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When UCLA hosted the Special Olympic World Games this summer, a positive message of inclusion and acceptance was amplified. But unfortunately for many people with intellectual and developmental disabilities in other parts of the world, this message doesn’t resonate in their countries, where there are no pathways for them to learn work and social skills or gain independence.

Working closely with the U.S. Forest Service and the Sitka Tribe of Alaska, an international team of researchers funded by the National Science Foundation has begun to piece together an archaeological and historical narrative of how the crew of the wrecked 19th century Russian-American Company sailing ship Neva survived the harsh subarctic winter.

(Phys.org)—Entangled qubits form the basic building blocks of quantum computers and other quantum technologies, but when qubits lose their entanglement, they lose their quantum advantage over classical bits. Unfortunately, entanglement decays very quickly due to unavoidable interactions with the surrounding environment, so preserving entanglement for long enough to use it has been a key challenge for realizing quantum technologies.

New stable isotope and ancient DNA analysis of the bones of stored cod provisions recovered from the wreck of the Tudor warship Mary Rose, which sank off the coast of southern England in 1545, has revealed that the fish in the ship’s stores had been caught in surprisingly distant waters: the northern North Sea and the fishing grounds of Iceland – despite England having well developed local fisheries by the 16th century.

As fish-eating predators at the top of the marine food chain, elephant seals accumulate high concentrations of mercury in their bodies. A new study by scientists at UC Santa Cruz shows that elephant seals shed significant amounts of mercury during molting, resulting in elevated concentrations of the toxic metal in coastal waters near the elephant seal rookery at Año Nuevo State Reserve.

Youths wearing gorilla costumes and rubber boots grunted and scampered in front of Rwanda’s president on Saturday during the ceremonial naming of 24 baby mountain gorillas in the African country, where the critically endangered animals live in volcano-studded forests that are visited by increasing numbers of foreign tourists.

(Phys.org)—Researchers have developed a method for printing optical holographic lenses that could greatly simplify their fabrication. Because the method can be performed quickly and easily, it could potentially be used by astronauts to print lenses while in space for holographic lens telescopes.

Common Loons (Gavia immer) nest on lakes across Canada and the northern U.S., but every winter they disperse, many to the open ocean where they’re difficult to track. It’s been well established that many loons return to the same nesting sites every spring, but new research in The Condor: Ornithological Applications shows for the first time that they are similarly faithful to their wintering sites

An international team of researchers has sequenced the first complete genome of an Iberian farmer, which is also the first ancient genome from the entire Mediterranean area. This new genome allows to know the distinctive genetic changes of Neolithic migration in Southern Europe which led to the abandonment of the hunter-gatherer way of life

White-tailed eagles detect and avoid the ingestion of large metal particles (larger than 8 mm) but ignore smaller metal particles whilst feeding on shot mammalian carcasses. Lead-based bullets split into numerous small metal fragments when penetrating an animal’s body, whereas lead-free rifle bullets either deform without leaving any particles in the tissue or fragment into larger particles