Phys.org news

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.

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 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.

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 ...

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 ...

Scientists are getting a leg up on the rice stink bug, one of the most significant threats to rice, a staple food for nearly half the world's population and a major crop in Arkansas.

Researchers have discovered 16 new species of fungus living unnoticed inside garden flowers and wildflowers across northern Thailand, more than quintupling the number of such fungi known to occur in the country. The findings ...

Frequently located on hillsides and in canyons surrounded by wildlands, wealthy neighborhoods are more likely to catch fire. However, a UC Riverside study shows they are also likely to recover faster than lower-income areas.