An international team of scientists, led by the Helmholtz Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), have found a new compound of plutonium with an unexpected, pentavalent oxidation state. This new phase of plutonium is solid and stable, and may be a transient phase in radioactive waste repositories. The results are published this week in Angewandte Chemie as a Very Important Paper (VIP).

Astronomers have discovered intriguing evidence that an asteroid break-up blanketed Earth with dust millions of years ago. The event dramatically cooled the planet and triggered an ice age that was followed by major increases in numbers of new animal species.

It's another reason to quit

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Astronomers have discovered the oldest cluster of galaxies ever seen, which dates to the early universe. The discovery, which could help explain the shape of the modern cosmos, reveals 12 galaxies that existed in a clump 13 billion years ago — just about 700 million years after the Big Bang. We can see them now because they're so far away in the expanding universe (13 billion light-years) that their starlight is only now reaching Earth. One of the galaxies, a mammoth named Himiko after a...

Astronomers say this type of cosmic event happens once every 10,000 to 100,000 years.

Brain-computer interface technology is moving fast and Silicon Valley is moving in. Will we all soon be typing with our minds?

For six days a week and nine hours a day, the victims were forced to hand out Pixie sticks and religious literature in exchange for donations, all of which they turned over to the church, prosecutors say. Then, they were locked inside their homes.

The idea that giving up meat could help prevent climate change is gaining traction in American media. "Want to Save the Planet? Go Vegan Study Says," a Newsweek headline last year. The study, published in Science, found that "moving from current diets to a diet that excludes animal products has transformative potential," including the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from food production by half.

The relentless march of time will eventually claim all of our lives — or at least that’s the reality we’ve all come to expect. Short of finding the mythical Fountain of Youth, there’s not much any of us can do about getting older, but new drug trials suggest that might eventually change, and the results have shocked even the scientists who were conducting the experiments.

Nearly three-quarters of Americans see weather disasters, like Hurricane Dorian, worsening and most of them blame global warming to some extent, a new poll finds. And scientists say they’re right. The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research survey shows 72 percent of Americans think catastrophic weather is more severe, while 4 percent see it as less nasty. About one-quarter say those disasters are about as extreme as they always were.

Human trials of new antimalarial drugs are in the pipeline after Kenyan scientists successfully used bacteria to kill the parasite that causes the disease. The Kenya Medical Research Institute (Kemri) and global health partners say the breakthrough could potentially lead to the development of a new class of drugs in less than two years.

The US is scrapping a ban on energy-inefficient light bulbs which was due to come in at the beginning of 2020. The rule would have prohibited the sale of bulbs that do not reach a standard of efficiency, and could have seen an end to incandescent bulbs.

Major companies such as AMC and Regal Theatres reportedly aren’t screening "The Irishman," continuing a standoff with the streaming-service behemoth.

The Swiss government announced on Wednesday (28 August) that it will cut its greenhouse gas emissions to a net-zero level by 2050, taking heed of a landmark UN report on climate change.

Researchers in South Korea the gene-editing technology CRISPR-Cas9 to inhibit the gene FABP4 in white adipose tissue. When they tried it in mice, the animals lost 20% of their body weight and showed reductions in inflammation and insulin resistance.

In a rented room in a church in an upmarket Toronto suburb, Hasina Lookman is running through various stock market indices at a rapid clip. “Tell me about volume,” she asks, then follows up with an explanation of market capitalisation. Her listeners, clearly engaged, appear eager to weigh-in on what might cause a stock’s value to fluctuate.

The Earth Alliance environmental foundation, backed by Hollywood actor Leonardo DiCaprio, has pledged more than $7 million in aid to help repair the fire-ravaged Amazon.