Phys.org news

Millions of tons of plastic waste accumulate in landfills and oceans every year. One promising response is to engineer microbes to break the plastic down into useful chemical building blocks. However, teaching a bacterium ...

Moonlight determines when the red-necked nightjar feeds, migrates and raises its young. A groundbreaking long-term study from Lund University shows how the migratory bird's entire annual cycle follows the moon's rhythm.

Around the world, millions of camels are farmed for milk and meat while others are used in leisure activities like racing and riding. Yet the treatment of these animals as livestock can be harsh, especially during transport. ...

Researchers at Aarhus University have demonstrated that a simple adjustment to water filtration methods can dramatically improve the detection of marine animal DNA when using advanced, PCR-free sequencing. This methodological ...

Gene expression is controlled, in part, by the interactions between genes and regulatory elements located along the genome. Those interactions depend on the ability of chromatin—a mix of DNA and proteins—to move around within ...

Plants are under constant stress due to pathogens, heat, or other environmental factors. Proteins can become damaged as a result and cell function is thrown off balance. Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum working with ...

Cell walls are a crucial structure of plant life, protecting cells from damage, giving plants shape, and containing energy-rich nutrients. And yet the process of how the walls begin to form remains mysterious.

Using a powerful single-molecule imaging method they developed, a Broad Institute research team has unveiled a dynamic view of how some cancer-related proteins interact in living cells. The technique relies on highly stable ...

Salmon are becoming river "ghosts" as brutal droughts and violent floods cause unprecedented losses on their treacherous journey to the Pacific Ocean, scientists say. A study led by the University of Essex; NOAA Fisheries; ...

When cows burp, they send a substantial amount of methane gas into the air, which makes them a leading contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. According to research published in the journal Science, a newly discovered hydrogen-producing ...

Every year, millions suffer, and thousands lose their lives to infections that were once easily treatable with the right dose of medication. The drugs are the same; human physiology is the same; the only difference is that ...

Many plastic products are designed to be used only once, yet the material itself lasts for years. But a new strategy is addressing this problem by creating products that self-destruct on command, known as living plastics. ...