Phys.org news

Plants convert light into energy efficiently through photosynthesis—an ability that scientists and engineers still struggle to match with electronic devices. Recently, researchers have looked beyond traditional semiconductor ...

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 ...

Trions form when three particles, like quarks or electrons, come together. This formation occurs in quantum particles in nuclear physics, semiconductors and magnets, and understanding its behavior can be challenging. Rice ...

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 ...

A unique cache of plant fossils from volcanic deposits in New Mexico contradicts the common narrative that flowering plants were minor players in Earth's forests until dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago.

The Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science has developed an ultrasensitive immunoassay-based analytical platform that can detect and quantify trace amounts of "Small Excised Damaged DNA (sedDNA)" fragments generated ...

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, ...

To understand where Earth might be headed, it's important to know where it has been. Throughout its existence, especially over the past couple of million years, Earth has experienced periodic cold and warm intervals, known ...

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 ...

Marine sponges may play an important, previously underestimated role in reducing methylmercury contamination in marine food webs. In a new modeling study, researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon showed that sponges can significantly ...

Researchers at McMaster University have discovered what they describe as a "megacluster" of genes in Streptomyces bacteria that produces four antibiotics that work together to stop rival bacteria.