Phys.org news

Mechanical strain is one of the most common tools used to tailor the properties of materials. In piezoelectric materials, stretching or compressing a crystal generates an electrical polarization. In piezomagnetic materials, ...

Deploying ocean iron fertilization—a strategy for carbon dioxide capture—in higher latitudes rather than near the equator could reduce environmental impacts while still achieving removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, ...

For lakes across the Northern Hemisphere, winter ice is more than a frozen surface. It is a seasonal regulator that shapes underwater ecosystems and energy balance. But as the planet warms, this frozen season is disappearing ...

The pulp and paper industry, which manufactures everything from tissue paper to cardboard, also generates a significant yet often overlooked byproduct—a complex polymer called lignin. Around 100 million tons of lignin are ...

As NASA's Curiosity rover recently began climbing a Martian valley nicknamed "Valle Grande," it sent back images that were a familiar sight to mission scientists: honeycomb-like textures called polygonal fractures, each about ...

Since their discovery by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope in 2022, little red dots (LRDs) have been the subject of great interest to astronomers. Understanding the nature of these extremely distant, compact red sources has ...

Quantum technologies are devices and systems that exploit the laws of quantum mechanics and could perform tasks that are difficult or impossible to tackle using their classical counterparts. These technologies process and ...

You might not often think about the molars of livestock, but everything from the grass they eat to the water they drink can tell a story about how people lived centuries ago. An international collaboration led by University ...

Hundreds of feet below Earth's surface, rocks and water teem with fungi and support complex ecosystems of tiny organisms, according to a University of Michigan study that finds fungi are far more abundant deep underground ...

Over the past few decades, scientists have become increasingly interested in developing materials that do not simply withstand mechanical forces but instead respond to them in useful, detectable ways. For example, it is now ...

The creation of fully artificial organs is a sci-fi dream, and researchers in Japan may have brought it one step closer to reality by developing a new photofabrication technique (i.e., a light-controlled synthetic method) ...

New research, led by the University of Glasgow reveals that adaptation to warmer waters causes fish to display a range of behavioral and biological differences, including obesity, overeating and lower metabolism.