Phys.org news

Phys.org / Well-behaved dogs generally have lower cortisol and higher serotonin, study finds

Dogs who scored well on the Wesen test, which is used to analyze a dog's temperament, tended to have lower levels of cortisol, often called the "stress hormone," and higher levels of serotonin, often called the "happiness ...

9 hours ago in Biology
Phys.org / From single queens to mega-colonies: How ant societies are shaped by the environment

A single queen in the tropics; large colonies in deserts; workers with uniform morphology in temperate regions; ant social structures vary according to environmental conditions. This is shown, for the first time at a global ...

9 hours ago in Biology
Phys.org / Exposure to burn injuries played key role in shaping human evolution, study suggests

Humans' exposure to high temperature burn injuries may have played an important role in our evolutionary development, shaping how our bodies heal, fight infection, and sometimes fail under extreme injury, according to new ...

4 hours ago in Biology
Phys.org / Olives have been essential to life in Italy for at least 6,000 years—far longer than we thought

How far back does the rich history of Italian olives and oil stretch? My new research, published in the American Journal of Archaeology, synthesizing and reevaluating existing archaeological evidence, suggests olive trees ...

10 hours ago in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Are returning Pumas putting Patagonian Penguins at risk? New study reveals the likelihood

Should we protect an emblematic species if it may come at the cost of another one—particularly in ecosystems that are still recovering from human impacts? This is the conservation dilemma facing Monte Leon National Park, ...

4 hours ago in Biology
Phys.org / From sea to space: Turning the tide on microplastic pollution with satellite technology

What do microplastics, water color, and satellites have in common? Dr. Karl Kaiser, professor of marine and coastal environmental science in the College of Marine Sciences and Maritime Studies at Texas A&M University at Galveston ...

10 hours ago in Earth
Phys.org / Friendly bacteria can unlock hidden metabolic pathways in plant cell cultures

Plants are a rich and renewable source of compounds used in medicines, food ingredients, and cosmetics. Since growing an entire plant just to extract a few specific compounds is rather inefficient, scientists are turning ...

10 hours ago in Biology
Phys.org / Experiments with 1,600 volunteers link social exclusion to higher interest in gossip

Ages ago, when societies were organized around small villages, a person's security and sense of belonging depended partly on how close they were to the village chiefs and elders. If the village was attacked, those closest ...

10 hours ago in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Reuniting forcibly separated families: How a machine-learning model can help

Around the world, millions of families have suffered forcible separation, through war, trafficking, natural disasters, or socioeconomic crises. In China, family separation is a particularly large-scale and far-reaching problem. ...

9 hours ago in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Hard to recycle packaging? This glue could let plastics peel apart on cue

Newcastle University engineers are at the forefront of adhesive technology that promises to change how we recycle. They have developed a reversible glue that sticks things together like any other glue but can debond on demand. ...

10 hours ago in Chemistry
Phys.org / Scientists use RNA nanotechnology to program living cells, opening a new path for cancer cure

Scientists at Rutgers University–Newark have developed a first-of-its-kind RNA-based nanotechnology that assembles itself inside living human cells and can be programmed to stop propagation of harmful cells. The findings, ...

11 hours ago in Nanotechnology
Phys.org / Researchers uncover a one-hour 'crown' checkpoint that enables malaria reproduction

A new study has uncovered a hidden step that helps the deadliest malaria parasite survive and multiply inside the human body. Researchers studying Plasmodium falciparum found that the parasite relies on a brief but essential ...

11 hours ago in Biology