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36 articles from PhysOrg

To bee, or not to bee, a question for almond growers

Pollination by bees is vital even when crops are assumed to be pollinator independent. That's according to a study co-authored by Ethel Villalobos, a researcher in the University of Hawaii at Manoa's College of Tropical Agriculture and Human Resources Department of Plant and Environmental Protection Sciences and lead of the UH Honeybee Project.

Improving shoes, showers, 3-D printing: Research launching to the space station

A variety of science investigations, along with supplies and equipment, launch to the International Space Station on the 20th SpaceX commercial resupply services mission. The Dragon cargo spacecraft is scheduled to leave Earth March 6 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Its cargo includes research on particle foam manufacturing, water droplet formation, the...

To predict an epidemic, evolution can't be ignored

When scientists try to predict the spread of something across populations—anything from a coronavirus to misinformation—they use complex mathematical models to do so. Typically, they'll study the first few steps in which the subject spreads, and use that rate to project how far and wide the spread will go.

Swamp wallabies conceive new embryo before birth—a unique reproductive strategy

Marsupials such as kangaroos or wallabies are known for their very different reproductive strategies compared to other mammals. They give birth to their young at a very early stage and significant development occurs during a lengthy lactation period in which the offspring spends most of its time in a pouch. Although in some marsupials new ovulation happens only a few hours after giving birth, the...

Putting a price on the protective power of wetlands

In coastal communities prone to hurricanes and tropical storms, people typically turn to engineered solutions for protection: levees, sea walls and the like. But a natural buffer in the form of wetlands may be the more cost-effective solution, according to new research from the University of California San Diego.

Gold in limbo between solid and melted states

If you heat a solid material enough, the thermal energy (latent heat) causes the material's molecules begin to break apart, forming a liquid. One of the most familiar examples of this phase transition from a well-ordered solid to less-ordered liquid state is ice turning into water.

KITE code could power new quantum developments

A research collaboration led by the University of York's Department of Physics has created open-source software to assist in the creation of quantum materials which could in turn vastly increase the world's computing power.

Is there a technological solution to aquatic dead zones?

Could pumping oxygen-rich surface water into the depths of lakes, estuaries, and coastal ocean waters help ameliorate dangerous dead zones? New work led by Carnegie's David Koweek and Ken Caldeira and published open access by Science of the Total Environment says yes, although they caution that further research would be needed to understand any possible side effects before implementing such an...

Technology provides a new way to probe single molecules

Biology can be murky, and medicine involves dealing with very complex mixtures of molecules. A new technology developed at Northwestern University now offers some clarity to scientists with precision measurements of proteins down to their atoms.

Directed species loss from species-rich forests strongly decreases productivity

At high species richness, directed loss, but not random loss, of tree species strongly decreases forest productivity. This is shown by data from a big forest project in China in which the University of Zurich is involved. Previous studies based on random species loss could therefore bias the predictions of how more realistic extinction scenarios are likely to affect ecosystem functioning.

How quickly do flower strips in cities help the local bees?

Insects rely on a mix of floral resources for survival. Populations of bees, butterflies, and flies are currently rapidly decreasing due to the loss of flower-rich meadows. In order to deal with the widespread loss of fauna, the European Union supports "greening" measures, for example, the creation of flower strips.

How three genes rule plant symbioses

For billions of years life on Earth was restricted to aquatic environments, the oceans, seas, rivers and lakes. Then 450 million years ago the first plants colonized land, evolving in the process multiple types of beneficial relationships with microbes in the soil.

Disposal of wastewater from hydraulic fracturing poses dangers to drivers

Environmental concerns about hydraulic fracturing—aka "fracking," the process by which oil and gas are extracted from rock by injecting high-pressure mixtures of water and chemicals—are well documented, but according to a paper co-written by a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign environmental economics expert, the technique also poses a serious safety risk to local traffic.

Biologists capture fleeting interactions between regulatory proteins and their genome-wide targets

New York University biologists captured highly transient interactions between transcription factors—proteins that control gene expression—and target genes in the genome and showed that these typically missed interactions have important practical implications. In a new study published in Nature Communications, the researchers developed a method to capture transient interactions of NLP7, a...

Marine cyanobacteria do not survive solely on photosynthesis

Marine cyanobacteria are single-cell organisms that settled in the oceans millions of years ago. They are organisms that, by means of photosynthesis, create organic material by using inorganic substances. Specifically, the cyanobacteria known as Prochlorococcus and Synechococcus are the most abundant photosynthetic organisms on Earth and they generate a large part of the oxygen necessary for life,...