Phys.org news

For modern residents of the Levant, the "Red Sea Trough" usually brings a brief, dusty transition between seasons. But 127,000 years ago, this same weather pattern may have been the literal key to human history. A new study, ...

A severe and prolonged U.S. drought in the late 1980s played a central role in one of the largest fisheries declines ever recorded in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a new study published in Nature Communications.

Brown dwarfs get a bad rap in the stellar world, often labeled as "failed stars" for their inability to sustain nuclear fusion at their cores. The mass of these objects falls between planets and stars, ranging from 13 to ...

Cameras that photograph insects overnight and AI that identifies them are among a new generation of tools that could finally allow scientists to track whether the world's plan to save nature is working for its most overlooked ...

Researchers at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and collaborating institutions recently built a generative AI model that can recreate molecular structures from the movement of the molecule's ...

A new study analyzing two fossilized whale skulls from around 5 million years ago has revealed fragments of sharks' teeth lodged inside them. This provides rare evidence of how sharks fed on whales in north European waters ...

Research by Cardiff University has found that playing with Barbie dolls can help reach key milestones in developing empathy and social understanding during childhood. Doll play was found to be beneficial for both boys and ...

Researchers at the University of St Andrews have unveiled two breakthrough techniques for chemically recycling and upcycling nitrile‑rubber products, such as disposable gloves, seals, and industrial parts, into new materials ...

Two recent studies suggest that fiber-optic cables laid directly on the moon's surface could potentially detect moonquakes, offering a simpler way to gather seismic data to support future human and robotic exploration.

Proteins, one of the smallest building blocks of life on Earth, hold promise for answering some of biology's biggest questions. Consisting of amino acids strung together into peptide chains, these molecules perform much of ...

A new study, led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Columbia University, identifies a diverse set of molecules released by marine phytoplankton that fuel microbial life and help drive Earth's carbon cycle. ...

Fear-eliciting images of modern and ancestral threats are equally likely to evoke physiological reactions, despite their distinct evolutionary origins, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS One by ...