Phys.org news

Conventional air conditioners and refrigerators rely on vapor-compression cycles and chemical refrigerants that contribute significantly to global warming. Magnetic refrigeration offers a cleaner alternative using the magnetocaloric ...

Before leaving on a fossil-hunting trip for a summer 2021 field paleontology class, a Montana State University junior made an apparently fate-tempting plea. "I kept joking through that whole class, 'Oh, please, just anything ...

Can we use nothing more than sunlight and inexpensive materials to produce clean hydrogen fuel while also removing toxic pollutants from water? That question shaped our recent work with γ-In2S3, a semiconductor that has ...

In nanoscale particle research, precise control and separation have long been a bottleneck in biotechnology. Researchers at the University of Oulu have now developed a new method that improves particle separation and purification. ...

In a new study published in Cell, scientists in the Bork Group at EMBL Heidelberg reveal that microbes living in similar habitats are more alike than those simply inhabiting the same geographical region. By analyzing tens ...

A team of physicists from the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, together with collaborators, has identified the dominant physical mechanism responsible for energy release in the nuclear ...

Starting just outside Charlotte, North Carolina, a vast underground deposit of lithium stretches south for 25 miles. A key component of rechargeable batteries and energy grid storage systems, the soft, silvery metal is a ...

Around the Balkan Peninsula, the African plate is sinking beneath the European plate. A piece of deeply submerged African crust resurfaced 40 million years ago far away from the sinking zone. How this phenomenon of so-called ...

A scientific breakthrough not only promises faster testing for antimicrobial resistance, but also an ethical solution to the controversial issue of using rodents in research. University of Exeter scientists have created the ...

About a year ago, researchers at the University of Michigan found that the extratropical cyclones that are the biggest drivers of winter weather in the Great Lakes region are warming and trending northward. That means, outside ...

Here's a statistical challenge worthy of a grandmaster: How do you create an accurate ranking system when the best players usually don't win? This is the conundrum of elite chess. The stronger the players, the greater the ...

The sun is the basis for photosynthesis, but not all plants thrive in strong sunlight. Strong sunlight constrains plant diversity and plant biomass in the world's grasslands, a new study shows. Temperature, precipitation, ...