees humming in the background are part of the reason why her hatred has dimmed.

Covering your surfboard in bright lights sounds like an open invitation to great white sharks, but research released Tuesday by Australian scientists found it might actually stave off attacks.

Biologist Laura Ryan said the predator often attacked its prey from underneath, occasionally mistaking a surfer's silhouette for the outline of a seal.

Imagine a robot that can detect scents in the air and track down their sources as efficiently as a dog or a mouse. If realised, it could detect small wildfires in dense forests, find people buried in debris after an earthquake, or even hunt for truffles!

Our research team has brought this vision one step closer to reality, by creating a compact electronic nose capable of identifying odours within milliseconds.

Across the animal kingdom, birds are some of the most colourful creatures of all. But how did all the amazingly coloured different bird species arise?

Nearly all birds with bright red, orange, and yellow feathers or bills use a group of pigments called carotenoids to produce their colours. However, these animals can’t make carotenoids directly. They must acquire them through their diets from the plants they eat. Parrots are the exception to this rule, having evolved an entirely new way to make colourful pigments, called psittacofulvins.

The sight of a fireball streaking across the sky brings wonder and excitement to children and adults alike. It’s a reminder that Earth is part of a much larger and incredibly dynamic system.

Each year, roughly 17,000 of these fireballs not only enter Earth’s atmosphere, but survive the perilous journey to the surface. This gives scientists a valuable chance to study these rocky visitors from outer space.

There’s a certain allure to the notion that some of the world’s brightest stars burn out at the age of 27. The so-called 27 Club has captivated the public imagination for half a century. Its members include legendary musicians Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse. The idea is as seductive as it is tragic: a convergence of talent, fame and untimely death at a singular age.

But is there any truth to this phenomenon, or is it merely a story we tell ourselves and each other about fame and youth?

A day after U.S. voters elected climate-denying Republican Donald Trump in the presidential race, soon ushering in an administration that is sure to expand fossil fuel drilling, the European Union's Earth observation agency announced that 2024 is "virtually certain" to be the hottest year on record and to hit a worrying temperature milestone.

The year is expected to be the first on record in which the temperature is more than 1.5°C hotter than before the Industrial Revolution, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service (CCCS). The Paris climate agreement of 2015 urged countries to curb greenhouse gas emissions with the goal of limiting planetary heating to 1.5°C by the end of the century.