Phys.org news
Phys.org / Ticklish spots are shared across cultures, but why they are ticklish is more complex than it seems
People from different cultural backgrounds are tickled in remarkably similar ways. They laugh, resist and are usually tickled by family members or friends. They are also ticklish in the same body regions. These are among ...
Phys.org / Fermentation emerges as key pathway for ammonium production beneath the Pearl River Delta
A study led by Professor Jimmy Jiujiu Jiao from the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at The University of Hong Kong (HKU) and Professor Meng Li from Shenzhen University has identified microbial fermentation as the ...
Phys.org / Corn-stalk sugars feed new bacterial strain designed to make useful chemicals
Engineers have developed a strain of a common bacterial species that can feed exclusively on the three major sugars present in corn stalks. While the new multiple-sugar-consuming strain of the bacterium Pseudomonas putida ...
Phys.org / When fever isn't the answer: Infected tadpoles cool themselves to fight viruses
Fever is one of the best-known mechanisms by which animals combat infectious diseases. Sick animals can increase their body temperature in two ways: through physiological regulation, by altering internal metabolic processes, ...
Phys.org / Cosmic filaments help set first limits on dark matter's decay into gravitons
Composing some 85% of the universe's total mass, dark matter betrays its presence only through gravity, unlike ordinary matter. Yet through new research published in Physical Review D, a team led by David Dunsky of New York ...
Phys.org / Controlled cracking technique prints quantum dots into tiny pixels for sharper displays
Recent technological advances have enabled the development of increasingly sophisticated, sharper displays for electronic devices. Many modern displays use light-emitting diodes, or LEDs, tiny semiconductor-based components ...
Phys.org / Oldest known giant rock scallop bead suggests California coastal trade began millennia earlier
Archaeologists have discovered two giant rock scallop beads that push back the clock on the first appearance of these high-status ornaments. The discovery shows that these prized marine beads were traded hundreds of miles ...
Phys.org / New catalyst with 75% less platinum promises to reduce the cost of hydrogen fuel cells
The high cost of platinum is one of the main barriers to the wider adoption of hydrogen fuel cells. Now, researchers at IMDEA Materials Institute have developed a catalyst that delivers the same performance while using 75% ...
Phys.org / Tiny particles defy action-reaction symmetry to stay in motion
From schools of fish and flocks of birds to microscopic synthetic particles, many systems in nature and the laboratory consist of individual units or agents that move by consuming energy. These systems are known as active ...
Phys.org / Rare Mars meteorite preserves 1.27-billion-year-old clues to planet's deep interior
Boston College scientists have determined that a newly discovered meteorite from Mars is 1.27 billion years old and derived from a previously unsampled, pristine source on the Red Planet. The study is published in the journal ...
Phys.org / Charge-based strategy improves controlled delivery of therapeutic peptides from gelatin-based materials
Rice University engineers have developed a new strategy for controlling how therapeutic peptides are released from gelatin-based materials, a step that could make the small but powerful molecules more useful in tissue engineering ...
Phys.org / 'Flying focus' laser overcomes key limitation in plasma-based particle accelerators
In a new Nature Physics study, researchers accelerated electrons to more than twice the energy predicted by the traditional dephasing limit for laser-plasma accelerators operating over the same distance. This was made possible ...
