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River and canal ships generate roughly a quarter of the world's shipping carbon dioxide emissions, according to new research published in Nature Climate Change. And that's despite the fact that these bodies of water make up less than 1% of Earth's total navigable waterways.
Aug 12, 2026
River and canal ships generate roughly a quarter of the world's shipping carbon dioxide emissions, according to new research published in Nature Climate Change. And that's despite the fact that these bodies of water make up less than 1% of Earth's total navigable waterways.
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From the American West to Europe, droughts are drying up rivers, fueling destructive fires and reshaping ecosystems. They are also changing the spread of infectious diseases, leading to surges in illnesses like cholera and West Nile virus around the world.
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Tropical forests store enormous amounts of carbon and harbor most of the world's terrestrial biodiversity, but scientists fear that increasingly severe droughts threaten their ability to survive and continue absorbing carbon from the atmosphere. A new study published in Nature offers unexpected hope, however, and shows that tropical trees may be more adaptable to drought than scientists had previously believed.
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Little red dots have puzzled astronomers since their discovery in James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) data from the universe's deep past. Their "powering engines" might resemble a newly discovered phenomenon dubbed a "black hole star"—an early, rapidly growing black hole wrapped in dense gas. This object, described in a study published today in Nature by researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) and international collaborators, may help explain how billion-solar-mass black holes formed so soon after the Big Bang.
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Much like an indecisive single person on a dating app, female treefrogs struggle to pick the most desirable mates when they have too many options to choose from. According to a new study published Aug. 12 in the journal iScience, when female Cope's gray treefrogs gather around ponds during mating season to listen to large groups of males chirping in noisy "choruses," they struggle to pick the most desirable male. The researchers call this phenomenon "choice overload," and it may affect the way species evolve over time.
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In a rare study of snakes as nest predators, scientists found nesting birds were loath to strike rattlesnakes even though they likely had no previous experience with vipers.
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The North Dakota Agricultural Weather Network—known as NDAWN—isn't just measuring precipitation amounts and temperatures across the state. It's also playing a role in developing tools for crop disease management.
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According to new research, viewers often dismiss, trivialize or even romanticize signs of cat distress during "play" interactions, raising concerns for cat welfare.
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Scientists at the Center for Molecular Medicine Cologne (CMMC) and the CECAD Cluster of Excellence on Aging Research have demonstrated in a biomedical study that ribosomes, the protein factories of our cells, face an unusually tough challenge when building large, membrane-embedded proteins. When protein synthesis fails, ribosomes recruit quality control factors to eliminate the resulting defective proteins.
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In the Arctic, weather plays a key role in determining how much ice covers the ocean. Arctic cyclones are one weather phenomenon with a significant influence, causing unusually warm and stormy conditions that typically lead to significant ice loss. These conditions last particularly long when several cyclones rapidly follow one another.
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Related coverage: Good news, false expectations? How people assess potential returns in the stock market Phys.org
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A study involving the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne demonstrates that not only retail investors but also financial professionals often assess potential stock market returns differently from what standard financial economics models predict. This is due to differing ideas about how company news affects future stock returns. The study, titled "Mental Models of the Stock Market," was published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics.
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An international team of astronomers led by the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics has identified three actively accreting supermassive black holes in the galaxy J0148-4214. Matter is falling into the black holes from accretion disks surrounding them.
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Related coverage: Three supermassive black holes discovered in a single galaxy for the first time Phys.org See more headlines & perspectives on Google News
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Quantum advantage refers to the point at which a quantum computer solves a clearly defined task faster or more efficiently than any classical computer—or makes it solvable in the first place. For many practical applications, this has not yet been demonstrated. Research therefore relies heavily on theoretical models and simulations to explore where and under what conditions such an advantage may realistically be achieved in the future.
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