Across the U.S., the energy and agricultural industries are battling it out over whether to place solar panels or crops on large stretches of flat, sunny land. Now, a new study finds that developing solar energy arrays on alternative sites like buildings, lakes, and contaminated land would allow California to meet its 2025 electricity demands without sacrificing farmland.

People with colorectal cancer (CRC) who drank at least four cups of coffee per day after their diagnosis had a significantly lower risk of early death—from either their cancer or any cause—than those who didn’t drink coffee, according to a new study from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

The worldwide quest by researchers to find better, more efficient materials for tomorrow’s solar panels is usually slow and painstaking. Researchers typically must produce lab samples — which are often composed of multiple layers of different materials bonded together — for extensive testing.

The world’s oldest algae fossils are a billion years old, according to a new analysis by earth scientists at McGill University. Based on this finding, the researchers also estimate that the basis for photosynthesis in today’s plants was set in place 1.25 billion years ago.

Last month, three MIT materials scientists and their colleagues published a paper describing a new artificial-intelligence system that can pore through scientific papers and extract “recipes” for producing particular types of materials.

Surface water conditions in Greenland’s fjords and in the northern Atlantic Ocean are dictated by what’s going on deep below the surface next to the massive Greenland Ice Sheet, UO-led research has found.

Breakaway icebergs, according to research findings appearing online Dec. 4 ahead of publication in the journal Nature Geoscience, are the biggest source of freshwater entering the ocean in key areas around Greenland. And the timing and location of meltwater are important factors that should be included in ocean modeling, report the paper’s six co-authors.

Equivalent of 183,000 football fields of nonagricultural land identified in study aiming to ease competition between farmers, conservationists, and energy companies.

University of Saskatchewan researcher Scott Adams has proven that MELODY telerobotic sonography, a French-developed system that allows doctors to do long distance ultrasound imaging, is feasible for abdominal and prenatal imaging. Adams is part of the first research team to test this technology in North America.

“The new telerobotic system could help save time and money. Patients may get earlier diagnoses while reducing the strain on major referral hospitals,” said U of S medical imaging professor Paul Babyn, Adams’s supervisor along with surgery professor Ivar Mendez. 

It’s the kind of thing you might lose sleep over.

How will humans survive serious infections in the future if we’re running out of tools today to fight them? Antibiotic resistance among disease-causing bacteria is of global concern, as some last-resort drugs can no longer cure common illnesses such as urinary tract infections. 

A University of Victoria molecular biologist has gained new insights into how environmental contaminants may disrupt thyroid systems, discovered while assembling the genome of the North American bullfrog.

Caren Helbing’s findings could help explain the mechanisms of early development and metamorphosis, as well as how environmental contaminants cause thyroid-related diseases and malfunctions.