Phys.org news

Recent research shows that climatic changes to which bumblebee queens are exposed in their early life stages impair their survival and reproductive abilities, which can also have a negative impact on ecosystems and agriculture.

Using 11 years of magnetic field measurements from the European Space Agency's Swarm satellite constellation, scientists have discovered that the weak region in Earth's magnetic field over the South Atlantic—known as the ...

Whether we're talking about animals or humans, gut microbes are essential for health, metabolism and protecting against infection. While captivity is known to alter the gut microbiota of wildlife, the relative influence of ...

Using various space telescopes, an international team of astronomers have observed a newly detected very faint X-ray transient designated 4XMM J174610.7–290020. Results of the observational campaign, published October 2 ...

Humans have about 400 odorant receptors (ORs), but scientists have had trouble finding ligands that match up with most of these ORs in lab settings—leaving them with a murky understanding of how certain smells are recognized ...

Over a few million years, the spider Dysdera tilosensis—a species endemic to the Canary Islands—has reduced the size of its genome by half during the process of colonization and adaptation to its natural habitat. In addition ...

For billions of years, Earth's continents have remained remarkably stable, forming the foundation for mountains, ecosystems and civilizations. But the secret to their stability has mystified scientists for more than a century. ...

Deep inside caves, water dripping from the ceiling creates one of nature's most iconic formations: stalagmites. These pillars of calcite, ranging from centimeters to many meters in height, rise from the cave floor as drip ...

Molecular biologists have long believed that the beginning of a gene launched the process of transcription—the process by which a segment of DNA is copied into RNA and then RNA helps make the proteins that cells need to ...

Dark matter, the substance that makes up about 27% of the universe, could potentially be detected as a red or blue light "fingerprint," new research shows. The research is published in the journal Physics Letters B.

Scientists are exploring many ways to use light rather than heat to drive chemical reactions more efficiently, which could significantly reduce waste, energy consumption, and reliance on nonrenewable resources.

Using CO (J=1–0) molecular line data obtained from the 13.7-meter millimeter-wave telescope at the Purple Mountain Observatory's Delingha Observatory, Sun Mingke, a Ph.D. student from the Xinjiang Astronomical Observatory ...