https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A team of astrophysicists from several institutions in Italy, working with a colleague in the U.S., has found that aliphatic hydrocarbons observed on Ceres' surface have short lifetimes, suggesting they likely appeared there within the last 10 million years. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-aliphatic-hydrocarbons-ceres-surface-short.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 26 Sep 2024 11:30:01 EDT news646566741 A team of chemical biologists at the University of Washington, working with colleagues at Oxford Nanopore Technologies, has developed a protein sequencing process that involves pulling proteins through nanopores in a lipid membrane. Their paper is published in the journal Nature. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-biologists-sequence-proteins-nanopores.html Bio & Medicine Thu, 26 Sep 2024 10:32:26 EDT news646565540 A small team of biologists and animal movement specialists in the Netherlands and the U.K. has found that birds such as the emu have a grounded running style at medium speeds, allowing them to conserve energy compared to the ungrounded running style of other animals such as humans. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-bird-grounded-styles-energy.html Plants & Animals Evolution Thu, 26 Sep 2024 10:18:54 EDT news646564720 An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a new extrasolar world orbiting a nearby star known as HD 86728. This is the first exoplanet detection made as part of the NEID Earth Twin Survey (NETS). The finding was detailed in a research paper published September 18 on the pre-print server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-neid-earth-twin-survey-alien.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 26 Sep 2024 06:50:01 EDT news646476218 An international team of botanists, agriculturists and historians has successfully grown a mature tree from an ancient seed found in a cave in Israel. In their paper, published in the journal Communications Biology, the group describes where the seed was found, the work that was done to discover its origins and what they have learned about its history as it has sprouted and grown into a mature tree. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-medicinal-tree-successfully-grown-year.html Plants & Animals Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 25 Sep 2024 10:10:02 EDT news646476275 What took so long for humans to appear on Earth? The Earth is 4.6 billion years old, and life began about 4 billion years ago, yet humans—the only intelligent, technological species we know of in the universe—have existed only for the last 200,000 years. Why didn't we come sooner? What factor(s) delayed our appearance? And what can life's timeline here say about the possibility of other technologically advanced lifeforms in the universe? https://phys.org/news/2024-09-hard-evolutionary-history-human-intelligence.html Astrobiology Planetary Sciences Wed, 25 Sep 2024 10:00:01 EDT news646476180 A trio of biologists at the University of Minnesota has found that when male crickets need to save energy, they narrow their mating filter, to focus more exclusively on females. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-cricket-filter-narrows-males-energy.html Plants & Animals Wed, 25 Sep 2024 09:43:12 EDT news646476187 The collecting of highly precise measurements can enable research developments and technological advancements in numerous fields. In physics, high-precision measurements can unveil new phenomena and experimentally validate theories. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-versatile-approach-quantum-metrology-large.html Optics & Photonics Quantum Physics Wed, 25 Sep 2024 09:42:57 EDT news646476172 A trio of researchers, one a zoologist, another a primatologist and the third a linguistics professor, from Institut Jean Nicod, Heinrich Heine University and the University of Oslo, respectively, have discovered that female gibbons engage in a strange type of robotic dancing. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-female-gibbons-attention.html Plants & Animals Tue, 24 Sep 2024 10:44:57 EDT news646393109 A small team of archaeologists at Yamagata University, working with a colleague from Université Paris, and a pair of AI researchers from the IBM Thomas J. Watson Research Center, used an AI model to find more geoglyphs on the floor of Peru's Nazca Desert. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-archaeologists-ai-hundreds-geoglyphs-peru.html Archaeology Tue, 24 Sep 2024 10:29:37 EDT news646392570 Astronomers from the National Central University in Taiwan have investigated an unusual superorbital period variation of an X-ray binary known as 4U 1820-30. Results of the study, published September 13 on the preprint server arXiv, could help us better understand the nature of this system. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-unusual-behavior-ray-binary.html Astronomy Tue, 24 Sep 2024 08:40:01 EDT news646302784 Researchers at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Max-Planck-Institut für Quantenoptik, Munich Center for Quantum Science and Technology (MCQST) and the University of Massachusetts recently carried out a study investigating the equilibrium fluctuations in large quantum systems. Their paper, published in Nature Physics, outlines the results of large-scale quantum simulations performed using a quantum gas microscope, an experimental tool used to image and manipulate individual atoms in ultracold atomic gases. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-team-emergence-fluctuating-hydrodynamics-chaotic.html Quantum Physics Tue, 24 Sep 2024 07:30:01 EDT news646326741 At the turn of the first millennium AD, an unknown group of people lived in the inland Isalo massif of southern Madagascar. Here, they built vast terraces and carved large stone chambers and small hollow rock niches. The architecture is unlike anything else found in Madagascar or the adjacent East African coast. Who built these structures, when they arrived, and why was unknown. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-enigmatic-archaeological-site-madagascar-built.html Archaeology Mon, 23 Sep 2024 10:30:01 EDT news646304356 Election polls often tighten up remarkably as the election date draws near. "Leave" (the European Union) won the UK election of May 2016 with a majority of 51.9%, but earlier the polls weren't nearly as tight—in January 2011 "Remain" was up by about 20 percentage points. In the 2020 presidential election in Poland, Andrzej Duda won with 51.0% of the votes, whereas he was up by about 5 percentage points just eight weeks earlier. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-large-electorates-tend-evenly-results.html Mathematics Political science Mon, 23 Sep 2024 10:00:01 EDT news646304327 A team of biologists in China has reprogrammed skin cells from giant pandas into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), opening the door to creating primordial germ cells that could serve as precursors to sperm and egg cells. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-giant-panda-skin-cells-stem.html Plants & Animals Biotechnology Mon, 23 Sep 2024 09:50:01 EDT news646303287 Using the Green Bank Telescope (GBT), astronomers have observed a globular cluster known as Terzan 6. They detected a new millisecond pulsar that is likely associated with this cluster. The finding was reported in a research paper published September 17 on the pre-print server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-millisecond-pulsar.html Astronomy Mon, 23 Sep 2024 09:33:01 EDT news646302772 Antiferromagnets are materials in which the magnetic moments of neighboring atoms are aligned in an alternating pattern, resulting in no net macroscopic magnetism. These materials have interesting properties that could be favorable for the development of spintronic and electronic devices. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-antiferromagnetic-diode-effect-layered-mnbite.html Condensed Matter Sun, 22 Sep 2024 07:30:01 EDT news646053501 This week, researchers reported an effective way to protect working dogs from heat stress: training them to dunk their heads in cool water. A new computational technique provided a breakthrough in understanding the so-called "pseudogap" in quantum physics, a development that could lead to room-temperature superconductivity. And a bunch of scientists agree: Evidence now supports global action to combat microplastics. And a few other things happened, too. Among them: https://phys.org/news/2024-09-saturday-citations-football-metaphors-physics.html Other Sat, 21 Sep 2024 07:30:02 EDT news646053484 A small team of biologists at the University of Bristol has found that black garden ants modify the physical structure of their nests to mitigate infection spread. The group has written a paper describing the experiments they conducted with black garden ants and fungal infections in their lab and posted it on the bioRxiv preprint server. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-black-garden-ants-mitigate-fungal.html Plants & Animals Ecology Fri, 20 Sep 2024 10:32:19 EDT news646047126 A team of oceanographers and marine biologists from the NOAA Pacific Islands Fisheries Science Center and Oregon State University has identified a mysterious noise heard in the Pacific Ocean for two decades as the sounds of Bryde's whales. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-mysterious-pacific-ocean-whale-ai.html Ecology Biotechnology Fri, 20 Sep 2024 10:20:01 EDT news646044158 A new study published in Physical Review Letters (PRL) proposes using gravitational wave detectors like LIGO to search for scalar field dark matter. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-scientists-method-dark-ligo.html General Physics Optics & Photonics Fri, 20 Sep 2024 09:00:01 EDT news646041421 Astronomers report the detection of optical intraday variability of a blazar known as 1ES 1426+42.8. The new findings, presented in a paper published in the September issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, could shed more light on the properties and nature of this blazar. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-intraday-variability-blazar-1es.html Astronomy Fri, 20 Sep 2024 08:49:56 EDT news646040992 According to a large team of technical and health specialists, astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft will be well protected from radiation when the Artemis II mission travels to the moon and back next year. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-artemis-mission-astronauts-moon-aboard.html Space Exploration Thu, 19 Sep 2024 10:57:09 EDT news645962224 When making economic decisions, humans can be driven by various factors, including their goals and emotions. Past studies have hypothesized that emotions play a crucial role in economic decisions, particularly those that involve risk or trade-offs between immediate and future benefits. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-relationship-emotions-economic-decision-differ.html Social Sciences Economics & Business Thu, 19 Sep 2024 09:49:38 EDT news645958172 Thus far, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) has used strategies based on classical science—listening for radio waves, telescopes watching for optical signals, telescopes in orbit scouring light from the atmospheres of exoplanets, scanning for laser light that might come from aliens. Could a quantum mechanical approach do better? https://phys.org/news/2024-09-interstellar-quantum-communications-involve-earth.html Astrobiology Thu, 19 Sep 2024 09:15:54 EDT news645956146 Using the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), astronomers have performed spectrophotometric observations of an eclipsing white dwarf–brown dwarf binary known as WD1032+011. Results of their observational campaign, published September 10 on the preprint server arXiv, yield important information regarding the nature of this system. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-crucial-insights-nature-white-dwarfbrown.html Astronomy Thu, 19 Sep 2024 08:50:01 EDT news645803335 Tropical cyclones can have severe consequences for both the marine and terrestrial environments, as well as the organisms and communities who inhabit them. In the oceans, there can be alterations in sea surface temperature that disrupt biological processes and hospitable conditions for life, the devastation of surface algae and other primary producers, which impacts complex marine food chains, as well as damaging coral reefs. Meanwhile, on land, the heavy rainfall, strong winds and storm surges can lead to significant damage to property and infrastructure, as well as loss of lives. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-tropical-cyclone-intensity-exacerbated-depth.html Earth Sciences Environment Thu, 19 Sep 2024 08:00:02 EDT news645940414 Data collected by the SAMURAI spectrometer at RIKEN's RI Beam Factory (RIBF) in Japan recently led to the detection of a rare fluorine (F) isotope, known as 30F. This has opened interesting possibilities for the study of rare nuclear structures and corresponding phases, which could in turn help to test various physics theories. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-hint-superfluid-phase.html General Physics Condensed Matter Thu, 19 Sep 2024 07:30:01 EDT news645890990 A team of molecular ecologists at the University of Copenhagen, in Denmark, has found that polar bears developed unique features that allowed them to survive in a harsh, cold environment just 70,000 years ago. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-polar-diverged-brown-years.html Plants & Animals Evolution Wed, 18 Sep 2024 11:35:23 EDT news645878117 An ethologist at Eötvös Loránd University has tested cats in their home environments to better understand their awareness of their own size and dimensions. In his study published in iScience, Péter Pongrácz conducted experiments with cats and their owners regarding the feline's awareness of their own body size and shape. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-cats-dimensions-knowledge-tight.html Plants & Animals Wed, 18 Sep 2024 10:32:29 EDT news645874339