Phys.org news

Every time the temperature drops, a cloud passes overhead, or the sun sets, a plant makes a choice: Keep its microscopic pores, called stomata, open to absorb carbon dioxide and continue photosynthesizing or close them to ...

A major breakthrough in liquid catalysis is transforming how essential products are made, making the chemical manufacturing process faster, safer and more sustainable than ever before.

Scientists have debunked the belief that using tools is unique to mammals and birds, after documenting tropical fish that smash shellfish against rocks to open and eat the meat, in a fascinating new study published in the ...

In an attempt to speed up quantum measurements, a new Physical Review Letters study proposes a space-time trade-off scheme that could be highly beneficial for quantum computing applications.

Scientists have long sought to unravel the mysteries of strange metals—materials that defy conventional rules of electricity and magnetism. Now, a team of physicists at Rice University has made a breakthrough in this area ...

People often think about archaeology happening deep in jungles or inside ancient pyramids. However, a team of astronomers has shown that they can use stars and the remains they leave behind to conduct a special kind of archaeology ...

You may have heard of the fantastic-sounding "dark side of the genome." This poorly studied fraction of DNA, known as heterochromatin, makes up around half of your genetic material, and scientists are now starting to unravel ...

When monitoring the health of mammal populations, scientists often use camera traps to observe the animals in their habitats. But weasels are so sneaky they're rarely caught on camera—leaving scientists with questions about ...

One of the strangest facts in computer science is that it's really hard to generate true random numbers. For a computer, anyway. I can do it just fine: 173, 401, 530. That's right off the top of my head, true randomness. ...

Hydroacoustic signals captured by the world's international nuclear monitoring system suggest an underwater landslide may have broken communications cables and disrupted internet traffic in west African countries for several ...

A research team led by the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) was able to revive dormant stages of algae that sank to the bottom of the Baltic Sea almost 7,000 years ago. Despite thousands of years ...

Superconductivity is a quantum phenomenon, observed in some materials, that entails the ability to conduct electricity with no resistance below a critical temperature. Over the past few years, physicists and material scientists ...