Phys.org news

Smithsonian researchers have identified the genetic relationships among all Hawaiian honeycreeper species known to have existed—and subsequently faced major losses—since the arrival of Europeans to the islands.

How readily a cell divides and how well it survives are fundamental to life, shaping everything from organ size to the body's ability to withstand disease. That combination, known as cell fitness, isn't the same for everyone. ...

The dancing lights of fireflies and the eerie blue sparkle in crashing waves get their glow when a molecular square of carbon and oxygen atoms breaks. New research from Stanford University has shown that mechanical force ...

In a billion years, the sun will start to run out of fuel and expand to become a red giant. Earth's oceans and atmosphere will be burned away, and Earth will likely be engulfed by the sun altogether. The sun will then shrink ...

Ants live in highly organized colonies and cooperate daily to tackle a wide range of problems. Their striking group behaviors have fascinated biologists for centuries and even inspired the development of various artificial ...

So far, almost all stellar-mass black holes detected by astronomers have been found in binary systems. However, astronomers have long suspected that these binary black holes are the exception and that, within the Milky Way, ...

Digital security currently relies on difficult equations to protect data. For example, when you use a credit card online, the information is locked inside a math problem that would take a modern computer thousands of years ...

While Earth's core consists mostly of iron, its density implies that lighter elements are also mixed in. Because hydrogen is abundant in the universe and can mix with iron under certain conditions, scientists suspect it makes ...

Since 2016, an ordinary-looking F-type star called KIC 8462852, nicknamed Tabby's star, has behaved anything but ordinarily. In a new study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society on July 6, researchers ...

At first glance, it looks exactly like a seahorse. It has the same horse-shaped head tilted down from the body, the same curled, grasping tail and, in the males, a fully enclosed pouch for brooding the young.

For decades, scientists have asserted that the leakage of warm, salty Indian Ocean water south of South Africa into the Atlantic is a major contributor to the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a component ...

Along the three coasts of the contiguous United States, a silent race unfolds. Fueled by climate change, sea levels rise faster than at any time in recent geologic history. Meanwhile, coastal wetlands cling to a slim lead, ...