Producers, consumers, and decomposers play different roles in today's ecosystems. Thinking about these familiar roles led me to a question: Could their differences partly reflect the different physical and chemical environments in which early life developed? I wondered whether
Hemp has long been pitched to Kentucky farmers as a way to diversify their income. Research now suggests it could diversify the landscape itself, with measurable benefits for the state's water and wildlife.
Just as it is difficult for a camera to keep both a nearby flower and a distant mountain sharply focused at the same time, conventional optical microscopes face a similar challenge when imaging structures located at different depths inside the body. Tighter focusing of light
Designing structural high-entropy alloys (SHEAs) means solving a problem with an enormous number of moving parts: which combinations of composition and processing conditions will yield the phases, microstructures, and mechanical properties a given application demands? Because
Natural products produced by microorganisms are a promising source of new drugs. Researchers at the Helmholtz Center for Infection Research (HZI) and its Saarbrücken-based site, the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS), have now discovered a new
A new doctoral dissertation by Omar Anwar Elkadi in the field of Applied Physics on near-infrared spectroscopy for the continuous monitoring of tissue-engineered cartilage will be defended at the Faculty of Science, Forestry and Technology, Kuopio campus, of the University of
In response to a recent article on vegan diets for cats, Phys.org received numerous messages from concerned readers. People raised a lot of concerns, mainly arguing that cats are obligate carnivores and that vegan diets could be very harmful to their health. Now, we have
In 2020, our research published in New Phytologist showed how the height growth of Aleppo pine populations responded to climate gradients across the Mediterranean, and how these populations were expected to respond under future climate change based on decades of common-garden
Is masculinity a barrier to green jobs?
An international research team from Germany, Switzerland and Japan has demonstrated in a recent study that a single reflection zone plate (RZP) can perform both soft X-ray imaging and resonant inelastic X-ray scattering (RIXS) mapping. The approach could simplify future
DNA-nano/microparticle motors are among the fastest artificial molecular motors reported to date, moving at approximately 30 nm per second. However, they are still slower than natural motor proteins (approximately 100–1,000 nm per second), and further improvements in design and
Groundwater depletion and groundwater-dependent irrigation tend to concentrate close to international borders within aquifers shared by two or more countries, where pumping on one side is more likely to affect users on the other, according to a publication by the United Nations
Carbon is inexpensive, conductive, and widely used in technologies such as fuel cells and water electrolyzers. But under strongly oxidizing conditions, carbon electrodes gradually corrode.
Using a range of advanced characterization techniques, researchers say they have developed a novel method with the potential to produce hydrogen from seawater using a process that requires less energy, resists corrosion and could support more economical hydrogen production.
A new study with unprecedented access to Atlantic salmon farms in British Columbia raises urgent questions about the federal government's approach to regulating salmon farms and highlights disease risk to wild salmon populations.
Entrepreneurship may carry benefits as well as risks The post Why Your Boss Might Live Longer Than You appeared first on Nautilus .
Each year, Gabon's lush rainforests yield the discovery of previously unknown plant species to botanists like Archange Boupoya—who believes that this exceptional yet largely mysterious natural wealth needs to be cataloged to be saved.
What should happen to your body after you die? It's hardly a topic you'd bring up over dinner, but it's a decision that will eventually need to be made, either by you or by those you leave behind.
Science often advances in small steps, with researchers gradually building on previous discoveries. But every now and then, a breakthrough comes along that challenges conventional thinking and changes the direction of a field.
Almost every cell in our body contains around two meters (6.6 feet) of DNA, packed into a tiny nucleus. Yet for the cell to function, this enormous amount of genetic material must remain organized and accessible. Researchers at the University of Basel have now discovered three
I never thought my shoelaces would get stolen.
Halloween kicks off a series of religious and cultural festivals to honor the dead, including All Saints' Day, All Souls' Day and the Day of the Dead. But deceased loved ones don't disappear from people's social worlds once the ghost and skeleton decorations come down.
Researchers have developed a self-driving laboratory that combines artificial intelligence and robotics to automate laboratory tasks, from accurately measuring and mixing chemical ingredients to high-temperature furnace processing and sample retrieval.
Humans and other vertebrates go through various stages of sleep, including REM (rapid eye movement) sleep characterized by rapid eye movements and muscle twitches. Can a similar sleep state be observed in spiders? Researchers from the Institute of Organismic Biology at the
Months after a Columbia University School of Nursing–led audit published in the Lancet reported thousands of fabricated citations in medical papers, the same research team has found the same problem in the physical sciences, engineering and computing.
New Monash University research has revealed how countries could strengthen their conservation networks by looking beyond the boundaries of national parks and protected areas—and focusing on how these areas connect.
Death has never entirely stopped the living from trying to continue a conversation with their loved ones.
We tend to think of our bones as solid, unchanging support structures inside our bodies, but a recent study from the University of Chicago shows just how much they can change depending on how we use them.
As urbanization spreads worldwide, the loss and fragmentation of habitats are driving the global decline in biodiversity. At the same time, urban green spaces like parks, meadows and forests have the potential to contribute significantly to biodiversity conservation at the
As the climate changes, protecting wildlife increasingly depends on both the conditions within protected areas and the connections between them. A new study published in Conservation Letters identifies where climatic stability and opportunities for movement coincide in Europe,
Volcanoes have cast a shadow over climate and history. Cold spurts after eruptions may have spurred famine, disease, revolts and other events.
We imitate what we notice The post How We Control What Accents We Pick Up appeared first on Nautilus .
Anthropic is preparing to go public, and new documents show how the lab hopes to control its technology while also pushing the limits of what AI can do
Polymer brushes are dense layers of polymer chains that can be engineered to change how a surface interacts with its surroundings. By controlling interactions with water, ions, proteins and other materials, they can reduce friction, prevent unwanted materials from sticking,
Phase transitions are strongly constrained by spatial dimension. In conventional one-dimensional systems with short-range interactions, thermal fluctuations generally prevent continuous degrees of freedom from maintaining order over long distances.
A rocky lava planet once thought to be too extreme to have an atmosphere appears to be wrapped in one with a reflective layer of vaporized silicate mineral clouds, the same family of compounds that make up quartz and sand.
New in JNeurosci, Pyry Heikkinen and colleagues, from the University of Helsinki, explored how emotional meaning influences the way the human brain prioritizes information during naturally spoken conversations in a cocktail party setting.
From its visible surface, the sun radiates heat at a relatively cool temperature of 5,800 Kelvin. Yet within the thin outer layer of the sun's atmosphere known as the corona, electrons can reach temperatures of millions of degrees, for reasons astronomers have yet to fully
Napoleon Bonaparte and Bernardo O'Higgins: two 19th-century military leaders renowned to this day in their native countries of France and Chile. Yet, while Napoleon's name and exploits are known throughout the world, O'Higgins remains largely obscure outside his homeland. This
A lizard making a dramatic escape, leaving its tail wriggling behind as it darts to safety, is an image familiar to many. Tail-shedding is one of the most widespread defenses against predators among living lizards, yet tracing the origins of this extraordinary ability has
This 2,000-year-old cold case offered a wealth of information, Leiden archaeologists Carol van Driel-Murray and Mark Driessen explain. Few skeletons from the late Iron Age and early Roman era have been preserved, making this largely intact skeleton a valuable research resource.
A new study provides perhaps the strongest evidence yet that education can help mitigate long-term dementia risk.
As climate change reshapes habitats both on land and at sea, you might go to the beach one day, only to find yourself in a place that looks nothing like you remember, around sea creatures you don't recognize.
Scientists report fossil evidence of the first fully marine amphibian in a study from the University of California, Davis; Peking University; and the Geological Museum of Guizhou. The amphibian is an armored, giant salamander–sized, bottom-dwelling ocean creature that the
Some proteins that are linked to neurodegenerative diseases can form both liquid droplets and amyloid fibers. But how are these two states connected, and where do the fibers grow? Leiden physicists Liru Feng and Louise Jawerth have discovered a counter-intuitive mechanism.
A U.S. startup has booked two Indian rocket launches to test a planned service no company has sold before: sunlight at night.
Most people know by now that artificial intelligence powers much of the online world, sifting through social media posts, planning driving routes or helping to choose a movie to watch. But what goes largely unseen is the human labor—often performed by people working for low
A new study led by an international research team including scientists at the University of South Carolina challenges the idea that the ancient Laacher See volcanic eruption in western Europe triggered a significant climate-cooling period affecting central Europe and the Arctic
There's no tree like the humble eucalypt.
In our solar system's corner of the galaxy, stars rarely collide. It makes sense: Space is vast, and stars have room to roam. Even in most of the present-day universe, stellar collisions are rare. The James Webb Space Telescope, however, peers deep enough into space to see the
