Phys.org news

Scientists have developed a unique way to build electronic components so small they are made from chains of individual molecules—creating a toolbox to help build materials that could power the next generation of technology.

Much of the beauty—and challenge—of biology lies in its complexity. That's especially true in the microbial world, where hundreds or thousands of different bacterial species may co-exist in a patch of soil or in a section ...

Amber from the Kachin region of Myanmar has preserved a wealth of fossils, offering insights into the diversity of the Cretaceous fauna of a 100-million-year-old forest ecosystem. The site continues to yield previously unknown ...

A tiny discrepancy in particle physics has loomed for decades as an exciting possible crack in one of science's most successful theories, hinting at unknown forces or quantum objects. Now, an international team led by a Penn ...

Cooperation is a pillar of human society, promoting an exchange of skills and knowledge between different individuals and social groups. Humans typically do not only cooperate with their own family, friends and members of ...

For more than 100,000 years, the Methana volcano in Greece appeared dormant. No lava, no explosions, no ash clouds. It appeared extinct, like many other volcanoes today. An international research team led by ETH Zurich has ...

Mud-rich coastlines could face a greater tsunami risk, at least that may have been the case for the 2011 Tōhoku-oki tsunami that killed more than 19,000 people and led to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. According ...

Plasma, the fourth state of matter, consists of a gas in which electrons are no longer bound to atoms, which allows electricity to flow freely. When beams of particles moving close to the speed of light travel through plasma, ...

Nature is a riot of color. In the animal kingdom, many species, from insects to cephalopods, use their permanent color or change it for communication, camouflage, and thermoregulation. While this type of reversible shift ...

Astronomers from South Africa and India have analyzed archival data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) regarding a nearby small galaxy group known as IC 1262. Results of the new ...

When you throw a ball in the air, the equations of classical physics will tell you exactly what path the ball will take as it falls, and when and where it will land. But if you were to squeeze that same ball down to the size ...

A team of scientists has identified a new physical mechanism that could help explain one of the most persistent mysteries in science: why life consistently uses one "handed" version of its molecules and not the other. In ...