Phys.org news

Letting late-summer weeds grow could help honeybees when they find it most challenging to gather nectar, according to new research published in the journal, Functional Ecology.

The effects of global warming depend on species: The losers are legion, but a lucky few are winners. Now, researchers have shown that baleen whales are taking advantage of a newly opened-up fish bonanza in the Greenland Sea, ...

As they build their nests, many birds are known to interweave dried grasses and other materials with green plants, such as fresh leaves, grass stems, herbs and aromatic leaves. While this behavior is well documented, why ...

When different materials transition from one phase to another, such as water coming to a boil or a magnet losing its ability to attract metals, something remarkable can happen: They begin to behave identically, following ...

Quantum computers hold great promise for applications from drug discovery to cybersecurity. Yet figuring out what would give quantum computers their edge over everyday "classical" computers is a subtle problem. A new theoretical ...

Standing on the sandy, windswept shores of Provincetown, Massachusetts, people may find themselves squinting at the horizon, waiting for a whale to make its grand entrance with a spectacular breach.

We reach for brighter, better lighting for sharper pictures, whether we're photographing a puppy or a microscopic cell. In most cases, the light comes from outside the object being photographed. A recent study explored a ...

Quantum batteries, devices that store energy by exploiting quantum mechanical phenomena, could, in principle, be charged faster and more efficiently than classical ones. Despite their potential, connecting these batteries ...

Astronomers have detected an enormous cloud of gas tens of millions of degrees hot surrounding one of the most extreme structures known in the early universe. The study offers one of the clearest views yet of a galaxy cluster ...

Scientists had previously observed that some species of shrews undergo a form of biological plasticity in which their bodies, skulls, brains and some organs shrink in the winter, then regrow in the spring. Now, a new study ...

A mysterious background of extremely low-frequency gravitational waves detected by networks of pulsars may carry information about events that began more than 13 billion years ago—including the formation of some of the first ...

At the bottom of the ocean, optical fibers transmit telecommunications and internet data around the world. Waveguides make that feat possible by channeling and amplifying the light—and therefore the data within—over enormous ...