Phys.org news

All over the body are tiny sensors called nociceptors whose job is to spot potentially harmful stimuli and send warning signals to the brain and spinal cord, helping protect us from injury or tissue damage.

Sometimes, in genetics, two wrongs do make a right. A research team has recently shown that two harmful genetic variants, when occurring together in a gene, can restore function—proving a decades-old hypothesis originally ...

A comprehensive new review synthesizing decades of research warns that the Brazilian Cerrado—a biodiversity hotspot, known for its vast inverted forests—is facing a massive, multi-faceted ecological crisis.

A multidisciplinary team has uncovered a key mechanism that allows the human bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae—responsible for atypical pneumonia and other respiratory infections—to obtain cholesterol and other essential ...

Thanks to a recent study by researchers at IOCB Prague, it is now possible to monitor processes in living cells more effectively than before, including responses to drugs and changes in cellular structures.

Horses can smell your fear. If you are experiencing this emotion while standing near a horse, they will be able to detect it through your scent alone, which changes their behavior and physiology. That's the conclusion of ...

Scientists at the Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology (IMBB-FORTH) and the University of Crete, together with collaborators from Greece, Europe, the U.S., and India, have discovered a novel role of albumin, the ...

A mysterious bar-shaped cloud of iron has been discovered inside the iconic Ring Nebula by a European team led by astronomers at University College London (UCL) and Cardiff University.

One intriguing method that could be used to form the qubits needed for quantum computers involves electrons hovering above liquid helium. But it wasn't clear how data in this form could be read easily.

Understanding human gene function in living organisms has long been hampered by fundamental differences between species. Although mice share most protein-coding genes with humans, their regulatory landscapes often diverge, ...

Opinion polarization is often considered as the primary driver of social friction, leading to exhaustive efforts to force a consensus. However, new research suggests a more pragmatic goal: reducing the friction of disagreement ...

MicroRNAs, whose discovery was recognized with the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, are central regulators of gene expression, yet a fundamental question has remained unanswered: how cells choose between the two ...