Phys.org news
Phys.org / 'Born-again' star offers rare chance to watch stellar evolution in real time
Astronomers have confirmed that one of the fastest-changing stars ever observed has entered a new stage of its evolution, offering a rare opportunity to watch a star's life unfold on human timescales.
Phys.org / The local costs of remote sensing: Examining the ethics of laser scanning in tropical forests
Laser scanning, often referred to as lidar, has rapidly transformed how tropical forest regions are studied, monitored and understood across academic disciplines. The technology enables researchers to peer through dense forest ...
Phys.org / Heating mica to 200°C reveals friction independent of sliding speed
Through joint research with the U.S. Geological Survey and the University of Tokyo, NIMS for the first time experimentally demonstrated friction completely independent of sliding velocity—an ideal that had never been realized—by ...
Phys.org / Well-preserved tooth from Pacific mastodon found in a creek in San Francisco Bay Area
Brigid Lynch was working along a wooded creek in a mountainous part of the San Francisco Bay Area when something that didn't look like the rocks she'd been studying caught her eye. It turned out to be the fossilized tooth ...
Phys.org / A world 20 light-years away reveals surprisingly organized, Jupiter-like weather
Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have developed a way to unravel changing weather patterns on distant worlds. Using this approach, they discovered that the weather on a well-studied brown dwarf, SIMP 0136, previously ...
Phys.org / New simulations link unusual particle diffusion to yielding in soft jammed matter
Soft materials such as colloidal suspensions, emulsions, foams and gels often display complex and unusual behaviors compared with ordinary solids or liquids. From a mechanical point of view, for instance, they can resist ...
Phys.org / Chimpanzees give youngsters the tools to learn tricky techniques
Two-thirds of a century after Jane Goodall observed "David Greybeard" break off a twig to fashion a fishing rod for termites, researchers following in her footsteps have found that adult chimpanzees in Senegal literally hand ...
Phys.org / Wild dogs make the longest recorded journey of any terrestrial mammal in Africa
African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) travel incredibly long distances to search for a mate and new places to breed. They typically embark on these mammoth treks as young adults and often face numerous hazards along the way. ...
Phys.org / History is being rewritten at an archaeological site in Morocco. What the discovery of an ancient wall tells us
In the hills of northwestern Morocco, overlooking the river that gives the site its name, research at Oued Beht is bringing to light a previously unknown chapter of the region's past. The discovery of a substantial built ...
Phys.org / New species of 240-million-year-old prehistoric animal could reshape dinosaur origins timeline
A new prehistoric animal species from Tanzania dating to around 240 million years ago, during the Triassic period, has been described by an international team of researchers. Led by the University of Bristol, the new species, ...
Phys.org / Biophysical model suggests how cells optimize information gathering without using too much energy
In both biological and engineered systems, cells and sensors must make sense of noisy, changing signals to function. However, collecting and using this information consumes valuable energy. A new study, published in Physical ...
Phys.org / Plasma and electricity convert CO₂ into methanol, butane and other useful chemicals
Carbon dioxide (CO₂) can be harmful to the environment in large amounts but can be used in the production of fuels and other useful chemicals. Doing so isn't easy, though. Now, Yale researchers have developed a new way to ...