Phys.org news
Phys.org / 'Feathered dragon' has some of the longest tail feathers ever found on a fossil bird
Birds have all kinds of fancy decorations for attracting mates—male peacocks have a fan of feathers accented with shimmering blue eye-spots, birds of paradise do courtship dances that highlight their fluffy plumes, and female ...
Phys.org / Moon base missions face an unseen threat, and these simulations show where it could strike first
Researchers have developed a novel virtual model for simulating how astronauts in future moon base operations might interact with each other and with their environment, with preliminary simulations revealing potential opportunities ...
Phys.org / Researchers push back fundamental limit on energy transfer between particles without 'spilling' radiation
Researchers at TU/e have demonstrated that energy transfer without loss via light or heat can occur over much greater distances than previously thought possible thanks to vibrations in microscopic gold rods. They succeeded ...
Phys.org / Metamaterials enable control of heat transfer at nanoscale, potentially transforming energy and electronics
Heat behaves in predictable ways: a hot cup of coffee cools, a laptop warms your hands, the sun heats Earth. But at scales thousands of times smaller than a human hair, those rules begin to break down, and scientists are ...
Phys.org / The strange quantum property of tomorrow's insulator
Ultra-fast data transfer and superconductivity: Quantum materials offer significant technological prospects—if we can understand them at the atomic scale. A team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), in collaboration with ...
Phys.org / Lake Erie produces 'forbidden soup' of rotating potential toxins
Municipalities and federal agencies monitor U.S. waters for microcystins, a toxin produced by harmful algal blooms in Lake Erie, but a University of Michigan study shows that the blooms produce a greater range of potentially ...
Phys.org / As snow droughts continue to threaten global food security, research calls for climate-resilient agriculture practices
Global climate change is reshaping agricultural ecosystems. As warmer winters become more prevalent, snow droughts caused by insufficient snowfall are becoming more frequent. This leaves winter wheat, which relies on snow ...
Phys.org / NASA lays out moon base plans with landers, buggies and drones at the top of the list
NASA is already ordering landers, rovers and drones for a sprawling moon base, less than two months after the Artemis II's record-breaking lunar flyaround.
Phys.org / How the greenhouse effect governs temperature changes across Antarctica
A decade ago, Bradley Markle, an assistant professor at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado Boulder, noticed an odd pattern while sifting through temperature records from the end of the ...
Phys.org / Monkey see, monkey do: Study sheds light on cooperative decision-making
The old "monkey see, monkey do" adage may rest on some neuroscientific evidence, finds a new Yale study. To examine how the primate brain facilitates cooperative behavior among individuals during social interaction, a team ...
Phys.org / DNA 'nicks' make for safer, more precise genetic analysis
Researchers at Cornell University have developed a safer and more precise way to study how genes function in living tissues by refining a recently developed CRISPR-based genetic technique in fruit flies, enabling researchers ...
Phys.org / Women's faces outrank men's in attractiveness across cultures, global study shows
Why are women considered the "fairer sex" in humans, when in most animal species it is males that display the more elaborate and visually striking traits? This question has intrigued researchers since Darwin. A new large-scale ...