Phys.org news

Beneath the surface of forests, grasslands and farms across the world, vast fungal webs form underground trading systems to exchange nutrients with plant roots, acting as critical climate regulators as they draw down 13 billion ...

Europe and western North America will experience more frequent and severe crop droughts as Earth warms, even in places where yearly rainfall increases.

University of Birmingham scientists have developed a new way of measuring and analyzing indoor air pollution that—in initial trials—has established a clear link between office occupancy, physical activity, and air quality.

Researchers at National Taiwan University reveal that combined exposure to polystyrene nanoplastics and the preservative butylparaben, at a level considered safe on their own, can cause heritable harm, disrupting reproduction ...

Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, in collaboration with Osaka University and the National Institutes for Quantum Science and Technology, have uncovered a previously unknown ...

During spring, when queen bumblebees first emerge from hibernation to start their nests, they work incredibly hard foraging for nectar to fuel their new colonies. But then, as soon as their first workers are born, they seem ...

For 21 years, between 1999 and 2020, millions of people worldwide loaned UC Berkeley scientists their computers to search for signs of advanced civilizations in our galaxy.

Evolutionarily speaking, the ultimate goal of a lifeform is to reproduce and stave off extinction. Many plants and animals have evolved unique tricks to do so. One of these tricks is mimicry, which might be used to trick ...

Quantum technologies are highly promising devices that process, transfer or store information leveraging quantum mechanical effects. Instead of relying on bits, like classical computers, quantum devices rely on entangled ...

Our nearest neighbor, the moon, is still something of a mystery to us. For decades, scientists have wondered why it appears so lopsided, with dark volcanic plains on the near side (the side we see) and rugged, cratered mountains ...

Spaceflight takes a physical toll on astronauts, causing muscles to atrophy, bones to thin and bodily fluids to shift. According to a new study published in the journal PNAS, we can now add another major change to that list. ...

Microbubbles in the tap water you just poured into a plastic glass are strong enough to create tiny abrasions on the inner layer of the plastic—quietly adding to our growing microplastic problem.