In the early morning of 22 May 2021‚ a magnitude 7.4 quake rattled China';s remote Maduo County on the Tibetan Plateau. It was the most recent in a series of nine earthquakes with a magnitude of 7 or greater since 1997‚ and its surface rupture was twice as long as the global average for similarly sized quakes. The tremor occurred on the eastern part of the relatively immature left-lateral Jiangcuo fault system‚ which slips slowly‚ about 1 millimeter per year‚ and was unmapped before the quake.

When astronomers looked at a stellar pair at the heart of a stunning cloud of gas and dust‚ they were in for a surprise. Star pairs are typically very similar‚ like twins‚ but in HD 148937‚ one star appears younger and‚ unlike the other‚ is magnetic.

Picture in your mind a traditional ";landline"; telephone with a coiled cord connecting the handset to the phone. The coiled telephone cord and the DNA double helix that stores the genetic material in every cell in the body have one thing in common; they both supercoil‚ or coil about themselves‚ and tangle in ways that can be difficult to undo. In the case of DNA‚ if this overwinding is not dealt with‚ essential processes such as copying DNA and cell division grind to a halt. Fortunately‚ cells have an ingenious solution to carefully regulate DNA supercoiling.

Soil carbon usually refers only to the organic matter component of soils‚ known as soil organic carbon (SOC). However‚ soil carbon also has an inorganic component‚ known as soil inorganic carbon (SIC). Solid SIC‚ often calcium carbonate‚ tends to accumulate more in arid regions with infertile soils‚ which has led many to believe it is not important.

For years‚ scientists have been intrigued by how molecules move across surfaces. The process is critical to numerous applications‚ including catalysis and the manufacturing of nanoscale devices.

Salt marsh restoration can mitigate flood risk and bolster community resilience to climate change in our local waterways‚ according to a recent study published in Scientific Reports by a postdoctoral fellow with UC Santa Cruz';s Center for Coastal Climate Resilience (CCCR).

Sport junkie or couch potato? Always on time or often late? The animal kingdom‚ too‚ is home to a range of personalities‚ each with its own lifestyle. In a study just released in the journal PLOS Biology‚ a team led by Sren Hfker and Kristin Tessmar-Raible from the Alfred Wegener Institute‚ Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and the University of Vienna reports on a surprising discovery: Even simple marine polychaete worms shape their day-to-day lives on the basis of highly individual rhythms.

A team from UNIGE‚ together with ETH Zurich and NCHU in Taiwan‚ has developed a rice line that has enhanced vitamin B1 content.

For more than 20 years‚ researchers have known that areas of birds'; brains dedicated to singing show neural patterns during sleep akin to the ones they use while awake and singing.

Adding one simple rule to an idealized game of billiards leads to a wealth of intriguing mathematical questions‚ as well as applications in the physics of living organisms. This week‚ researchers from the University of Amsterdam‚ including two masters'; students as first authorshave published a paper in Physical Review Letters about the fascinating dynamics of billiards with memory.