Science

To stop mice from eating seeds … make everything smell like seeds?

By digging up and eating sown wheat seeds, mice can have a huge impact on farmers' crops. In an eco-friendly effort to stop the rodents from doing so, scientists are now using wheat germ oil to make entire fields smell appetizing.

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Tiny holes key to making lightning-like energy from air, says study

As anyone who's ever seen a bolt of lightning knows, the air around us can be filled with an astonishing amount of energy. A new study shows a way to harvest this power using a perforated nanofilm that can be made from a vast variety of materials.

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Octopus-inspired ink can change color on demand

A new light-activated ink can change color on demand. It’s made up of colored microbeads that rise in response to different wavelengths of light to change a surface color, which could be useful for new displays or active camouflage systems.

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Feel like monitoring an erupting volcano? There’s a sensor for that

Monitoring extreme environments requires a sensor continues to work in high temperatures. Now, researchers have developed a piezoelectric sensor that operates reliably at the temperature of erupting mafic lava, the hottest type of lava on Earth.

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Edible CBD coating keeps fruit fresher for longer

It may be delicious and healthy, but fruit is frustratingly fickle, often going bad quickly in the fridge. Now, researchers in Thailand have developed an invisible, edible coating made with cannabidiol (CBD) that can preserve fruit for much longer.

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Sunlight-activated powder disinfects water in just 60 seconds

If you leave a clear bottle of water in the sunlight, the UV rays will kill any microbes in that water, making it drinkable … but it has to sit in the sun for at least six hours. A new sunlight-activated powder, however, does the job in one minute.

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Smooching and herpes inseparable for more than 4,000 years

A pair of researchers have delved into the ancient past, referring to Mesopotamian texts and paleogenomics to discover when romantic kissing was first practised and the pathogens that have followed the practice from then until now.

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Continue ReadingSmooching and herpes inseparable for more than 4,000 years

Smooching and herpes inseparable for more than 4,000 years

A pair of researchers have delved into the ancient past, referring to Mesopotamian texts and paleogenomics to discover when romantic kissing was first practised and the pathogens that have followed the practice from then until now.

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Continue ReadingSmooching and herpes inseparable for more than 4,000 years

Chlamydia cousin in Great Barrier Reef coral offers hope for bleaching

Scientists have found a bacteria related to the human chlamydia pathogen in the corals of Australia's Great Barrier Reef – and hope it could lead to game-changing probiotic treatments designed to slow down or reverse the process of coral bleaching.

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Continue ReadingChlamydia cousin in Great Barrier Reef coral offers hope for bleaching

Chlamydia cousin in Great Barrier Reef coral offers hope for bleaching

Scientists have found a bacteria related to the human chlamydia pathogen in the corals of Australia's Great Barrier Reef – and hope it could lead to game-changing probiotic treatments designed to slow down or reverse the process of coral bleaching.

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Continue ReadingChlamydia cousin in Great Barrier Reef coral offers hope for bleaching