Phys.org news
Phys.org / Queasy plesiosaurs swam to shore to vomit, Jurassic fossils reveal
Plesiosaurs swam into river deltas to vomit up shells and other indigestible elements of their marine meals, suggests new research published by Cambridge University Press. The behavior resembles that of today's fur seals ...
Phys.org / Largest dataset of its kind could clarify how massive stars shaped early galaxies
The more astronomers learn about the universe's earliest galaxies, the stranger they seem. Many of their surprising properties may be explained by differences between their massive stars and those in galaxies like our own ...
Phys.org / A 42-light-year X-ray tail links a pulsar to previously 'orphan' gamma rays
Understanding the origin, acceleration and propagation of high-energy cosmic rays has been a century-old mystery in astrophysics. Recently, joint observations from China's Einstein Probe (EP) satellite and the Large High ...
Phys.org / From swarming bacteria to tissue cells, living matter defies classic physical models of motion
A new study led by researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) reveals that living matter violates previously known physical principles of symmetry when cellular flows form and break down collective patterns. ...
Phys.org / Tiny quantum nanostructures could make AI less of an energy hog
Engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have designed a new type of quantum nanostructure that could enable optical neural networks. This emerging technology has the potential to make artificial intelligence systems, ...
Phys.org / A single temporary stimulus may redirect cell fate without permanently altering genes
Which genes need to be controlled to guide a stem cell toward a desired cell type or modulate an immune cell's inflammatory response? A Korean research team has developed a general-purpose computational framework that identifies ...
Phys.org / Bacteria-killing polymers—a new class of antibiotic?
Swimming in the blood, sweat, cells and tears of every human are small proteins known as peptides. Many peptides can kill bacteria on contact, yet the bacteria never seem to evolve resistance to them. Mass-produced peptides ...
Phys.org / A tiny chariot fitting reveals Egyptian glass reached Iron Age Britain
At the end of last year, curators from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford came to Diamond to learn more about a 2,000-year-old prehistoric artifact. Using the microfocus beamline at I18, researchers unlocked new insights into ...
Phys.org / The mosquito's transition from vegan to bloodsucker explained
Scents govern most key events in the lives of mosquitoes, and there is extensive research on their sense of smell. A new study reveals how a young female mosquito shifts from focusing entirely on nectar to seeking only blood. ...
Phys.org / Earth's chorus waves show limited link to rapid electron loss from radiation belts
The Van Allen radiation belts are huge, doughnut-shaped regions of highly energetic charged particles trapped by Earth's magnetosphere. These charged particles play a major role in space weather, so studying them is important ...
Phys.org / The secret to a perfect crystal may be a precisely calibrated extra turn
Creating a perfect crystal sounds straightforward: Arrange identical building blocks into a repeating, orderly structure. At the microscopic scale, though, even subtle biases in how particles interact can push them in preferred ...
Phys.org / RHIC data reveal intriguing dip in momentum fluctuations in high-density nuclear matter
Scientists using the STAR detector to study particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have found an intriguing dip in their data in a relatively unexplored region of the nuclear phase diagram—a map ...