Phys.org news

Microorganisms regulate key processes in soils and aquifers, including nutrient cycling, carbon turnover and contaminant degradation. Many bacteria use chemotaxis, the ability to sense and swim toward chemical signals, to ...

The Human Genome Project was launched in 1990, preceded by decades of breakthroughs in genetics. It eventually gave us a sequence of the human genome. Yet, while the physical rules behind the genome's organization remain ...

In a discovery as broad and far-reaching as the Big Muddy itself, a new Yale–led study says farmers in the Mississippi River Basin are storing more carbon dioxide (CO2) in the soil than they emit when they add limestone to ...

Bacteriophages—or phages, for short—are viruses that kill bacteria, and scientists have been studying them for decades as a possible solution to antibiotic-resistant infections. But phages are notoriously picky eaters—a phage ...

New research from the University of St Andrews has created the largest combined study of bat genomes and fossils ever undertaken, finding that bats most likely originated in Europe around 65 million years ago before spreading ...

A new study has found that chemicals that can affect fertility and reproductive health are contaminating natural and drinking water supplies. The researchers involved in the study have also developed a tool to help detect ...

In a new study, cats and dogs showed a short-term preference for kibble containing some protein derived from microorganisms over kibble containing only standard animal-derived protein. Ally Motta de Matos and A.L.B. Cruz ...

If you're swimming in the Salish Sea late at night and feel a skittering along your calves, tiny hairy feet tip-tapping their way higher and higher toward your face, don't worry—it's probably just the stuff of nightmares: ...

Switching to modern silicon solar cells could cut the cost of powering satellites by as much as 90% based on beginning-of-life (BOL) performance, according to a review led by the University of Surrey. The switch to silicon ...

As students return to school and cold and flu season begins, researchers are studying ways to improve indoor air quality and reduce the risk of airborne disease transmission.

The seafloor is more than just the ground beneath the sea. Two-thirds of Earth's surface is covered by oceans, which have an average depth of almost 4 kilometers (2.5 miles). For a long time, the seafloor's remoteness protected ...

Tiny plantlike organisms called phytoplankton that form the base of marine food webs topped by orcas, whales and sharks usually get eaten or slowly sink to the seafloor, carrying carbon as they go. Across most of the ocean, ...