Coming soon: Oil spill-mapping swarms of flying drones

Inspired by bird and insect behavior, engineers create software to enable teams of common UAVs to work together

Thousands of ants converge to follow the most direct path from their colony to their food and back. A swarm of inexpensive, unmanned drones quickly map an offshore oil spill.

What's The Leading Cause Of Wildfires In The U.S.? Humans

Wildfires can start when lightning strikes or when someone fails to put out a campfire. New research shows that people start a lot more fires than lightning does — so much so that people are drastically altering wildfire in America.

Forests to play major role in meeting Paris climate targets

Forests are set to play a major role in meeting the objectives of the Paris Climate Agreement - however, accurately monitoring progress toward the 'below 2°C' target requires a consistent approach to measuring the impact of forests on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.

In a paper published in the journal, Nature Climate Change: Key role of forests in meeting climate targets but science needed for credible mitigation, scientists are calling for robust, transparent and credible data to track the real mitigation potential of forests.

New polymer additive could revolutionize plastics recycling

When Geoffrey Coates, a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University, gives a talk about plastics and recycling, he usually opens with this question: What percentage of the 78 million tons of plastic used for packaging – for example, a 2-liter bottle or a take-out food container – actually gets recycled and re-used in a similar way?

The answer, just 2 percent. Sadly, nearly a third is leaked into the environment, around 14 percent is used in incineration and/or energy recovery, and a whopping 40 percent winds up in landfills.

Who's Getting Sunburned? Survey Finds Risk is Greater for Young Adults with Melanin-Rich Skin

The Journal of the American Osteopathic Association Study Highlights Need for Effective Sunburn Prevention Programs

No, Cellphones Don't Cause Cancer. Probably

The tin foil hat, while fashionable, is an ineffective way of keeping the government’s radio waves from infiltrating and manipulating your mind. In fact, the hat may boost certain radio frequencies, which is OK because there’s no such thing as mind-controlling waves anyway.

Tracking the Movement of Cyborg Cockroaches

New research from North Carolina State University offers insights into how far and how fast cyborg cockroaches – or biobots – move when exploring new spaces. The work moves researchers closer to their goal of using biobots to explore collapsed buildings and other spaces in order to identify survivors.

Getting Rid of the Last Bits of Sulfur in Fuel

Scientists led by a team at Caltech have developed a new method for potentially removing nearly all sulfur compounds from gas and diesel fuel.

Sulfur compounds in fuels such as gasoline and diesel create air pollution when the fuel is burned. To address that challenge, large-scale oil refinery processes remove the majority of sulfur from fuel down to a government-mandated level. The new technique, however, has the potential to reduce sulfur down to a fraction of that amount, which would further reduce air pollution and extend the lifetime of vehicles' catalytic converters, which control tailpipe emissions.

New standards for better water quality in Europe

Researchers present recommendations for revision of the EU Water Framework Directive

Do You Look Like Your Name? People Can Match Names to Faces of Strangers With Surprising Accuracy

Computers can also be programmed to match names and faces, study says