Krystal Kasal

Humans have about 400 odorant receptors (ORs), but scientists have had trouble finding ligands that match up with most of these ORs in lab settings—leaving them with a murky understanding of how certain smells are recognized ...

Many survey-based studies have been conducted to try to understand how happiness changes over a person's lifetime. While there have been a few different outcomes, the most common has been the U-shaped curve. This pattern ...

Naked mole-rats are one of the rare examples of eusocial mammals. Eusocial animal species are those in which a single female within the group is tasked with reproduction, along with a select group of males, while the rest ...

Not all stars are created equally. Astronomers believe that the first stars to form after the Big Bang were mostly made of only hydrogen and helium with trace amounts of lithium, as the heavier elements formed later on by ...

A new species of spider was recently discovered near a forested area in Nong Rong, Phanom Thuan, Kanchanaburi, in western Thailand. The spiders were presented to researchers at the Chulalongkorn University Museum of Natural ...

Flying manipulator robots have shown themselves to be useful in many applications, such as industrial maintenance or construction. Their utility in hard to reach or hazardous locations makes them particularly promising in ...

Neurons in the brain communicate with each other through synapses—connection points that allow the passage of electrical and chemical signals. In non-neuronal cells, direct cell-to-cell connections have been found to occur ...

Many people have probably seen birds picking up small pieces of man-made materials, like strips of a plastic bag or paper litter, and taking them into their nest. This behavior appears to be fairly widespread among birds. ...

Scientists have long been aware of the massive elliptical galaxy, M87. The galaxy was first observed in the late 18th century by Charles Messier, who cataloged objects in the sky specifically to avoid them when looking for ...

For centuries, people have described strange blue balls of light floating around in marshes, wetlands, and even cemeteries. It's no surprise that these mysterious flames, termed "will-o'-the-wisps" or ignis fatuus, have spurred ...

Young asteroids—which formed much later than those that were created during the formation of our solar system—are typically created when larger asteroids, planetesimals, or comets collide and break up into smaller pieces. ...

Some species of termites are known to cultivate their own crops of fungus within their nests, similar to the way humans maintain farms to feed people. One such species is Odontotermes obesus, which cultivates the fungus Termitomyces. ...

Microplastics are a growing problem worldwide. They disrupt ecosystems and contribute to adverse effects, like metabolic disorders, neurotoxicity, immunotoxicity, and developmental toxicity in the bodies of various organisms ...

In 2020, scientists reported the detection of hematite, an iron oxide mineral otherwise known as rust, distributed through the higher latitudes of the moon, particularly on the nearside. This came as a surprise, considering ...

While it is known that auditory characteristics like loudness and tempo are associated with the physical movements of musicians, more subtle features, like timbre (also known as the "tone color" or tonal quality), are not ...