Phys.org news
Phys.org / Invasive termites threatening homes in Florida are spreading farther than predicted
Florida's coastal and urban counties continue to see the spread of two invasive termite species beyond South Florida. The species are now threatening structures statewide, according to a new University of Florida study.
Phys.org / Skua deaths mark first wildlife die-off due to avian flu on Antarctica
More than 50 skuas in Antarctica died from the high pathogenicity avian influenza virus H5N1 in the summers of 2023 and 2024, marking the first documented die-off of wildlife from the virus on the continent. That is confirmed ...
Phys.org / Snowball Earth: Ancient Scottish rocks reveal annual climate cycles
Scientists at the University of Southampton have uncovered evidence from ancient rocks that Earth's climate continued to fluctuate during its most extreme ice age—known as Snowball Earth. During the Cryogenian Period, between ...
Phys.org / Two-day-old babies show brain signs of rhythm prediction, study finds
Babies are born with the ability to predict rhythm, according to a study published February 5 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology by Roberta Bianco from the Italian Institute of Technology, and colleagues.
Phys.org / Rare 'universal paralog' genes may reveal a pre-LUCA evolutionary record
All life on Earth shares a common ancestor that lived roughly four billion years ago. This so-called "last universal common ancestor" (LUCA) represents the most ancient organism that researchers can study. Previous research ...
Phys.org / When gigantism shapes the diet of a superpredator: The Japanese giant salamander's spectacular transition
A study conducted by researchers at the University of Liège on a large population of Japanese giant salamanders—one of the largest amphibians in the world—reveals that above a certain size, a spectacular transition occurs ...
Phys.org / Study links daily mental sharpness to 30 to 40 extra minutes of work
A new U of T Scarborough study finds that being mentally sharp can translate into a productivity boost equivalent to about 40 extra minutes of work each day.
Phys.org / Study finds numbing the mouth may speed up silent reading
Parents often tell their children to sound out the words as they are learning to read. It makes sense: Since they already know how to speak, the sound of a word might serve as a clue to its meaning.
Phys.org / Teaching machines to design molecular switches
In biology, many RNA molecules act as sophisticated microscopic machines. Among them, riboswitches function as tiny biological sensors, changing their 3D shape upon binding to a specific metabolite. This shape-change acts ...
Phys.org / DNA provides a solution to our enormous data storage problem
Since the dawn of the computer age, researchers have wrestled with two persistent challenges: how to store ever-increasing reams of data and how to protect that information from unintended access. Now, researchers with Arizona ...
Phys.org / Capturing gravity waves: Scientists break 'decades of gridlock' in climate modeling
Global climate models capture many of the processes that shape Earth's weather and climate. Based on physics, chemistry, fluid motion and observed data, hundreds of these models agree that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere ...
Phys.org / Philadelphia communities help AI machine learning get better at spotting gentrification
Over the last several decades, urban planners and municipalities have sought to identify and better manage the socioeconomic dynamics associated with rapid development in established neighborhoods. The term "gentrification" ...
