Spotlights

Living things and volcanic activity are an essential part of the Earth's ‘nitrogen cycle.’ Nitrogen makes up 78 per cent of the air we breathe, and it’s thought that most of it was initially trapped in the chunks of primordial rubble that formed the Earth. When they smashed together, they coalesced and their nitrogen content has been seeping out along the molten cracks in the planet’s crust ever since.

Nicotine is the main addictive ingredient of tobacco, nicotine is both a sedative and a stimulant. Cigarette smoke contains over 4000 different compounds When somebody smokes a cigarette his body is exposed to nicotine.

Light is a well-studied area and it’s not easy to make a transformative discovery in this field, but Irish scientists from Trinity College Dublin have done just that. They discovered a new form of light which is characterized by unique angular momentum.

Japanese drug maker Shionogi has announced that test results showed that the drug kills the flu virus in 24 hours. With one pill.

Roughly 65 million light-years away from Earth is a galaxy called NGC 1052-DF2 (DF2 for short). But DF2 may as well be called F-U, because that’s what it’s saying to scientists who thought they understood galaxies, dark matter, and really anything about our universe.

Searching for neutrinos may seem a theoretical exercise, but they hold the key to some of the most important questions in physics.

Tian Li and Liangbing Hu at the University of Maryland created 'Nanowood' a new material that could massively reduce waste and save the planet.

Internal bleeding still comes with a very high risk of fatality. One new "drug" uses magnetically-driven nanoparticles to both stop bleeding and reduce blood loss.

This hot blue star, which was located in a galaxy cluster, existed just 4.4 billion years after the Big Bang.

Yes. When you microwave a piece of chicken, energy from the microwaves causes the protein molecules to vibrate faster.

No one likes getting a shot, so it may come as good news that a team of researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas have created painless, biodegradable microneedles that can break off in the skin and dissolve to administer drugs.

Melanoma tumors can be very small, but as they grow deeper into the skin, they develop the ability to spread to other parts of the body.

Whoever said we use only 10% of your brain wasn't giving humans enough credit - we're way more effective than that!

Fortunately, science is now providing some answers on weight control. Just a decade ago, there weren’t enough scientific diet trials to allow doctors and dietitians to provide evidence-backed advice.

When potatoes are stored in a warm bright place, tubers indicate that they might be in a suitable growing location and prepare to sprout. Chlorophyll production increases, which slowly tints the peel, and eventually some of the flesh, green.

Scientists from Germany and Australia has managed to unveil the hitherto mysterious molecular process that allows a certain bacterium (Bacillus Cupriavidus metallidurans) to digest toxic metals and turn them into gold.

Researchers at the University of Illinois have announced an exciting finding — the discovery of a new form of matter: excitonium. This material is made up of a kind of boson, a composite particle that could allow the matter to act as a superfluid, superconductor, or even as an insulating electronic crystal.

Scientists have created a mutant enzyme that breaks down plastic drinks bottles – by accident. The breakthrough could help solve the global plastic pollution crisis by enabling for the first time the full recycling of bottles.