Phys.org news

When it comes to choosing a partner, some species prefer males that stand out from the crowd. Evolutionary biologists call the resulting process negative frequency-dependent selection. It means that a male has a huge mating ...

Living cells constantly exchange ions (i.e., charged particles) via the thin barrier that surrounds their interior, known as the outer membrane. Neuroscientists and medical researchers have long been trying to devise effective ...

Multiferroics are materials that exhibit more than one prominent "ferroic" property, such as ferromagnetism and ferroelectricity. One of their most advantageous features is that they allow engineers to control their magnetic ...

A large asteroid that will zoom harmlessly past Earth on Saturday will be visible to stargazers using a small telescope or large binoculars, the European Space Agency announced Wednesday.

Massive stars much bigger than our sun always come in pairs or groups, not alone. But astronomers don't fully understand how these groupings form. In a new study, astronomers using ALMA have serendipitously discovered a young ...

Echinoderms, such as starfish, sea urchins and sea lilies, use small, flexible, tubular projections called "tube feet" for locomotion, feeding, respiration and sensory perception. Crinoids, a subgroup of echinoderms, are ...

Reading difficulties, like dyslexia, are common and often affect achievement and outcomes during school and later in life. A new study, published in Current Biology, reports that current methods used to test for reading disabilities ...

Deep inside gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn, hydrogen and helium coexist under pressures millions of times greater than Earth's atmosphere. Under those conditions, helium may separate from hydrogen and influence a planet's ...

Researchers at Oregon State University have potentially found a new way to treat the most aggressive form of brain cancer, glioblastoma, whose two-year survival rate is less than 30%.

Popular music may be reflecting a growing culture of vices, according to new research from the Center for Digital Music at Queen Mary University of London. The analysis of musical evolution found that song lyrics have become ...

It's time we gave seagrass the credit it's due. This hero of a plant protects coastlines, stores vast amounts of carbon and supports ecosystems that people and wildlife depend on. But we don't often hear about it when it ...

More than 20% of the workload on the world's 500 fastest supercomputers is spent simulating how atoms and molecules move—with applications ranging from material design to identifying drug interactions to understanding protein ...