Phys.org news

Phys.org / Can plants count? Study suggests they can track the number of events they experience

It's long been assumed that for an organism to learn, remember or draw conclusions, it needs a brain. But mounting evidence, including a recent Cognitive Science study, challenges that assumption, suggesting that neurons ...

12 hours ago
Phys.org / Real-time protein quality control keeps cells healthy

Scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a biochemical technique that captures fleeting "handshakes" between newly made proteins and the cellular helpers. These short interactions are important ...

12 hours ago
Phys.org / Bacterial strain breaks decades-old bottleneck in chemotherapy drug manufacturing

An international team of researchers has achieved a breakthrough in the production of doxorubicin, a vital chemotherapy agent. The study identifies and resolves molecular "bottlenecks" that have limited the natural production ...

12 hours ago
Phys.org / Ultrasound-based approach to delivering potent drugs into cancer cells shows promise in benchtop experiments

Engineers at Duke University have demonstrated a technique that uses microbubbles and ultrasound to help relatively large cancer drugs enter tumor cells and cause them to self-destruct. Dubbed "Sonoporation-assisted Precise ...

13 hours ago
Phys.org / Comprehensive digital materials ecosystem can perform 'sanity check' to guide design

There is a near-infinite number of material candidates out there—and simply not enough time to hunker down in the lab and test them all. Thankfully, researchers have a variety of tools (such as AI) at their disposal to ...

13 hours ago
Phys.org / The fish were biting in ancient Alabama: Tooth found embedded in Cretaceous apex predator's neck

The oceans of the Cretaceous of North America teemed with life. Gigantic fish and enormous marine reptiles hunted the Western Interior Sea. A unique new fossil demonstrates rare evidence of direct conflict between these apex ...

16 hours ago
Phys.org / Scientists confirm existence of molecule long believed to occur in oxidation

In the journal Science Advances, scientists in Sweden and the U.S. report the first-ever direct observation of a type of short-lived molecule that has shaped decades of thinking in atmospheric chemistry, combustion research ...

14 hours ago
Phys.org / Urban park soil microbes reveal function–evolution trade-off

Urban parks are a vital component of urban ecosystems and provide distinctive habitats for soil microorganisms. Yet scientists have questioned whether—and how—the functional diversity and evolutionary potential of microbial ...

13 hours ago
Phys.org / Leopard gecko study clarifies how temperature shapes sex development

In reptiles, a simple temperature change can determine whether an egg develops into a male or female. This process is formally known as temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD), in which the sex of an embryo is determined ...

14 hours ago
Phys.org / Physicists observe rare nuclear isomer in ytterbium-150 for first time

Nuclear isomers are crucial probes for studying the structure of nuclei. Unlike chemical isomers—which have the same chemical formula but different arrangements of atoms—nuclear isomers are nuclei that exist in a long-lived ...

17 hours ago
Phys.org / Inside the light: How invisible electric fields drive device luminescence

Fleeting electron-hole pairs are giving scientists a new window into optimizing light-emitting devices (LEDs). Using quantum magnetic resonance, Osaka Metropolitan University researchers have discovered how shifting internal ...

15 hours ago
Phys.org / Decades-old problem in classical geometry solved: First compact pair of bonnets found

For over 150 years, a rule of thumb dating back to the French mathematician Pierre Ossian Bonnet has been accepted in surface theory: If the metric and mean curvature of a compact surface are known at every point, then the ...

19 hours ago