Phys.org news

Stanford scientists have discovered a new type of immune cell that kills surrounding cells via explosion—a cellular detonation so fast and complete that the cell vanishes within minutes, leaving no trace behind. This discovery ...

Astronomers monitoring a nearby active galaxy for six years have watched its supermassive black hole dramatically wake up, brightening by a factor of 10 across ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths. The paper outlining the study ...

Researchers at Eurac Research have obtained a detailed picture of the microbial community associated with Ötzi, Europe's oldest known natural human mummy. The study provides insights into a complex microbiome, ranging from ...

Researchers have discovered that atoms can be mixed, separated, and recombined within the same experiment, providing a pathway to a record-breaking catalyst for green hydrogen production. In their study, the team created ...

In nature, there exist structures that are mirror images of each other but cannot be perfectly superimposed. These are known as chiral objects, derived from the Greek word for "hand," since left and right hands share the ...

A key step in the origin of many pandemics occurs when an animal-borne virus infects humans and then evolves to spread more efficiently from person to person. That is why scientists and physicians keep a close watch on viruses ...

Bowerbirds in an Australian city use a range of human items—from glass and plastic to banknotes and even a pair of handcuffs—to impress females, shows new research in Royal Society Open Science. Male bowerbirds create an ...

Spinal cord injuries can have devastating consequences for those affected. Nerve cells in the spinal cord rarely regenerate naturally, while scarring often prevents the regrowth of nerve fibers. Modern therapies attempt to ...

Using more than a decade of observations from the VISTA Survey of the Magellanic Clouds (VMC), researchers measured the motions of millions of stars across the Small Magellanic Cloud with unprecedented precision. The new ...

Dozens of mathematicians signed a declaration Tuesday calling for the discipline to resist beating the drum for artificial intelligence developers.

How did life make the leap from single cells to coordinated, multicellular organisms? And how do genetically identical cells still perform a version of that feat every time an embryo begins to take shape?

Cornell researchers have developed a new way to create moiré patterns—atomic-scale structures that can give materials unusual quantum behaviors—without relying on the traditionally used difficult-to-control twisting and stacking ...