Phys.org news

For decades, ecologists have known that how a species looks or eats affects its environment. But a new study by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows that social behavior related to mating can be ...

What governs the speed at which raindrops fall, sediment settles in river estuaries, and matter is ejected during a supernova? These questions circle around one, deceitfully simple factor: the rate at which a fluid filled ...

In a paper published today in Nature Synthesis, a team from the lab of University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) and Chemistry Department Prof. Paul Alivisatos explores the role of cation ...

To unlock materials of the future, including better photocatalysts or light-switchable superconductors, researchers need to understand how the valence electrons within materials respond to light at the atomic scale. Materials ...

Finding bats in the attic or under roof tiles is no homeowner's idea of fun. But Florida's endangered bonneted bats have few natural options left. With a dwindling number of large, old trees with cavities—their preferred ...

The warming world has disrupted the timing for plant and animal reproduction, and it's usually bad news for species that depend on each other—like flowers blooming too early and pollinating bees arriving too late. But researchers ...

For sexual reproduction to yield healthy offspring, newly generated oocytes—immature egg cells—must receive the correct amount of DNA after cell division. This process of segregating chromosomes becomes more prone to ...

For the first time, scientists have used DNA preserved in ancient sediments to examine how a major natural disaster affected animal populations. A new study of a catastrophic volcanic eruption during the Ice Age has found ...

Swallowing is a fundamental human function that supports nutrition and communication. Damage to swallowing muscles can reduce quality of life and even lead to aspiration pneumonia or malnutrition. Many patients suffer from ...

Scientists have created a genomic blueprint for Aeromonas bacteria, which can cause antibiotic-resistant diarrheal disease—with symptoms often misidentified as cholera—in humans and animals.

Analysis of a volcanic ash tuff layer, only a few millimeters thick and discovered during excavations in 2024, revealed that the fossil-bearing Bromacker rocks are 294 million years old—four million years older than previously ...

From the rice paddies of South Asia to the wheat fields of northern China, summer monsoon rains sustain the livelihoods of billions. Yet these vital rains fluctuate dramatically from decade to decade—a variability that ...