Phys.org news

Throughout human history, there have been many instances where two populations came into contact—especially in the past few thousand years because of large-scale migrations as a consequence of conquests, colonialization, ...

For the first time, researchers have found that the number of electrical discharges on a spacecraft directly correlates to the number of electrons in the surrounding environment—information that could help scientists better ...

In turbulent fluids, mixing of the components happens easily. However, in more viscous fluids such as those enclosed within cellular compartments, the intermixing of particles and molecules is much more challenging. As time ...

For many industrial applications one needs synthesis gas, also known as "syngas," a mixture of hydrogen (H2) and carbon monoxide (CO). In addition to the established production method via steam reforming, synthesis gas can ...

Ferroelectrics are seen as promising candidates for the electronics of tomorrow. An experiment at the world's largest X-ray laser—the European XFEL in Schenefeld near Hamburg—now shows that their properties can be controlled ...

Plastics pose a significant waste problem: many conventional plastics do not degrade, or do so only with great difficulty. This makes research into new plastics essential—materials that retain useful properties but can ...

Scientists at The University of Osaka and Tohoku University have developed a technique for creating nanoscale magnetic thin films with embedded functionality. By leveraging the stretchability of flexible substrates, they ...

Few of us ever think about what happens beneath our feet when we walk through a field of wheat or clover. We see the stalks, leaves, and flowers, but in practice we have no direct access to the roots.

The European Space Agency-led Solar Orbiter mission has split the flood of energetic particles flung out into space from the sun into two groups, tracing each back to a different kind of outburst from our star.

In a new paper, published in Nature Human Behaviour, scientists from DTU (the Technical University of Denmark) examine how geography shapes human mobility and propose a way to separate physical constraints from behavioral ...

Common shrews are one of only a handful of mammals known to flexibly shrink and regrow their brains. This rare seasonal cycle, known as Dehnel's phenomenon, has puzzled scientists for decades. How can a brain lose volume ...

A team of researchers from Monash University has made a discovery that could reshape our understanding of greenhouse gas emissions from coastal ecosystems. Published in Nature Geoscience, the study reveals sandy coastlines, ...