Phys.org news

Carbonate minerals are among the best records of past liquid water on Mars: They form when water carrying dissolved carbon dioxide reacts with rock, and their composition reflects the chemistry of both. Yet Mars has surprisingly ...

A new study combines paleoanthropology and diving physiology to address a fundamental question in human evolution: Why did humans evolve their exceptional aerobic endurance? Did our ancestors begin endurance running to exhaust ...

Understanding gene regulation may be key to interpreting human disease genetics. Genes are regulated in part by stretches of DNA called enhancers, which define when, where and how strongly each gene is turned on. Mapping ...

Researchers at the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM) have developed microfluidic technology that can grow cells in three dimensions (3D). The goal is to conduct toxicity tests on new products by ...

While the scapula is the primary bone supporting the body in terrestrial quadrupedal mammals, an analysis of internal bone structure in underground moles (family Talpidae) showed a more important role for the clavicle.

Researchers have developed a compact, handheld mid-infrared imaging spectrometer that can produce high-resolution chemical maps of a sample without using stains or labels. With further development, the handheld device might ...

Understanding how wind changes in response to global warming is necessary for accurately modeling climate and weather, identifying risks to infrastructure, and assessing global wind power capacity.

Atmospheric desert dust has long swirled around the globe, but a new UCLA study presents the strongest evidence yet that global dust is mysteriously decreasing. Because atmospheric dust has a slight overall cooling effect ...

Every new generation of phone display, television screen and solar panel is the result of precision optics experiments, which use lasers and other light sources to measure the optical properties of candidate materials. These ...

To enter cells, the COVID-19 virus fuses its surrounding membrane with the membrane of the target cell. This is where the fusion peptides of the spike protein come into play. These regions function as molecular keys that ...

A new study reveals that an important pollinator is rapidly losing genetic diversity in Britain. Moss carder bumblebees were once widespread across the UK, living in flower-rich meadows, marshes and heathlands, where they ...

Artificial intelligence programs used to classify images could be trained much more cheaply using a surprisingly simple method inspired by the childhood game of 20 Questions, according to new research posted to the arXiv ...