Phys.org news

A new LUMC study has changed our understanding of how cells work. Researchers have discovered that the CFAP20 protein acts as a kind of "traffic controller" on DNA. Without this protein, chaos ensues, potentially causing ...

Insects are often seen as invaders due to high-profile species like the yellow-legged (Asian) hornet, the harlequin ladybird and fire ant. But new research reveals insects are also major victims of invasive alien species—exacerbating ...

Much like humans, microbial organisms can be fickle in their productivity. One moment they're cranking out useful chemicals in vast fermentation tanks, metabolizing feed to make products from pharmaceuticals and supplements ...

Plants reflect urban climate and soil conditions with remarkable precision. Using more than 80 million observations from plant identification apps, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry have produced ...

A new study led by researchers at the University of Oxford has shown that the shape and orientation of coastlines significantly influenced extinction patterns for animals living in the shallow oceans during the last 540 million ...

Multi-ignition wildfires are not overly common. But when individual fires do converge, the consequences can be catastrophic. The largest fire on record in California, the 2020 August Complex fire, grew from the coalescence ...

Radio telescopes are instruments that capture faint radio signals from space and convert them into images of celestial bodies. To observe distant black holes clearly, multiple radio telescopes must capture cosmic signals ...

Gold nanorods are promising photocatalysts that can use light energy to drive chemical reactions—such as converting CO₂ into usable fuels or producing hydrogen from water. In this process, the nanorods act like tiny antennas ...

When people think about habitats on Earth, they likely picture forests, oceans or grasslands. Few think to look up. Yet the lower atmosphere, or troposphere, may be the largest habitat on the planet. A new study published ...

To stay healthy, our cells rely on a self-cleaning mechanism that removes defective or unnecessary components. This process, known as autophagy, has been linked not only to cellular maintenance but also to various diseases ...

A research team of the University Medical Center Mainz has succeeded in observing for the first time how G protein-coupled receptors in living cells actually respond to activating substances. The scientists discovered that ...

A recent study shows that viruses in wild bees are closely linked to the flowers they visit and the availability of floral resources across the landscape. Researchers found that certain floral communities increase the likelihood ...