Phys.org news

From color-changing skin to jet-propelled motion, squid and cuttlefish have long fascinated scientists. To understand the origins of their unique characteristics, many attempts have been made to define their evolutionary ...

In physics, some waves behave in a surprising way: instead of spreading out and fading, they hold their shape as they travel at constant speeds. These unusual waves, called solitons, have interested scientists since they ...

Researchers at the University of Bayreuth have, for the first time, deciphered key steps in the biosynthetic mechanism of the potential anti-cancer agent fostriecin. The team led by Prof. Dr. Frank Hahn has succeeded in producing ...

The rainforests of northern Australia are home to extraordinary ant colonies. Instead of dwelling in underground burrows, these ants inhabit canopies of trees, dozens of meters above the ground, inside hollow spheres they ...

Earth and the moon may look very different today, but they formed under similar conditions in space. In fact, a dominant hypothesis says that the early Earth was hit by a Mars-sized object, and it was this giant impact that ...

In quantum technologies, everything depends on the ability to detect the properties carried by a single photon. But in the real world, that photon of interest is often buried in a sea of unwanted light—a true "needle in a ...

Using zebrafish, researchers from Osaka Metropolitan University (OMU) have identified the tegmentum region in the fish midbrain as the area where light input from both the fish's eyes and the pineal organ—the "third eye"—is ...

Many aromatic compounds, such as phenols, cresols and styrenes, are toxic to organisms and harmful to the environment. They can accumulate as a result of industrial processes and harm ecosystems. Soil bacteria can help to ...

The number of known proteins is infinitely small in comparison to the universe of possible proteins, which could in theory be realized. Yet these known proteins are the only major training ground for future protein design. ...

The integrity of DNA and RNA is essential for every cell. DNA contains the genetic information for proteins, while RNA serves as a working copy of individual genes and is required for the synthesis of proteins. Unlike DNA ...

Volcanoes are both captivating and disastrous. Most are likely familiar with the common short-term dangers associated with them: explosive forces, lava, and even atmospheric particles disrupting air traffic. But researchers ...

Bacteria are a major cause of infections and death in hospital settings, due—in part—to the rising incidence of antibiotic resistance. In the United States, antibiotic-resistant bacteria are involved in more than 2 million ...