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100 articles from PhysOrg

Beating the 'billion-dollar bug' is a shared burden

A lurking threat that has stymied US corn growers for decades is now returning to the forefront: western corn rootworm. Sometimes referred to as the "billion-dollar bug," the species' tiny larvae chew through the roots of corn plants, causing devastating yield losses. In 2003, farmers began planting a genetically engineered variety of corn known as "Bt," which produces a protein toxic to the pest...

Hunters and busybodies: Researchers use Wikipedia to measure different types of curiosity

Curiosity has been found to play a role in our learning and emotional well-being, but due to the open-ended nature of how curiosity is actually practiced, measuring it is challenging. Psychological studies have attempted to gauge participants' curiosity through their engagement in specific activities, such as asking questions, playing trivia games, and gossiping. However, such methods focus on...

"Boomerang" performance is on par with internal employees who never left the firm, new paper finds

Organizations seeking to fill internal roles traditionally have two options: promote from within or hire externally. Internal promotions benefit from being vetted talent who possess firm-specific skills while outside hires harbor external knowledge that can infuse an organization with new energy. Though this dichotomy is often accepted as unavoidable, there is a third option: boomerang employees.

Non-classical photosynthesis by earth's inorganic semiconducting minerals

Photosynthesis, the process by which plants and other organisms convert sunlight into chemical energy, has been a major player during the evolution of life and our planet's atmosphere. Although most of the ins and outs of photosynthesis are understood, how the necessary mechanisms evolved is still a topic of debate. The answer to this question, however, may actually lie buried in the mineral...

New Horizons spacecraft answers the question: How dark is space?

How dark is the sky, and what does that tell us about the number of galaxies in the visible universe? Astronomers can estimate the total number of galaxies by counting everything visible in a Hubble deep field and then multiplying them by the total area of the sky. But other galaxies are too faint and distant to directly detect. Yet while we can't count them, their light suffuses space with a...

Meipu teeth shed light on the human settlement of Asia

María Martinón-Torres and José María Bermúdez de Castro, researchers at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), have participated in a study published in the Journal of Human Evolution, on one of the few human fossils known from late Early Pleistocene China, the Meipu teeth, which provides new information on the early settlement of continental Asia.

Why won't antibiotics cure us anymore?

Current means of fighting bacteria are no longer as good as they used to be because of antibiotic resistance. These days, people are dying from bacterial infections that could have been cured fifty years ago.

NASA missions help investigate an 'Old Faithful' active galaxy

During a typical year, over a million people visit Yellowstone National Park, where the Old Faithful geyser regularly blasts a jet of boiling water high in the air. Now, an international team of astronomers has discovered a cosmic equivalent, a distant galaxy that erupts roughly every 114 days.

Scientist develops method to find toxic chemicals in drinking water

Most consumers of drinking water in the United States know that chemicals are used in the treatment processes to ensure the water is safe to drink. But they might not know that the use of some of these chemicals, such as chlorine, can also lead to the formation of unregulated toxic byproducts.

Knowledge of cycad branching behavior improves conservation

Research on cycad trees in Colombia, Guam, and the Philippines has illuminated how knowledge of their branching behavior may benefit conservation decisions for the endangered plants. In a study published in the December issue of the journal Horticulturae, scientists from the University of Guam and the Montgomery Botanical Center in Florida show that the number of times a cycad tree produces a...

Pet food recall expands after 70 dogs die from mold toxin

There's an expanded nationwide recall of Sportmix pet food products underway, after links were found between a mold-borne toxin in the food and the deaths of 70 dogs, with 80 other dogs being sickened, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced Monday.

Long-range energy transport in perovskite nanocrystal films

Producing clean energy and reducing the power consumption of illumination and personal devices are key challenges to reduce the impact of modern civilization on the environment. As a result, the surging demand for solar cells and light-emitting devices is driving scientists to explore new semiconductor materials and improve their performances, while lowering the production costs.

Most distant quasar discovered sheds light on how black holes grow

A team of astronomers led by the University of Arizona has observed a luminous quasar 13.03 billion light-years from Earth—the most distant quasar discovered to date. Dating back to 670 million years after the Big Bang, when the universe was only 5% its current age, the quasar hosts a supermassive black hole equivalent to the combined mass of 1.6 billion suns.

Study of flowers with two types of anthers solves mystery that baffled Darwin

Most flowering plants depend on pollinators such as bees to transfer pollen from the male anthers of one flower to the female stigma of another flower, enabling fertilization and the production of fruits and seeds. Bee pollination, however, involves an inherent conflict of interest, because bees are only interested in pollen as a food source.