DP
Deborah Pirchner
Editor
58 news posts
Environment
20 Feb 2025
‘Fog harvesting’ could yield water for drinking and agriculture in the world’s driest regions
A field study spanning a year showed that water collected from fog could ease water scarcity affecting vulnerable populations living in Chile’s Atacama Desert
Featured news
12 Feb 2025
500-year-old Transylvanian diaries show how the Little Ice Age completely changed life and death in the region
Tapping into ‘society’s archive’, researchers have examined written sources from the 16th century that chronicle famine, excessive flooding, and plagues in what today is Romania.
Featured news
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.
Featured news
06 Feb 2025
Efforts to find alien life could be boosted by simple test that gets microbes moving
Scientists explored microbial movement as a possible biosignature to detect life on Mars and beyond, cheaper and faster than ever before.
Space sciences and astronomy
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.
Featured news
27 Jan 2025
Drones could be the ‘magic tools’ we need to chase bears away from people
Starting in 2017, Wesley Sarmento was the first prairie-based bear manager at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, a job that regularly put him right in between massive grizzly bears and people. He is also the author of a new Frontiers in Conservation Science article in which he describes the effectiveness of different methods that aimed to deter bears from human settlements, avoid conflicts between wildlife and locals, and help the successful conservation of the species. In the following guest editorial, he describes his seven-year-long search for the most effective hazing method.
Health
13 Jan 2025
Not all carbs are created equal: Here are five Frontiers articles for a healthy start into the new year
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. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed.
Featured news
16 Dec 2024
Completing the timetree of primates: a new way to map the evolutionary history of life on Earth
In a new article published in Frontiers in Bioinformatics, biologists Dr Jack M Craig, Dr Blair Hedges, and Dr Sudhir Kumar, all at Temple University, have built an evolutionary tree that encompasses 455 primates, every species for which genetic data are available. The tree, the most complete of its kind, shows the evolutionary timescale of the whole order of primates, including monkeys, apes, lemurs, lorises, and galagos. In the following guest editorial, Dr Craig describes the steps of obtaining an almost complete timetree for primates and explains the value of such data.
Featured news
06 Dec 2024
3D scans of giant hailstones reveal surprising discoveries that could help predict future storms
Scientists used CT scans to learn more about the anatomy of hailstones, information which could advance hail formation forecasting
Social science
05 Dec 2024
What dampens and spurs our festive shopping desire? Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss
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. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed.
Featured news
29 Nov 2024
Unique killer whale pod may have acquired special skills to hunt the world’s largest fish
Killer whales, including a male dubbed Moctezuma, have been spotted hunting whale sharks in coordinated attacks. Researchers think they may have gained special knowledge allowing them to hunt this way.
Featured news
20 Nov 2024
Astronauts found to process some tasks slower in space, but no signs of permanent cognitive decline
Researchers found that astronauts’ processing speed, working memory, and attention slowed down, but a few months in space did not result in lasting cognitive impairment
Featured news
14 Nov 2024
Chlorine and cocoa butter could protect corals from disease and decrease antibiotic pollution of the oceans
Researchers found that chlorine mixed with cocoa butter is effective at treating diseased corals, which could reduce negative side effects of antibiotic treatments on ocean ecosystems
Featured news
07 Nov 2024
Consistent climate action can change the air we breathe: Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss
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. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed.
Life sciences
30 Oct 2024
Giant rats could soon fight illegal wildlife trade by sniffing out elephant tusk and rhino horn
Researchers trained African giant pouched rats to detect illegally trafficked wildlife species and remember targets for several months