Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories

Jumping from rock to rock to rock over a creek formed off Austria's Jamtal glacier, scientist Andrea Fischer worries that precious scientific data will be irreversibly lost as the snow and ice me...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-austrian-scientists-reveal-glaciers-secrets.html

A trunk with its lid left open. A wooden dishware closet, its shelves caved in. Three-legged accent tables topped by decorative bowls. These latest discoveries by archaeologists are enriching kno...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-pompeii-highlight-middle-class-life-doomed.html

Researchers at the University of California, Davis, have found a way to reduce the amount of nitrogen fertilizers needed to grow cereal crops. The discovery could save farmers in the United State...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-cereal-crops-fertilizer.html

Did the 12th century B.C.E.—a time when humans were forging great empires and developing new forms of written text—coincide with an evolutionary reduction in brain size? Think again, says a U...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-human-brain-years.html

Researchers from the National Institutes of Health have developed a three-dimensional structure that allows them to see how and where disease mutations on the twinkle protein can lead to mitochon...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-team-3d-twinkle-protein.html

DNA-based information is a new interdisciplinary field linking information technology and biotechnology. The field hopes to meet the enormous need for long-term data storage by using DNA as an in...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-dual-plasmid-dna-digital-storage-potential.html

A systematic review of 301 academic articles on "cultural ecosystem services" has enabled researchers to identify how these nonmaterial contributions from nature are linked to and significantly a...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-ways-nature-nurtures-human-well-being.html

A common weed harbors important clues about how to create drought resistant crops in a world beset by climate change.

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-common-weed-super-key-drought-resistant.html

In the beginning, there was boredom. Following the emergence of cellular life on earth, some 3.5 billion years ago, simple cells lacking a nucleus and other detailed internal structure dominated ...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-emergence-complex-cells-orthodoxy.html

PCR tests, also called molecular tests or nucleic acid tests, are considered the gold standard in detecting the presence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that gives rise to COVID-19. However, they can ta...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-at-home-saliva-based-covid-effective-pcr.html

Researchers at Michigan State University have shown that locusts can not only "smell" the difference between cancer cells and healthy cells, but they can also distinguish between different cancer...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-locusts-human-cancer.html

We have recently witnessed the stunning images of distant galaxies revealed by the James Webb telescope, which were previously visible only as blurry spots. Washington University in St. Louis res...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-simple-powerful-cell-secretion.html

Despite signs of wear, the intrepid spacecraft is about to start an exciting new chapter of its mission as it climbs a Martian mountain.

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-years-nasa-curiosity-mars-rover.html

According to the standard model of cosmology, the vast majority of galaxies are surrounded by a halo of dark matter particles. This halo is invisible, but its mass exerts a strong gravitational p...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-dark-halos.html

A pair of researchers, one with the University of California, Davis, the other Drew University, believe they may have solved the mystery of why people living during the time of the Roman Empire u...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-early-romans-lopsided-dice.html

A study published recently in Nature Ecology and Evolution has unveiled some of the key processes in marine microbial evolution. According to the study, led by the Uppsala University (Sweden) and...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-unveil-key-marine-microbial-evolution.html

Among the extreme weather impacts resulting from climate change, drought is a growing problem around the globe, leading to frequent wildfires, threats to water resources, and greater food insecur...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-advance-drought.html

In research that could broadly benefit science, medicine and engineering, a new kind of ultrasensitive optical sensing instrument has been developed by a doctoral student at The University of Ala...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-ultrasensitive-optical-instrument-broad-medical.html

Stem cell scientists say they have created "synthetic embryos" without using sperm, eggs or fertilization for the first time, but the prospect of using such a technique to grow human organs for t...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-synthetic-embryo-breakthrough-human.html

A trio of researchers, two with Princeton University, the other the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, has developed a reinforcement learning–based simulation that shows the human...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-learningbased-simulations-human-desire.html

In trying to understand the nature of the cosmos, some theorists propose that the universe expands and contracts in endless cycles.

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-universes.html

The growing trend of people feeding wild animals poses a serious risk to the well-being of humans and wildlife as new research from University College Dublin finds these feeding interactions coul...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-safety-wild-animals-linked-artificial.html

Do more pores in a sieve allow more liquid to flow through it? As material scientists have uncovered, this seemingly simple question may have an unexpected answer at the nanoscale—and it could ...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-graphene-oxide-membranes-reveal-unusual.html

Experts at the forefront of efforts to restore the U.K.'s coastal seagrass meadows say the remarkable plant's contribution to the most important to-do list in the history of humankind should be r...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-seagrass-planet-future-greater.html

A team of researchers at Quantinuum, working with a colleague at the University of Texas, Austin, has developed a way to simulate infinitely many chaotic particles using a quantum computer runnin...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-simulating-infinitely-chaotic-particles-quantum.html

Atomic clocks, combined with precise astronomical measurements, have revealed that the length of a day is suddenly getting longer, and scientists don't know why.

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-length-earth-days-mysteriously-scientists.html

A new study analyzes human impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in 72 lakes distributed across four large neotropical wetlands of Brazil—Amazon, Araguaia, Pantanal and Paraná. The...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-large-scale-brazilian-wetlands-biodiversity-loss.html

All baby birds have a moment prior to hatching when their hip bone is a tiny replica of a dinosaur's pelvis.

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-bird-pelvis-ancestral-dinosaurian-conditions.html

A team of researchers, led by Swinburne's Professor Akbar Rhamdhani, has published the first detailed study of its kind on metal production on another planet.

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-aim-martian-air-dirt-sunlight.html

Piezoelectric materials can convert mechanical energy to electrical energy, and vice versa. In recent years, there has been growing interest in the search for two-dimensional (2D) layered piezoel...

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-data-driven-discovery-nboi2-high-layered.html