Phys.org news

Biomaterials with extraordinary properties, such as spider silk, have so far been known primarily from animals. Researchers at the University of Salzburg in Austria have now deciphered a surprising counterpart from the world ...

Researchers have developed light-transmitting hydrogel fibers that are just hundreds of micrometers in diameter. With further development, these soft fibers could one day make it possible to use imaging techniques to detect ...

Scientists have developed a new type of "virtual" metasurface—capable of controlling light in ways traditional lenses and optics can't—which they say is superior to the current approach, which relies on ultrathin engineered ...

Migratory birds such as the pied flycatcher typically have wintering locations in Africa close to others from the same breeding population. That means that birds breeding in the Netherlands run into each other again in Africa, ...

Forests and land play an important role in absorbing carbon dioxide emissions, but current models and forecasts don't incorporate a surprising ecological discovery: Despite more available carbon, climate change and warmer ...

In an international experiment, researchers observed Jahn–Teller polarons—quasiparticles that could play an important role in future ultrafast spintronic devices. These polarons emerged within the crystal lattice of cobalt ...

It's one thing to design a pharmaceutical drug. It's another to know if and why it actually works; not on paper or in a computer model, but inside the chaotic world of living systems, where proteins twist into shape, atoms ...

Great apes may have been laughing with a similar rhythm to modern humans for at least 15 million years, a University of Warwick study reveals. The finding offers unexpected clues to how human speech evolved.

McGill University researchers have developed a light-detecting nanoscale structure that mimics how a neuron processes information. The neuron-like behavior emerges from the materials themselves, reducing the energy demand ...

For nearly 50 years, scientists have suspected that microscopic marine plankton play a role in cloud formation over the oceans. Now, an experiment led by the University of Helsinki suggests that it may be more important than ...

New research led by Curtin University and QUT (Queensland University of Technology) has revealed that repeated asteroid impacts may have been the dominant force shaping early Earth, delivering vast amounts of heat into the ...

Chiral 2D metal halide perovskites (MHPs) are among the most promising materials for future technologies that exploit the spin of electrons in spin-based optoelectronics, or spintronics, but getting them to perform consistently ...