Phys.org news

Wood warblers, also called New World warblers, are some of the most colorful birds in North America, with more than a hundred species in the family ranging in color from yellow, orange and red to blue, green and pink. A new ...

Ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) are some of the most abundant microorganisms in the ocean and play a key role in nitrogen cycling. Yet, despite their ubiquity, scientists have long puzzled over how these microbes can flourish ...

Researchers at the University of Jyväskylä have discovered a simple way to program synthetic molecules so they can form specific spiral-like structures by embedding instructions directly into their sequence. This breakthrough ...

Around the world, phytoplankton in the upper ocean help to cycle key nutrients and regulate Earth's climate by absorbing carbon dioxide. These photosynthesizing organisms rely on dissolved iron as an essential micronutrient, ...

There is a dire need for selective catalysts that allow us to consistently achieve a desired outcome in a chemical reaction. It is this consistency that allows for more efficient, energy-saving ways of producing fuel. A team ...

Sea urchins are ecosystem engineers, the marine equivalent of mega-herbivores on land. By grazing and shredding seaweed and seagrass, they control algal growth and promote the survival of slow-growing organisms like corals ...

From small ions to large molecules, cellular gates control what can pass in and out of cells. But how one such gate, called pannexin-1 (PANX1), can handle vastly different cargo sizes has remained a long-standing mystery.

Spillovers from protected areas such as national parks and wildlife reserves can play a significant role in boosting biodiversity beyond their boundaries with potential benefits to people through ecosystem services such as ...

Dark matter is an elusive type of matter that does not emit, reflect or absorb light, yet is estimated to account for most of the universe's mass. Over the past decades, many physicists worldwide have been trying to detect ...

The cosmos has served up a gift for a group of scientists who have been searching for one of the most elusive phenomena in the night sky. Their study, presented in Science Advances, reports on the very first observations ...

Plastics are made from crude oil and petroleum by-products, so a team of scientists decided to explore if they could turn waste cooking oil into a useful plastic material, and they succeeded.

Neutrinos are one of the most mysterious particles in the universe, often called "ghost particles" because they rarely interact with anything else. Trillions stream through our bodies every second, yet leave no trace. They ...