Phys.org news
Phys.org / 7,000 years of change: How humans reshaped Caribbean coral reef food chains
Human activity has lessened the resilience of modern coral reefs by restricting the food-fueled energy flow that moves through the food chains of these critical ecosystems, reports an international team of researchers in ...
Phys.org / A familiar magnet gets stranger: Why cobalt's topological states could matter for spintronics
The element cobalt is considered a typical ferromagnet with no further secrets. However, an international team led by HZB researcher Dr. Jaime Sánchez-Barriga has now uncovered complex topological features in its electronic ...
Phys.org / What honey bee brain chemistry tells us about human learning
A multi-institutional team of researchers led by Virginia Tech's Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC has for the first time identified specific patterns of brain chemical activity that predict how quickly individual ...
Phys.org / Mira A ejects seven Earth masses, forming a heart-shaped cloud 300 light-years away
Just in time for Valentine's Day, space offers a heart-shaped greeting. The star Mira A, about 300 light-years from Earth, has released material into an expanding cloud of gas and dust resembling a heart. Both the amount ...
Phys.org / Cell division spindles self-organize like active liquid crystals—a theory that holds up
When a cell divides, it performs a feat of microscopic choreography—duplicating its DNA and depositing it into two new cells. The spindle is the machinery behind that process: It latches onto chromosomes (where DNA is stored) ...
Phys.org / Extinct Hawaiian ibis with strangely small eyes suggests a shift to nocturnal life
Islands are famous for producing some of the world's strangest creatures, and now a new international study shows that the evolution of bird species on Hawaiian islands includes an ibis with unusually small eyes and limited ...
Phys.org / New lithium-based green phosphors rival today's commercial LED standard
Research results from Innsbruck, Schwabmünchen, and Düsseldorf demonstrate how the most widely used green phosphors in commercial LEDs can be replaced by representatives of an entirely new class of compounds. Green luminescence, ...
Phys.org / Quick course correction needed to avoid 'hothouse Earth' scenario, scientists say
Scientists say that multiple Earth system components appear closer to destabilization than previously believed, putting the planet in increased danger of following a "hothouse" path driven by feedback loops that can amplify ...
Phys.org / Unseen planet or brown dwarf may have hidden 'rare' fading star
One of the longest stellar dimming events ever observed was likely caused by the gigantic saucer-like rings of either an unseen brown dwarf or "super-Jupiter" blocking its host star's light, astronomers say. For decades, ...
Phys.org / Majorana qubits become readable as quantum capacitance detects even-odd states
The race to build reliable quantum computers is fraught with obstacles, and one of the most difficult to overcome is related to the promising but elusive Majorana qubits. Now, an international team has read the information ...
Phys.org / Visualizing how a plant's leaves, stem and roots mutually communicate under environmental stress in real time
How do the different parts of an adult plant communicate with each other when it suffers an injury, is waterlogged, burnt or exposed to environmental stress? Today we can answer this question thanks to an innovative optical ...
Phys.org / Seeing how atoms vibrate at the Ångström scale
Probing the vibration of atoms provides detailed information on local structure and bonding that define material properties. Tip-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (TERS) offers extremely high resolution to probe such vibrations. ...
