- PhysOrg
- 23/1/23 23:47
A newly-published hypothesis, led by a UCL researcher, suggests a momentary leap in a single species on a single day millions of years ago might ultimately have led to the arrival of mammals—and therefore humans.
A newly-published hypothesis, led by a UCL researcher, suggests a momentary leap in a single species on a single day millions of years ago might ultimately have led to the arrival of mammals—and therefore humans.
One of the most exciting applications of quantum computers will be to direct their gaze inwards, at the very quantum rules that make them tick. Quantum computers can be used to simulate quantum physics itself, and perhaps even explore realms that don't exist anywhere in nature.
Heavy metals such as lead and cadmium are present in batteries, cosmetics, food and other things that are part of everyday life. They are toxic when they accumulate in the human organism, potentially causing several health problems, but detecting them in body fluids requires expensive equipment and a controlled laboratory environment. Researchers at the University of São Paulo (USP) in Brazil...
Researchers at University of California San Diego and UC Riverside have further elucidated the molecular pathway used by the SARS-CoV-2 virus to infect human lung cells, identifying a key host-cell player that may prove a new and enduring therapeutic target for treating COVID-19.
Microplastics—tiny particles generated as plastics weather and fragment—pose a growing threat to ecosystem and human health. A new laboratory study shows these threats extend beyond direct physical or chemical impacts, revealing that the presence of microplastics increases the severity of an important viral fish disease.
Like forensic investigators, scientists can use molecular techniques to detect evidence of Antarctic krill in seawater samples collected in the Southern Ocean. The revolutionary technology can identify Antarctic krill DNA within the alphabet soup of DNA molecules shed by numerous other marine creatures, including bacteria, other krill species, and whales.
New collaborative research led by scientists at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows reduced krill supplies lead to fewer pregnancies in humpback whales—a finding that could have major implications for industrial krill fishing.
Top-down approaches to tackling substance abuse in drug-ravaged parts of Colombia, Afghanistan and Myanmar are harming livelihoods, health and ecology, a new study warns.
A new study from Rice University political scientist Rick Wilson and Texas A&M economist Catherine Eckel has examined the topic of trustworthiness. The article, titled "Attributions of Trust and Trustworthiness," will appear in an upcoming edition of Political Behavior.
Reversing osteoporosis could one day be as easy as taking a pill.
Solar flares and other types of space weather can wreak havoc with spaceflight and with telecommunications and other types of satellites orbiting Earth. But to date, scientists' ability to research ways to overcome that challenge has been severely limited. That's because experiments they conduct in laboratories here on Earth are affected by gravity in ways that are quite different from conditions...
In findings published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), Saint Louis University researchers and colleagues report that elephants play a key role in creating forests which store more atmospheric carbon and maintaining the biodiversity of forests in Africa. If the already critically endangered elephants become extinct, rainforest of central and west Africa, the second largest...
Wolves on an Alaskan island caused a deer population to plumet and switched to primarily eating sea otters in just a few years, a finding scientists at Oregon State University and the Alaska Department of Fish and Game believe is the first case of sea otters becoming the primary food source for a land-based predator.
It's hard out there for a shark. A critical barometer to the health of ocean ecosystems, shark and ray populations have faced significant global declines from overfishing, habitat loss, and environment degradation. Add to the mix a slow reproductive cycle—female great white sharks take approximately 30 years to reach sexual maturity, for instance—and the broader logistical challenges of trying...
Curtin University-led research into the durability and age of an ancient asteroid made of rocky rubble and dust, revealed significant findings that could contribute to potentially saving the planet if one ever hurtled toward Earth.
At any given time, 50 or more vessels, ranging from massive cargo ships to small fishing boats, are motoring off New Jersey's 127-mile coast from New York to Delaware.
A study published in The ISME Journal identified 522 genomes of archaea and bacteria associated with the roots and soil of two plant species native to the Brazilian montane savanna ecoregion known as campos rupestres ("rocky meadows"). Hundreds of microorganisms hitherto unknown to science were identified, showing that the ecoregion is a biodiversity hotspot and that many new organisms have yet to...
An international team has been able to reconstruct the evolutionary tree of a major group of snakes, Elapoidea, that has proved to be a significant step towards the construction of a complete Tree of Life for snakes.
Due to demographic change, it is becoming increasingly important to maintain the working capacity of aging workforces. In a recent study, researchers from the Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environments and Human Factors in Dortmund (IfADo) therefore investigated the relationship between changing lifestyle factors, cognitive functions and their influence on work ability. The results show that...
Seneca, the Roman stoic philosopher, wrote that "luck does not exist." Modern managerial studies take the liberty of disagreeing. Luck exists in the form of events that are beyond the control of CEOs and firms alike. Movements in oil prices and the business cycle (e.g., variations in GDP growth, and employment rate) that boost the market value of firms are a couple of examples.
Idalia Fedotova, researcher at HSE University and the RAS Ivannikov Institute for System Programming, examined lexical differences across Khanty dialects and found that members of this relatively small ethnic group speak three distinct languages—rather than two, as previously thought. The findings are published in Ural-Altaic Studies.
Speech differs greatly throughout the U.S., including how quickly people speak. Some people elongate their words, while others speak much more quickly.
Across the U.S., children and adults are increasingly exposed to harmful chemicals from a source few people are even aware of.
An unusual new species of pterosaur has been identified, which had over 400 teeth that looked like the prongs of a nit comb.
Recently, a research team led by Prof. Chen Tao from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) revealed the formation and evolution of the point defect of antimony selenosulfide. This work was published in Advanced Materials.