Phys.org news
Phys.org / How tuberculosis bacteria use a 'stealth' mechanism to evade the immune system
Scientists have uncovered an elegant biophysical trick that tuberculosis-causing bacteria use to survive inside human cells, a discovery that could lead to new strategies for fighting one of the world's deadliest infectious ...
Phys.org / A low-cost microscope to study living cells in zero gravity
As space agencies prepare for human missions to the moon and Mars, scientists need to understand how the absence of gravity affects living cells. Now, a team of researchers has built a rugged, affordable microscope that can ...
Phys.org / Chemists synthesize first stable copper metallocene complex, closing a 70-year gap
Almost half a century ago, a remarkable molecule called metallocene took center stage in chemistry, earning Geoffrey Wilkinson and Ernst Otto Fischer the Nobel Prize. These organic compounds, made of a transition metal "sandwiched" ...
Phys.org / Living tissues are shaped by self-propelled topological defects, biophysicists find
With a new mathematical model, a team of biophysicists has revealed fresh insights into how biological tissues are shaped by the active motion of structural imperfections known as "topological defects." Published in Physical ...
Phys.org / The bouba-kiki effect: Baby chicks match sounds to shapes just like humans
When we hear certain sounds, our brains often pair them with specific shapes. For example, most people will associate a sharp-sounding word with a jagged, pointed shape, while a soft, rolling word is linked to something smooth ...
Phys.org / Symbiotic bacteria in planthoppers break record for smallest non-organelle genome ever found
Many insects rely on heritable bacterial endosymbionts for essential nutrients that they cannot get through their diet. A new study, published in Nature Communications, indicates that the genomes of these symbiotic bacteria ...
Phys.org / Can a chatbot be a co-author? AI helps crack a long-stalled gluon amplitude proof
Like many scientists, theoretical physicist Andrew Strominger was unimpressed with early attempts at probing ChatGPT, receiving clever-sounding answers that didn't stand up to scrutiny. So he was skeptical when a talented ...
Phys.org / Evidence points to early goat and sheep dairy consumption in Neolithic Iran
Approximately 9,000 years ago, human communities in Southwest Asia underwent a dramatic transformation, known as the Neolithic revolution. This period was marked by pronounced changes in how they lived and sourced food, with ...
Phys.org / The persistence of gravitational wave memory
Neutron stars are ultra-dense remnants of massive stars that collapsed after supernova explosions and are made up mostly of subatomic particles with no electric charge (i.e., neutrons). When two neutron stars collide, they ...
Phys.org / Supercomputer simulations reveal rotation drives chemical mixing in red giant stars
Advances in supercomputing have made solving a long‐standing astronomical conundrum possible: How can we explain the changes in the chemical composition at the surface of red giant stars as they evolve?
Phys.org / Pregnancy complications may have helped wipe out Neanderthals
Neanderthals disappeared from the fossil record approximately 40,000 years ago. Their extinction was a gradual process over thousands of years, and theories as to why include competition with modern humans and rapid climate ...
Phys.org / Quantum entanglement could link distant telescopes for sharper images
To capture higher-definition and sharper images of cosmological objects, astronomers sometimes combine the data collected by several telescopes. This approach, known as long-baseline interferometry, entails comparing the ...
