Phys.org news

The octopus is a biological oddity. It can use tools, open jars, and its complex nervous system supports as many neurons as a small primate. Now Harvard biologists have discovered a mysterious distinction in octopuses' core ...

Mechanical strain is one of the most common tools used to tailor the properties of materials. In piezoelectric materials, stretching or compressing a crystal generates an electrical polarization. In piezomagnetic materials, ...

Scientists from China, Europe and the U.S., including Dr. Stephan Spiekman, a paleontologist at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart and the University of Hohenheim, have described a fossil of the long-necked marine ...

A newly discovered dinosaur from Zimbabwe is offering fresh clues to how the animals diversified, suggesting they spread across distinct ecosystems in southern Africa, scientists said Wednesday.

Resolving a long-standing problem in semiconductor physics and optoelectronics, a team of researchers from Skoltech—a VEB.RF group institution—and their colleagues from ITMO University and HSE University have for the first ...

For lakes across the Northern Hemisphere, winter ice is more than a frozen surface. It is a seasonal regulator that shapes underwater ecosystems and energy balance. But as the planet warms, this frozen season is disappearing ...

Scientists at the Universities of Liverpool and Oxford have developed a promising new way to kill antibiotic-resistant strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes gonorrhea, using a targeted therapy that is ...

Remembering the past can help living organisms make better decisions, but memory comes at a cost. Whether it is an animal searching for food or a single cell responding to its surroundings, storing and using information requires ...

Winters in Antarctica's Ross Sea have become stormier in recent decades, affecting sea-ice conditions and field operations, new University of Otago—Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka research shows.

You might not often think about the molars of livestock, but everything from the grass they eat to the water they drink can tell a story about how people lived centuries ago. An international collaboration led by University ...

New research, led by the University of Glasgow reveals that adaptation to warmer waters causes fish to display a range of behavioral and biological differences, including obesity, overeating and lower metabolism.

Over the past few decades, scientists have become increasingly interested in developing materials that do not simply withstand mechanical forces but instead respond to them in useful, detectable ways. For example, it is now ...