Phys.org news

In the Lac Télé Community Reserve, a vast tropical peatland in Africa's Congo Basin that is home to about 20,000 people, the forces of climate change and globalization are hitting residents hard. The seasonal floods upon ...

Lakes play an important role in capturing and storing carbon, which accumulates in their sediments. But the amounts they can absorb have varied considerably over time. Jean-François Lapierre, a professor in the Department ...

Researchers at the University of Cincinnati have identified a potential new target to prevent the spread of Chagas disease. The parasitic infection is transmitted through the bite of the kissing bug in Central and South America ...

Blinking keeps eyes moist, sweeps away bits of dirt and dust, and helps the brain rest when processing visual information. But in dogs, it may also serve another function as a subtle social signal. That was one of the conclusions ...

Detecting short-wave infrared (SWIR) light, a region of the electromagnetic spectrum just beyond the light visible to the human eye, could be advantageous for many real-world applications. For instance, it could enable more ...

Unlike conventional glaciers, rock glaciers appear as piles of rock that obscure large masses of unaccounted-for ice. Rock glaciers are common in the Wasatch and Uinta ranges, even appearing on the Colorado Plateau in the ...

For decades, light has been used to understand the molecular structures of matter. A sample is irradiated with light, and measurements determine the wavelengths at which it is absorbed. Since each molecule absorbs light at ...

A new study that combines paleoclimate data and climate models suggests that large volcanic eruptions can disrupt the relationship between atmospheric circulation patterns over the tropical Indian and Pacific oceans. In addition, ...

Scientists from the National University of Singapore (NUS), in collaboration with Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States, have uncovered that a class of nickel-based materials known as samarium (Sm)-based infinite-layer ...

The adult human brain has limited capacity to repair or regenerate neurons lost to Alzheimer's disease, the most common type of dementia. Existing treatments can slow disease progression but do not reverse cognitive decline. ...

A new study by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researchers shows that nearly 23% of short-finned pilot whales that stranded over 13 years in the main Hawaiian Islands ingested several pounds of plastic ropes, netting, fishing ...

Bats are anomalies in the mammalian world—they fly, have long lifespans and rarely get cancer. Scientists now suspect the bat immune system enables them to live longer without disease, according to a new study published today ...