Phys.org news
Phys.org / Tiny marine animal reveals bacterial origin of animal defense mechanisms
Marine animals, such as the extremely simple flatworm Trichoplax, are ideal model organisms for studying the early evolutionary origins of animal life processes. Despite measuring only a few millimeters and lacking true organs ...
Phys.org / Keeping an eagle eye on carbon stored in the ocean
Geologic reservoirs that trapped petroleum for millions of years are now being repurposed to store the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. New research is improving how we monitor this storage and verify how much CO2 these reservoirs ...
Phys.org / Root microbes could help oak trees adapt to drought
Microbes could help oak trees cope with environmental change. Publishing in Cell Host & Microbe, a study observing oaks growing in a natural woodland found that the trees' above- and below-ground microbiomes were resilient ...
Phys.org / Elevated lead levels could flow from some US drinking water kiosks
After high-profile water crises like the one in Flint, Michigan, some Americans distrust the safety of tap water, choosing to purchase drinking water from freestanding water vending machines or kiosks. Yet this more expensive ...
Phys.org / Southern right whales are facing climate-driven decline in Australia
The tide has turned on the conservation success story of the southern right whale. Once considered a global conservation success story, the species is now emerging as a warning signal of how climate change is impacting threatened ...
Dialog / Old galaxies in a young universe?
The standard cosmological model (present-day version of "Big Bang," called Lambda-CDM) gives an age of the universe close to 13.8 billion years and much younger when we explore the universe at high-redshift. The redshift ...
Phys.org / Football-sized fossil creature may have been one of the first land animals to eat plants
Life on Earth started in the oceans. Sometime around 475 million years ago, plants began making their way from the water onto the land, and it took another 100 million years for the first animals with backbones to join them. ...
Phys.org / Experiment relies on pulsars to probe dark matter waves
Dark matter is a type of matter that is predicted to make up most of the matter in the universe, yet it is very difficult to detect using conventional experimental techniques, as it does not emit, absorb, or reflect light. ...
Phys.org / China's emissions policies are helping climate change but also creating a new problem
China's sweeping efforts to clean up its air have delivered one of the biggest public health success stories of recent decades. Since the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan was launched in 2013, coal-fired power ...
Phys.org / Social media feeds: Algorithm redesign could break echo chambers and reduce online polarization
Scroll through social media long enough and a pattern emerges. Pause on a post questioning climate change or taking a hard line on a political issue, and the platform is quick to respond—serving up more of the same viewpoints, ...
Phys.org / Current flows without heat loss in newly engineered fractional quantum material
A team of US researchers has unveiled a device that can conduct electricity along its fractionally charged edges without losing energy to heat. Described in Nature Physics, the work, led by Xiaodong Xu at the University of ...
Phys.org / Oldest known sewn hide and other artifacts from Oregon caves shed light on early clothing in harsh climates
In 1958, an amateur archaeologist named John Cowles excavated the Cougar Mountain Cave in Oregon and retained many of the artifacts found there. Upon his death in the 1980s, these items were transferred to the Favell Museum ...
