Phys.org news

Great things can come from failure when it comes to geology. The Midcontinent rift formed about 1.1 billion years ago and runs smack in the middle of the United States at the Great Lakes. The rift failed to completely rupture, ...

Groundwater is considered the largest reservoir of liquid freshwater on Earth and a habitat for complex microbial communities that drive essential biogeochemical cycles. Until now, the role of viruses that infect microorganisms ...

How far back does the rich history of Italian olives and oil stretch? My new research, published in the American Journal of Archaeology, synthesizing and reevaluating existing archaeological evidence, suggests olive trees ...

Keeping up with the latest research is vital for scientists, but given that millions of scientific papers are published every year, that can prove difficult. Artificial intelligence systems show promise for quickly synthesizing ...

Chronic exposure to pollution from wildfires has been linked to tens of thousands of deaths annually in the United States, according to a new study.

Should we protect an emblematic species if it may come at the cost of another one—particularly in ecosystems that are still recovering from human impacts? This is the conservation dilemma facing Monte Leon National Park, ...

A new study challenges the idea that climate change drove early human innovation. Instead, researchers find that cultural developments arose under different environmental conditions, shaped by movement, interaction, and knowledge ...

Scientists have captured a rare view of one of the ocean's least understood whales—without ever seeing it. By listening to the sounds beaked whales naturally produce, researchers have reconstructed a three-dimensional picture ...

Chemicals brought in to help protect our ozone layer have had the unintended consequences of spreading vast quantities of a potentially toxic "forever chemical" around the globe, a new study shows. Atmospheric scientists, ...

McGill researchers have developed a diagnostic system capable of identifying bacteria—and determining which antibiotics can stop them—in just 36 minutes, a major advance in the global effort to curb antimicrobial resistance ...

The current image of Mars as an arid and hostile desert contrasts sharply with the history revealed by its surface. Channels, minerals altered by water, and other geological traces indicate that the red planet was, in its ...

For decades, scientists have tried to answer a simple question: why be honest when deception is possible? Whether it is a peacock's tail, a stag's roar, or a human's résumé, signals are means to influence others by transmitting ...