Phys.org news

Phys.org / 129,000 years of crocodiles: What we know about Australasia's ancient apex predators

The sight of a saltwater crocodile basking on a mudbank is one of the most iconic and intimidating images of northern Australia. Yet the crocodiles that inhabit the region today are just the survivors of a much richer and ...

21 hours ago
Phys.org / How economic growth in low-income countries can also protect biodiversity

For decades, environmental debates have been framed around a stark trade-off: economic growth lifts people out of poverty but comes at the expense of forests, wildlife, and climate stability. More people and richer diets ...

18 hours ago
Phys.org / Urban aerosols grow faster in polluted air, sharpening climate model gaps

Aerosols and clouds play a key role in Earth's climate budget. However, the extent to which they reflect solar energy depends heavily on how much water the particles can absorb. This so-called hygroscopicity has so far been ...

19 hours ago
Phys.org / Dominant fish face higher microplastic risk than subordinates in social groups

Fish who display dominant traits are more at risk of consuming microplastic pollution than others in their social group, according to new research. The study, led by the University of Glasgow and published in Proceedings ...

19 hours ago
Phys.org / High-entropy catalyst lets ammonia fuel cell reach world-class power and durability

As ammonia gains attention as a next-generation energy source capable of overcoming the limits of hydrogen storage and transport, KAIST and a joint research team have developed fuel cell technology that directly uses ammonia ...

23 hours ago
Phys.org / Scientists solve 50-year mystery of plant immunity by unlocking debneyol's blueprint

In a silent war that has raged for millions of years, plants have evolved a sophisticated chemical arsenal to fight back against invading pathogens. Now, a team of researchers from Peking University and Tsinghua University ...

20 hours ago
Phys.org / The quantum key to seeing through chaos

Researchers from the Institut des NanoSciences de Paris, the Kastler Brossel Laboratory and the University of Glasgow have developed an innovative method that renders a scattering medium transparent solely for information ...

21 hours ago
Phys.org / Paper calls for biologists to rethink how they analyze the impact of climate

A new paper calls for ecologists and evolutionary biologists to consider how organisms experience climate rather than how weather stations record it when doing climate–biology research. The paper, "Matching climate to biological ...

20 hours ago
Phys.org / Chiral carbon nanotube films deliver giant light-conversion effect

A sheet of twisted carbon nanotubes has revealed a hidden talent scientists suspected for decades but had never managed to measure. Researchers at Rice University have created large, highly ordered films of chiral carbon ...

23 hours ago
Phys.org / Fragility found in a high value shark population

The vulnerability of a shark population to losing even small numbers to fishing has been highlighted by researchers from the University of Chester and partners in the Philippines using a remote stereo camera system. The team ...

20 hours ago
Phys.org / Cows can recognize familiar human faces and match them to voices

Cows show a visual preference for new human faces over a familiar one and can match a known handler's voice to their face, according to a study published in the open-access journal PLOS One by Océane Amichaud of INRAE in ...

21 hours ago
Phys.org / Climate change spurs weight gain in owl monkeys

Azara's owl monkeys, a small primate species found in South America, are heavier today than those that lived a quarter-century ago, and evidence suggests that rising temperatures might have driven the weight gain, according ...

21 hours ago