Phys.org news

A new study by plant biologists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, challenges a longstanding idea that stems from the large number of flowers in the mountains of Central and South America that have evolved to be ...

Northwestern Medicine scientists have discovered that little-studied DNA structures play a central role in organizing the human genome and controlling gene activity, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of ...

A fossil bed in northwestern China is littered with the remains of hundreds of prehistoric birds—including some whose broken bones were crushed into pellets, similar to those coughed up by modern owls. For years, scientists ...

Blurry light from lens imperfections is a problem everywhere, from microscopes to telescopes to smartphone cameras. Using a tiny yet carefully engineered optical element and artificial intelligence, University of California ...

Researchers have developed the Smaller Than Earth Habitability Model (STEHM) to assess which planets can maintain life-supporting atmospheres, focusing on size and atmospheric dynamics.

Researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) have developed a computation-guided strategy to produce urea more efficiently from carbon dioxide and nitrate. By combining large language models, density functional ...

Waterlogged land areas such as marshes, bogs and fens are the world's largest natural source of methane. Even the smallest of wetlands emit this powerful greenhouse gas. In a study from The University of Texas at Austin, ...

National governments and multilateral institutions face difficult challenges reconciling environmental goals, such as biodiversity conservation and addressing climate change, with economic development goals. In a first-of-its-kind ...

The concept of the "15-Minute City" has gained global traction as a blueprint for more livable, sustainable communities by placing daily essentials—such as grocery stores, schools, restaurants and parks—within easy reach ...

Mangrove forests, once considered one of the world's most threatened coastal ecosystems, are showing signs of recovery worldwide, according to new research from Tulane University that finds decades of losses largely offset ...

Ozone pollution has worsened in much of the continental United States over the past decade, fueled by wildfires and the long-distance transport of unhealthy air, according to a new study titled "Fires reverse progress toward ...

Designing surfaces that precisely control how light behaves at the nanoscale is tricky. Optical Fourier surfaces, which are nanostructured gratings that redistribute light into specific directions and wavelengths, hold enormous ...