Phys.org news

University of Queensland researchers say the discovery of a new stress reduction role for a naturally occurring molecule in the body could lead to new drugs and treatment for metabolic disorders and aging.

Men assess potential rivals that have a larger penis as more of a threat, both physically and sexually, according to a study by Upama Aich at the University of Western Australia and colleagues, published in PLOS Biology.

People have long said that "bread is life." Now, researchers at Tufts University are using the bubbling mixtures of flour and water known as sourdough starters to explore what shapes life at the microscopic level. Their findings, ...

Some stars appear to defy time itself. Nestled within ancient star clusters, they shine bluer and brighter than their neighbors, looking far younger than their true age. Known as blue straggler stars, these stellar oddities ...

Every time we speak, we're improvising. "Humans possess a remarkable ability to talk about almost anything, sometimes putting words together into never-before-spoken or -written sentences," said Morten H. Christiansen, the ...

Many mammal populations in European and North American zoos are aging—a trend that jeopardizes the long-term viability of so-called reserve populations and, with it, a core mission of modern zoos in global species conservation. ...

Inserting, removing or swapping individual atoms from the core of a molecule is a long-standing challenge in chemistry. This process, called skeletal editing, can dramatically speed up drug discovery or be applied for upcycling ...

Researchers from the University of Cape Town (UCT), working with international collaborators, have shown that people in northern Mozambique use regionally distinct "dialects" when communicating with honeyguide birds, revealing ...

Beneath Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf lies one of the least measured oceans on Earth—a vast, dark cavity roughly twice the volume of the North Sea.

Nano-sensors that work without batteries or wires could pave the way for more comfortable, less obtrusive sleep and health care monitoring at home, according to scientists at the University of Surrey.

The asteroid that struck the Earth 66 million years ago devastated life across the planet, wiping out the dinosaurs and other organisms in a hail of fire and catastrophic climate change. But new research shows that it also ...

By resurrecting a 3.2-billion-year-old enzyme and studying it inside living microbes, researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have created a new way to improve our understanding of the origins of life on Earth ...