Science

Clinical trials will be needed to establish whether urolithin A can safely improve heart relaxation and symptoms in people with HFpEF. A compound made naturally by the body after eating certain foods may offer a new way to tackle one of the more difficult forms of heart failure. In early experiments, urolithin A, a substance…

Researchers in Florida have tested whether Burmese python pheromones could work as a lure, because low detectability has hampered efforts to remove the snakes from the Everglades. The United States Geological Survey and the National Park Service have both described pheromone studies, though neither reports results. According to the study published in the BioOne Digital…

PC: Journal of Systematic Palaeontology A fossil bird from Denmark is helping researchers understand how the unusual feet of modern trogons evolved. The fossil belongs to a species called Daniatrogon kochi, which lived about 55 million years ago during the Early Eocene. Researchers found the fossil in 1989 on the Danish island of Mors in…

Passive rewilding, an emerging concept in restoration ecology, typically involves the cessation of management in plantations, removing both fertiliser inputs and biomass harvest. Researchers writing in the Journal of Plant Ecology examined Moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis) forests across rewilding durations of 0, 10, 20 and 30 years, tracking the growth of more than 4,000 culms….

Image: Left/Ronnie Howard/Right/Canva Beavers can reshape streams simply by building dams, slowing flowing water and creating ponds that become useful habitat for wildlife. Scientists have now found that structures designed to mimic those effects can also change how animals use degraded streams. A 2026 study published in Restoration Ecology examined beaver dam analogues (BDAs), human-built…

Rice husk ash, a waste material from rice mills, may help make asphalt stiffer and more resistant to heat, according to a new study. Researchers tested asphalt mixed with different amounts of the ash to see how it behaved at different temperatures. The results showed that adding rice husk ash increased the asphalt’s stiffness, elasticity,…

New framework allows Indian entities to offer satellite capacity to domestic and overseas customers BENGALURU: Space regulator-cum-promoter IN-SPACe has issued new guidelines for hosted payloads, requiring authorisation for Indian payloads hosted on foreign satellites while exempting foreign payload owners from separate authorisation when their payloads are hosted on Indian satellites.The framework recognises a “Satellite as…

A major ecological change is beginning in northern Illinois, where conservation officials are reversing more than a century of farming changes to restore nearly 800 acres of natural land. The $15 million restoration project at Dutch Gap Forest Preserve in Antioch will remove major farm drainage systems, restore natural water flows and bring back wetlands,…

The 11 plovers released this year were fitted with tracking devices that use radio and Bluetooth signals Western snowy plovers have returned to nesting at Coal Oil Point Reserve in Isla Vista, California, after about 40 years without nesting there. The return followed conservation work that included fencing and a docent programme to reduce human…

For 18 years, researchers kept large herbivores out of fenced plots in a Kenyan savanna to study what happened to the trees in their absence. During that period, tree cover increased rapidly, trees became taller, and tree numbers rose. The fences were removed in 2017, allowing elephants, giraffes and other large herbivores to return to…