Phys.org news

Biologists at the National University of Singapore (NUS) have uncovered how the protein NuSAP safeguards tiny structures inside cells called centrioles, revealing a mechanism linked to developmental disorders such as microcephaly ...

Thanks to upstream diversions and climate change, Utah's Great Salt Lake has shrunk by 70% since 1989, exposing about 800 square miles of playa and mudflats—along with numerous curiosities. While a potential environmental ...

When people think of asteroids, they tend to picture rare, civilization-ending impacts like those depicted in movies such as "Armageddon." In reality, the asteroids most likely to affect modern society are much smaller. While ...

Technologies that convert carbon dioxide (CO₂) emitted from factories and power plants into useful chemical feedstocks are considered key to achieving carbon neutrality. However, rapid degradation of catalyst performance ...

In areas where freshwater is scarce, farmers often turn to treated wastewater to irrigate crops. And many regulators and consumers worry about exposing food to compounds routinely found in wastewater, including many psychoactive ...

A team of international scientists, including researchers at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, reports a major advance in sorghum genomics: a powerful new resource designed to speed discovery of traits that help crops ...

Light-based quantum technologies, such as quantum communication and photonic quantum computing, require reliable sources of individual photons and, ideally, pairs of entangled photons. Semiconductor quantum dots are promising ...

When winter sets in and food becomes scarce, some mammals hibernate, entering a state of deep rest that slashes their energy needs and allows them to fast for months. However, fasting deprives them of essential nutrients, ...

Can fungi influence the weather? Turns out, they just might. An international group of researchers that includes Virginia Tech's Xiaofeng Wang and Boris A. Vinatzer discovered the identity of fungal proteins that can catalyze ...

The Amazon rainforest is famous for storing massive amounts of carbon in its trees and soils, helping regulate the global climate. Yet a paper published in New Phytologist shows that one of South America's largest carbon-storing ...

Neuroscientists have uncovered new insights into a key evolutionary question: Why can humans talk when most animals can't? The journal Science published the research led by Emory University and the New College of Florida. ...

A pioneering research-industry partnership has used advances in indoor farming technology to grow pea shoots fortified with vitamin B12, opening an exciting route to market for farmers and addressing a major public health ...