Phys.org news
Phys.org / Urban growth may slow by 2100, leaving big cities smaller than expected
The world is urbanizing fast. In 1975, about 11% of the global population lived in cities with more than 1 million inhabitants. "Today, we estimate that share to be about 24%," says Andrea Musso, junior fellow at the Complexity ...
Phys.org / Childbirth is not uniquely difficult to humans
The tight fit of a baby's head through a mother's birth canal, which causes great difficulty in childbirth, is not unique to humans, as previously understood. Instead, some small-bodied primate babies have heads almost twice ...
Phys.org / New cellular model for rare and deadly melanomas enables study of immunotherapy resistance
A research team at the University of Turku in Finland has developed a reliable laboratory model to study BAP1-deficient melanomas, which are a rare type of melanoma that evade the immune system once they have metastasized ...
Phys.org / When mitochondria grow abnormally long, leaked RNA may activate anti-tumor immune responses
Researchers from the University of Osaka have demonstrated that mitochondrial hyperfusion, when induced by low levels of DRP1 or cellular stress, activates an immune response through the RIG-I–MAVS pathway. Dependent on the ...
Phys.org / Cyclic sealing and drainage on the Gofar Oceanic Transform Fault revealed
Oceanic transform faults are strike-slip boundaries—faults that move horizontally rather than up and down and connect offset mid-ocean ridge segments. They have long been regarded as simple "conservative" plate boundaries ...
Phys.org / Decline in plankton across Northeast Atlantic sends stark warning for ocean health
Microscopic plankton are among the most important organisms on Earth. Phytoplankton produce around half of the oxygen we breathe, while plankton as a whole underpin marine food webs, support fisheries, help regulate carbon ...
Phys.org / Deep-sea extremophile yields protein that forms super stable biofilm
Scientists discovered a protein secreted by a deep-sea extremophile—an organism adapted to extreme environmental conditions—that self-assembles into a biofilm and is highly stable, boosting its potential for biomedical applications.
Phys.org / Understudied enzyme helps S. aureus pathogen prosper, study finds
A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has offered insight into how Staphylococcus aureus, a major human pathogen, fine-tunes its internal machinery to survive stress and potentially ...
Phys.org / Structural blueprint for RNA therapeutics reveals why some siRNA molecules work better than others
RNA interference is a natural mechanism for living cells to control whether specific genes are being used. Crowned with the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, the discovery of RNA interference has since been harnessed ...
Phys.org / Nova V612 Scuti's light curve becomes audio, revealing how stellar shocks evolved
Researchers in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at Texas Tech University recently used audio to represent the spectacular explosion of a star in deep space while also delving into the data to better understand how the ...
Phys.org / Spiders benefit from seemingly monotonous forests
In ecology, the principle holds that the more diverse and heterogeneous a habitat is, the more different species it supports. To promote species diversity in forests, clearings are therefore created for nature conservation ...
Phys.org / Gold-laced nanoparticles could eventually spot and treat endometriosis without surgery
Endometriosis is a painful, common condition affecting women worldwide, but treatment and diagnosis options are scarce. A new University of Mississippi-led study may have found an answer to both problems.
