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Featured news

Published on 07 Feb 2025

Relationships that shape us: here are five Frontiers articles on social relationships for Valentine’s Day

At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, we’re taking a look at some papers that help us understand how the relationships we have with the people around us shape our lives.

Psychology

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Psychology

Published on 19 Mar 2024

Is your partner’s disturbed sleep keeping you up at night? Letting go of unattainable dreams may keep you both happy in bed

Research has now shown that the habit of letting go of unattainable goals helps people to stay satisfied with their romantic relationship if their partner experiences sleep problems. Such ‘letting go’ could also be learned, for example through training by clinical psychologists. But the results also showed that being too ready to replace unattainable goals with alternatives can worsen mutual satisfaction with a relationship, perhaps because this prevents spouses from putting more time and effort into it.

Space sciences and astronomy

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Space sciences and astronomy

Published on 03 Feb 2025

Can ocean-floor mining oversights help us regulate space debris and mining on the Moon?

Space belongs to no-one, yet many nations and private entities now plan to lay their claim on its resources. In a recent Frontiers in Space Technologies article, Nishith Mishra, Martina Elia Vitoloni and Dr Joseph Pelton shared their thoughts about how plans to exploit the ocean floors could impact the way resources from space are used and managed.

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Space sciences and astronomy

Published on 12 Jul 2024

Real-life ‘stillsuit’: Dune-inspired upgrade for spacesuits allow astronauts to recycle urine into water

Existing waste management systems for spacesuits are uncomfortable, unhygienic, and don’t recycle valuable water in urine. Now, researchers from Cornell University have designed a prototype for an integrated urine collection and recycling system, which can be carried on the back of next-generation spacesuits. The system is now ready for testing.

Climate action

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Crossing by ferry boat from Macapa to Belem by the Amazon River, Brazil. Image: Shutterstock.com

Climate action

Published on 27 Jan 2025

Empowering Amazonian communities: sustainable development through open science

The Amazon rainforest, often called the lungs of Earth, is a vast and intricate ecosystem. It hosts at least 10% of the world’s wildlife and is home to many indigenous peoples and local communities. This vast expanse of rainforest plays an important role in regulating the Earth's climate, sustaining the livelihoods of millions.

Climate action

Published on 12 Dec 2024

Sleepers made from recycled plastic could make railways even more eco-friendly

Part of the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from railways lie in the energy used to produce and maintain the necessary infrastructure. Researchers from Finland here showed the feasibility of using more eco-friendly railway sleepers from two types of recycled plastic, liquid packaging board and acrylonitrile butadiene styrene. Carbon emissions saved each year by phasing out concrete sleepers and replacing them with such recycled plastic could amount to the equivalent of heating for 1,200 Finnish households.

Planting Abies religiosa (Sacred fir) seedlings under the shade of pre-existing shrubs (Senecio cinerarioides, narrow green-greyish foliage) as protective “nurse plants”. Large trees on background are adult Pinus hartwegii, the pine that reaches the timberline. Abies religiosa is completely absent in this site at 3800 meters of elevation, northeaster slope of Nevado de Toluca volcano, central Mexico, because it is too high in elevation. Planters personnel are locals of Native Indian origin. Image credit: Cuauhtémoc Sáenz-Romero, UMSNH

Climate action

Published on 18 Oct 2024

Scientists create new overwintering sites for monarch butterflies on a warming planet

Migrating monarch butterflies depend on mountain forests of sacred firs in Mexico as overwintering sites. These forests are under threat from global warming. But researchers from Mexico have now shown that seedlings derived from their original range can be transplanted successfully to a new site further east, on the higher and colder volcano Nevado de Toluca. The resulting new stand of sacred firs could ultimately serve as the overwintering sites of the future.