Phys.org news

A technique for judging whether a common mineral formed through biological activity could aid the search for ancient life on Earth and Mars. Apatite is a ubiquitous phosphate mineral found in terrestrial and extraterrestrial ...

A new study tracking soil microbial communities across six years of experimental drought in a tallgrass prairie finds that prolonged water stress diminishes biodiversity, pushing communities toward less predictable, harder-to-reverse ...

Plants do not wait hours to respond to intense sunlight—they react within minutes. Researchers at Bielefeld University and the Australian National University have discovered a new signaling pathway that enables plants to ...

Marine scientists at UC Santa Barbara have found that disturbances to giant kelp forests have a major influence on their net primary productivity (NPP)—an indicator of an ecosystem's health and its ability to support its ...

One of the many marvels of the Roman world is that some of its buildings are still with us. But why have they lasted for so long when some relatively modern structures are in a state of decay after a few decades?

Sugars are key biomolecules in living organisms, as they form the backbone of DNA and RNA and play a fundamental role in metabolic processes. In theories of the origin of life, sugars are also essential for the synthesis ...

Our universe is known to be remarkably homogeneous and isotropic. This essentially means that matter is distributed evenly throughout the universe and that it looks almost the same in all directions.

For over a century, the accepted value for a firefly's brightness has mostly stood, tracing its origins to experiments carried out in 1912. Through rigorous new analysis published in the American Journal of Physics, David ...

Scientists have detected evidence of landslides on Pluto for the first time. A paper published in the journal Icarus reports that images taken by the New Horizons spacecraft during a flyby revealed six large landslides in ...

Pyrite, an iron sulfide ore, is often known as fool's gold because its shiny metallic luster and pale brass-yellow color can easily fool the untrained eye into mistaking it for real gold. This time, however, 360 kilometers ...

Researchers have designed and built the first 3D device that can make objects invisible to heat, an advance that could transform how we protect sensitive electronics, manage heat in microchips and shield equipment from thermal ...

Earth has a natural thermostat that has kept the planet habitable for more than 100 million years. Scientists have struggled to fully explain how it works, but new research identifies a missing link between phosphate availability ...