Phys.org news

A three-year study has cracked open the hidden biology behind coral reproduction, revealing hormone cycles that echo those of humans and other animals, and a new way to detect reef distress before it's too late.

Maize (Zea mays L.) plays an important role in global food security. During 9,000 years of maize domestication and breeding, however, protein content was not a major breeding target. Consequently, many beneficial gene variants ...

Raman optical activity, long thought to require chiral molecules or magnetic order, has been demonstrated in an achiral, nonmagnetic crystal by researchers at the Institute of Science Tokyo. The effect arises through ferroaxial ...

A light, flexible polymer material developed at the University of Waterloo could replace the lead in heavy X-ray aprons, providing the same protection from harmful radiation while reducing their weight by almost 90%.

Hiroshima University researchers say a newly proposed three-step "detour" pathway for making dolichol, a molecule cells need to properly process proteins, may be more universal than scientists realized. Experiments in yeast ...

How do bacteria regulate the production of their proteins? Researchers at the University of Hamburg, in collaboration with international partners, have now demonstrated how small protein building blocks, known as peptides, ...

The discovery of fire was a major milestone in human evolution, giving our ancestors a way to stay warm, ward off predators, and eventually start cooking food. But exactly when this first happened is still intensely debated, ...

For millions of people, chatbots powered by large language models (LLMs) are now a key feature of everyday life. These AI systems are growing at a rapid pace, but scaling them up is becoming increasingly costly and resource-intensive.

Colloidal photonic glasses offer an appealing way to produce vivid colors without any chemical dyes—but so far, a stubborn optical effect has long prevented them from generating a true red color. Now, Yuwon Jeon and colleagues ...

Typically, the information encoded in DNA allows organisms to develop, function, and pass traits across generations. Yet DNA alone does not explain how genes are switched on and off in different cells and environments. This ...

Imagine a train parked at the station. Passengers climb aboard and find their seats. Conductors move up and down the aisles, checking tickets. But there's a problem—the engineer's watch is broken. As a result, the doors never ...

Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have used simulations to show that a newly developed, compact X-ray telescope could be used to map the chemical composition of the entire lunar surface, a vital breakthrough ...