Phys.org news
Phys.org / Toward experiment-guided AlphaFold: Researchers overcome AI tool's single-conformation limitation
The AI-based program AlphaFold predicts a protein's 3D structure with remarkable accuracy. However, it tends to reduce heterogeneous structures to a single dominant conformation, or shape, and overlooks experimental conditions ...
Phys.org / Deep inside crocodile skulls, 100 million years of brain evolution barely registers
Although modern crocodiles, alligators, caimans and gharials are restricted to the tropics, their fossil record tells a very different story. Ancient crocodylians once inhabited much of the globe and exhibited a remarkable ...
Phys.org / Childbirth is not uniquely difficult to humans
The tight fit of a baby's head through a mother's birth canal, which causes great difficulty in childbirth, is not unique to humans, as previously understood. Instead, some small-bodied primate babies have heads almost twice ...
Phys.org / Why Europe's rising plant diversity may signal habitat disruption, not ecological recovery
The number of plant species in many ecosystems in Europe has grown rather than shrunk over the last 100 years. However, this is not necessarily cause for celebration, as this local increase is primarily due to generalists ...
Phys.org / Disorder creates direction-dependent optics in compound semiconductors
An international research team has demonstrated that the intrinsic disorder of the compound semiconductor CuInSnS₄ can be exploited to influence its optical properties. While the atomic vibrations also sense the local disorder, ...
Phys.org / New Horizons tracks solar wind slowdown as interstellar atoms add drag
A new Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) study based on data from NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has uncovered insights into why the solar wind gradually slows as it moves toward the edge of the solar system and the boundary ...
Phys.org / A goat's tooth may have solved a 100‑year debate about ancient Greek farming
The agricultural economy was the backbone of wealth in ancient Greece. Food brought people together, whether in smaller groups at a wine-drinking symposium or the entire community in a sacrificial feast of epic proportions. ...
Phys.org / Decline in plankton across Northeast Atlantic sends stark warning for ocean health
Microscopic plankton are among the most important organisms on Earth. Phytoplankton produce around half of the oxygen we breathe, while plankton as a whole underpin marine food webs, support fisheries, help regulate carbon ...
Phys.org / Analyzing avalanches on asteroid Vesta offers new method for understanding regolith processes
A study conducted at the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris uses images from NASA's Dawn mission and a Bayesian inversion of the Hapke photometric model to analyze avalanches and ejecta deposits on the asteroid Vesta. ...
Phys.org / Great Barrier Reef drilling reveals repeated collapse, regrowth and migration since last ice age
An international expedition including University of Sydney researchers has pieced together the clearest picture yet of how the Great Barrier Reef responded to dramatic environmental change over the past 30,000 years. Multiple ...
Phys.org / There may be 3 times more insect species than previously thought
A new estimate of insect species globally finds that there may be 8 million to 14 million more species than people thought, with few of them discovered.
Phys.org / This tiny organism contracts 200 times faster than we can blink—here's how
A tiny, aquatic, single-celled organism can contract to one-quarter of its body length in less than 5 milliseconds—hundreds of times faster than a human can blink. Researchers have discovered that the organism, Spirostomum ...
