Phys.org

Since 1970, 73% of global wildlife has been lost, while the world's population has doubled to 8 billion. Research shows this isn't a coincidence but that population growth is causing a catastrophic decline in biodiversity.

Understanding randomness is crucial in many fields. From computer science and engineering to cryptography and weather forecasting, studying and interpreting randomness helps us simulate real-world phenomena, design algorithms and predict outcomes in uncertain situations.

A rare blanket of heavy snow fell on parts of northeastern Turkey on Friday as other parts of the country battled a growing number of wildfires.

While recent studies have shown climate change will cut crop production, there has been less research into its impacts on livestock.

For years, scientists have debated whether a giant thick ice shelf once covered the entire Arctic Ocean during the coldest ice ages. Now, a new study published in Science Advances challenges this idea as the research team found no evidence for the presence of a massive ~1km ice shelf. Instead, the Arctic Ocean appears to have been covered by seasonal sea ice—leaving open water and life-sustaining conditions even during the harshest periods of cold periods during the last 750,000 years.

Imagine the magnificent glaciers of Greenland, the eternal snow of the Tibetan high mountains, and the permanently ice-cold groundwater in Finland. As cold and beautiful as these are, for the structural biologist Kirill Kovalev, they are more importantly home to unusual molecules that could control brain cells' activity.

University of Sydney researchers have harnessed human-made lightning to develop a more efficient method of generating ammonia—one of the world's most important chemicals. Ammonia is also the main ingredient of fertilizers that account for almost half of all global food production.

By using a genetic technique developed at UT Southwestern Medical Center that forces cells to rid themselves of mitochondria, researchers are gaining new insights into the function of these critical organelles. Their findings, published in Cell, add to fundamental knowledge about the role of mitochondria in cells and evolution and could eventually lead to new treatments for patients with mitochondrial diseases such as Leigh syndrome and Kearns-Sayre syndrome, which can affect numerous organ systems.

The snow and ice accumulated last winter by Switzerland's glaciers has already melted away, a monitoring service said, with Friday marking the alarming second-earliest arrival on record of the tipping point known as glacier loss day.

Astronomers have revealed a nearby spiral galaxy in all its brilliant glory, shining in thousands of colors.