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23 articles from PhysOrg

How the Aztecs could improve modern urban farming

Roland Ebel of the Sustainable Food Systems Program at Montana State University conducted a research project to determine the extent to which an ancient Aztec agricultural technique could benefit 21st century horticultural needs.

Hindu children more apt to echo propaganda that 'Indian equals Hindu'

With a multi-faith population of some 1.3 billion, India claims to be the world's largest secular democracy. But when it comes to the question of who is a true Indian, the country's Hindu children are more likely than their Muslim peers to connect their faith to their national identity, according to new research from the University of California, Berkeley.

The secret behind crystals that shrink when heated

Scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory have new experimental evidence and a predictive theory that solves a long-standing materials science mystery: why certain crystalline materials shrink when heated. Their work, just published in Science Advances, could have widespread application for matching material properties to specific applications in medicine,...

The last Neanderthal necklace

Eagle talons are regarded as the first elements used to make jewellery by Neanderthals, a practice which spread around Southern Europe about 120,000 to 40,000 years ago. Now, for the first time, researchers found evidence of the ornamental uses of eagle talons in the Iberian Peninsula. An article published on the cover of the journal Science Advances talks about the findings, which took place in...

NASA satellite imagery finds Rebekah now post-tropical

NASA's Terra Satellite provided a visible image of Post-Tropical Cyclone Rebekah as it continued moving in an easterly direction through the North Atlantic Ocean. Satellite data has confirmed that Rebekah is now a post-tropical cyclone.

Harvesting genes to improve watermelons

When many people think of watermelon, they likely think of Citrullus lanatus, the cultivated watermelon with sweet, juicy red fruit enjoyed around the world as a dessert. Indeed, watermelon is one of the world's most popular fruits, second only to tomato—which many consider a vegetable. But there are six other wild species of watermelon, all of which have pale, hard and bitter fruits.

Use of neonicotinoids on rice paddies linked to fishery collapse in Japan

A team of researchers with members affiliated with several institutions in Japan has found what they describe as compelling evidence of two fisheries collapsing due to use of neonicotinoid pesticides by nearby rice farmers. In their paper published in the journal Science, the team describes their study of fishery water quality data over two decades and what they learned from it. Olaf Jensen with...

Jupiter-sized exoplanet discovered through microlensing

The path of a light beam is bent by the presence of mass, and a massive body can therefore act like a lens (a "gravitational lens") to distort the image of an object seen behind it. Scientists first confirmed Einstein's prediction quantitatively during the now famous total eclipse of 29 May 1919 by observing starlight bent by the mass of the Sun. Microlensing is the name given to a related...

Four decades of data sounds early warning on Lake George

Although concentrations of chemicals and pollutants like salt and nutrients have increased in the deep waters of Lake George, they're still too low to harm the ecosystem at those depths, according to an analysis of nearly 40 years of data published Thursday in Limnology and Oceanography. However, the changes in the deep water sound an early warning for what are likely much larger impacts in the...

Variability in the molecules of life

How variable are gene transcripts and proteins, the molecules of life, across the tissues and organs of the human body? Furthermore, how variable are they within the same tissue type from different people? Understanding this variability will be key for the realization of personalized medicine. These questions are the focus of a new study led by researchers from Uppsala University, which is...

River deltas are 'drowning,' threatening hundreds of millions of people

The world's river deltas take up less than 0.5 percent of the global land area, but they are home to hundreds of millions of people. Many live in major fast-growing cities such as Kolkata in the Ganges delta, Bangkok in the Chao Phraya delta, or Shanghai, one of dozens of large cities in the Yangtze delta region.