Phys.org news
Phys.org / Harsh UVB bursts leave tadpoles with more DNA damage than longer exposure
Sunburn is a serious problem in the Southern Hemisphere, where depleted ozone provides less protection from UVB. Tadpoles are at particular risk because they are growing rapidly, making them vulnerable to UVB DNA damage. ...
Phys.org / More colorful songbirds face higher extinction risk
In the humid jungle of Vietnam, Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela and Monte Neate-Clegg spent hours patiently waiting to spot the rare "Halloween bird." Officially known as the collared laughingthrush, this songbird has striking orange, ...
Phys.org / Light flips bacterial signaling enzyme between two shapes, unlocking how signals travel
Researchers at the University of Bayreuth and Forschungszentrum Jülich have demonstrated that specific light-sensitive enzymes—so-called sensor histidine kinases (SHKs)—transmit their signal through a light-controlled change ...
Phys.org / TESS just found a planet in a new way—and more may be hiding in its eight years of data
For the first time, NASA's TESS (Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite) mission has identified a planet orbiting a distant star thanks to its warping of space-time. Unlike the star-hugging transiting planets TESS regularly ...
Phys.org / Physicists and AI model Claude 'collaborate' to prove a 10-year-old jamming conjecture
A mathematical problem that had remained unsolved for more than 10 years in the physics of complex systems has finally been resolved through an unusual collaboration: one involving two theoretical physicists and an artificial ...
Phys.org / 400-year-old painting reveals a bat's secret diet
Natural historians have many observational techniques in their toolkit for learning about the natural world: tagging animals with tracking devices, recording sounds, analyzing droppings or simply watching and counting. As ...
Phys.org / DNA-based nanoswitch can flip in milliseconds and stay in one state for days without continuous forcing
Scientists have engineered a nanoscale switch using DNA "origami." Inspired by macroscale mechanical switches, the device achieves long-term functionality without the continuous forcing mechanism that past versions required ...
Phys.org / How a giant planet survived its star's death, then migrated inward
When astronomers discovered a giant planet orbiting a dead star in 2020, they wondered how it survived its star's violent demise. Now, observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may finally explain the planet's ...
Phys.org / Algae may have launched coral reefs by hijacking coral cells, genetic experiments suggest
The reefs scattered throughout the tropics arose only after algae took up full-time residence in coral cells, supplying corals with abundant food and enabling them to build extensive shallow-water communities. But with warming ...
Phys.org / Mismatched work–life boundaries while working from home can push couples toward breaking up
The COVID-19 pandemic transformed the way people work, making remote and work-from-home (WFH) jobs far more common than ever before. Even after social distancing ended, many companies and employees chose to stick with this ...
Phys.org / Urokodia! 518-million-year-old fossil shows beginning of spider's bite
The earliest evidence of spiders' fangs has been identified in a 518-million-year-old fossil by scientists at the University of Leicester and Yunnan University.
Phys.org / Single-atom catalyst turns lignin into valuable chemicals with near-complete conversion
Researchers at The University of Manchester and Hebei University of Technology have identified how a new class of catalyst can break down lignin into useful chemical building blocks, offering a more sustainable route to replace ...
