A three-year study led by researchers found that offering frozen fruit smoothies during lunch increased the amount of fruit students selected and consumed while sharply reducing waste. The work also showed something broader: Asking adolescents what they want — and involving them in designing a solution — can change their food choices.

The University of Texas at Dallas is introducing a new bachelor’s degree in materials science and engineering, giving students the opportunity to build expertise across disciplines and specialize in areas such as microelectronics and energy.

Researchers behind an app designed to support people after skin cancer treatment are inviting former early-stage melanoma patients to take part in its final evaluation tests.

On 26 August 2026, the Polarstern achieved an impressive milestone: the German research icebreaker has covered a full two million nautical miles since it entered service on 9 December 1982. Of course, the ship’s crew of around 40 people is always on board, ensuring reliable operations at all times. Up to 55 researchers, working in international teams, investigate processes ranging from the seabed through the water column and all the way through to sea ice and up to the atmosphere.

Thirty-five years on — well, 12 million technically — Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park continues to offer up important glimpses of prehistoric life in Nebraska. Consider, for example, Borophaginae, known commonly as bone-crushing dogs. In recent years, researchers have found footprints believed to be from these carnivores amid the ash at the site and tooth marks that seem to match the dogs’ teeth in the bones of rhinos, horses and camels that died in the ash.

Once on the brink of extinction, the scimitar-horned oryx is making a comeback in the savannahs of Africa—and University of Maryland scientists are waiting to see if this new generation of animals still remembers its wild instincts.

The manipulation of a ferromagnet’s magnetization by circularly polarized light is traditionally explained by an effective magnetic field aligned with the light wavevector. Researchers at AIMR studying cobalt-platinum alloy films found a substantial, previously unreported torque that this picture cannot account for—one driven instead by electrons’ orbital angular momentum, coupled to magnetization through spin-orbit interaction.

By comparing dinosaur teeth with those of living animals, scientists can uncover clues about diet, feeding adaptations and evolution. Takafumi Kato, a professor of dinosaur paleontology at Okayama University of Science, explains how features such as serrations, wear patterns and dental batteries reveal how dinosaurs processed food. Similarities between the teeth of herbivorous dinosaurs and modern mammals also offer a striking example of convergent evolution, showing how unrelated animals can develop similar structures when adapting to perform the same function.