Phys.org news

A large-scale population genomic study has shed new light on the evolutionary and domestication history of the button mushroom (Agaricus bisporus), one of the most widely cultivated edible fungi in the world.

An unexpected discovery in a Harvard lab has led to a breakthrough insight into choosing an unconventional material, silica, to make optical metasurfaces—ultra-thin, flat structures that control light at the nanoscale and ...

The El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the planet's greatest driver of year-to-year climate swings, shapes temperature, rainfall, and extreme weather around the world. Its impact ranges from heat waves and floods to air ...

For decades, global efforts to combat climate change and protect biodiversity have relied on a high-tech promise: that satellite-derived maps can tell us exactly where the world's forests are.

A new study published in Conservation Biology examines the behavior and distribution of queen conch (Aliger gigas) to guide conservation management for the threatened sea snail.

Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have developed a suite of algorithms to automate the counting of sister chromatid exchanges (SCE) in chromosomes under the microscope. Conventional analysis requires trained ...

An international team of scientists has analyzed the ongoing colonization by two retroviruses of the germline of koalas and resulting deaths from cancer in multi-generational pedigrees of over 100 koalas in US and European ...

A 60-year study covering 205 countries and regions worldwide has systematically uncovered the evolutionary patterns of nitrogen and phosphorus use efficiency (NUE and PUE) in the four major staple crops—rice, wheat, maize, ...

A research team led by Václav Vopálenský and Martin Pospíšek from the Faculty of Science, Charles University, has discovered a surprising way in which the vaccinia virus handles its genetic messages.

Wish you could save more money? A new study led by Katy Milkman, a Wharton professor of operations, information and decisions and the co-director of Penn's Behavior Change for Good Initiative (BCFG) finds that simple reminder ...

Wearable health devices, such as smartwatches, have become commonplace, enabling the continuous monitoring of physiological signals at the skin's surface. A research team in Japan has developed a biohybrid approach that works ...

For the first time, physicists in Italy have created a 'lump soliton': an extremely stable packet of light waves which can travel through 3D space, and even interact with other solitons without losing its shape.