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77 articles from PhysOrg

A hymn to the stars: What happens when science puts the universe into music?

A little over six months ago, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) delivered its first photographs, dazzling the world as it revealed the cosmos in glorious technicolor. The first picture transmitted in July showed a galaxy cluster located in the Southern hemisphere sky, 5.12 billion light years from Earth. In the words of US president Joe Biden, it represented "the deepest and sharpest...

How rising household debt could slow UK labor strikes this year

After decades of declining real wages and deteriorating working conditions, strike activity has spiked over the last year, particularly in the United Kingdom. From nurses and teachers to railway and postal workers, employees are demanding wage increases and improved working conditions—and walking out if they believe employers' offers won't stave off the rising cost of living.

How assigning labels at work can delegitimize employees

Have you or a colleague ever been negatively labeled at work, whether it's based on your gender, age, race or ethnicity? Labels can often be mundane because we use them spontaneously on an everyday basis. But they can also be far from innocuous. Labels convey value judgments and serve to control the behavior of the people they're applied to.

Preserving endangered languages as 3D shapes

Half of the world's languages are endangered and more than a thousand are expected to be lost in coming decades. A team at UCL is using animation software to preserve these languages in an entirely new way.

Scientists observe 'quasiparticles' in classical systems for the first time

Starting with the emergence of quantum mechanics, the world of physics has been divided between classical and quantum physics. Classical physics deals with the motions of objects we typically see every day in the macroscopic world, while quantum physics explains the exotic behaviors of elementary particles in the microscopic world.

Rapid production of antibubbles with a jet

University of Twente researchers succeeded in the rapid fabrication of microscopic "antibubbles." Previous methods to produce these liquid droplets surrounded by an air layer were either lacked controllability or were prone to clogging and were much slower. The team of researchers recently published their findings in the journal Advanced Materials.

Atlanta's BeltLine shows how urban parks can drive 'green gentrification,' inequality

Is Atlanta a good place to live? Recent rankings certainly say so. In September 2022, Money magazine rated Atlanta the best place to live in the U.S., based on its strong labor market and job growth. The National Association of Realtors calls it the top housing market to watch in 2023, noting that Atlanta's housing prices are lower than those in comparable cities and that it has a rapidly growing...

What is blue carbon and how can it help fight climate change?

Blue carbon is becoming an increasingly popular term, but what exactly does it mean? The answer may vary slightly depending on who you ask. But broadly speaking, according to the National Ocean Service, "blue carbon is simply the term for carbon captured by the world's ocean and coastal ecosystems."

NASA's Fermi detects first gamma-ray eclipses from 'spider' star systems

Scientists have discovered the first gamma-ray eclipses from a special type of binary star system using data from NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. These so-called spider systems each contain a pulsar—the superdense, rapidly rotating remains of a star that exploded in a supernova—that slowly erodes its companion.

Study finds that eDNA can help detect rainbow smelt

Searun rainbow smelt—a culturally and ecologically valuable fish for New England anglers, consumers and marine ecosystems—is on the decline. Determining the extent of that decline, however, is difficult in Maine. Searun smelt can be easy to miss because they only enter coastal spawning streams from deeper waters during a few cold, wet nights each spring, and they depart the streams by early...