From excitement to disillusionment—new research identifies 4 emotional stages of professional careers

Lawyers progress through four distinct emotional stages in their fight to get to the top and secure a coveted partnership role, according to new research from the University of Bath's School of Management. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Protecting power grids from space weather

Activity from the sun, such as solar flares, can cause fluctuations in Earth's geomagnetic field that send electrical currents flowing through power grids. These geomagnetically induced currents (GICs) can cause problems ranging from temporary voltage instability to widespread bl … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

COP28: With a 'loss and damage' fund in place, protecting climate refugees is more urgent than ever

It has taken decades, but the complex and increasingly urgent issue of "climate mobility" has gradually become central to international climate negotiations. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Humans, rats and dogs pushed the takahē into Fiordland—new genetic research maps its dramatic journey

Takahē are a striking bird and a national treasure in Aotearoa New Zealand. But the history and origin story of this flightless swamp hen have become a point of scientific debate. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Holiday co-parenting after separation or divorce: 6 legal and practical tips for surviving and thriving

The approaching holiday season will be the first post-split for Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire, who separated in summer 2023. It may also be the first for you. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Even a brief experience of poverty enough to harm a children's development

A one-off experience of poverty is enough to impact on a child's development, according to a new study conducted by sociologists in Trinity College Dublin. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Green macroalga caulerpa has replaced seagrass in Florida's Indian River Lagoon

The Indian River Lagoon was considered one of the last "unpolluted coastal lagoons" in Florida in the 1970s. Fast forward to today and most of the 156-mile lagoon is now considered impaired because of external sources of nutrients, including human waste, fertilizers, stormwater r … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

New genetic research uncovers the lives of Bornean hunter-gatherers

Borneo is one of the world's most biodiversity-rich regions, home to ancient rainforests and an immense variety of wildlife. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

If you want to avoid 'giving away your first born,' make sure you read the terms and conditions before signing contracts

In 2019, a travel insurance company held a secret contest in which they included a line in the fine print of their policy promising $10,000 to the first person who spotted it. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

A shipboard monitoring system is giving researchers much-needed measurements of Antarctic wind, waves and ice

The Southern Ocean is "the engine room" for the world's climate and weather system. Across its large expanses of uninterrupted water, winds pick up speed and waves gather energy. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Mohamed Amin was a famous Kenyan photojournalist—there's much more to his work than images of tragedy

Kenyan photojournalist Mohamed Amin (1943-1996) rose to fame for documenting the 1984 famine in neighboring Ethiopia with powerful images of the tragedy. He also captured the Ethiopian people's suffering during the brutal reign of Mengistu Haile Mariam. These images, broadcast by … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

'Inert' ingredients in pesticides may be more toxic to bees than scientists thought

Bees help pollinate over a third of the world's crops, contributing an estimated US$235 billion to $577 billion in value to global agriculture. They also face a myriad of stresses, including pathogens and parasites, loss of suitable food sources and habitat, air pollution, and cl … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Services across England now lag far behind East Germany, as experts call for 'universal basic infrastructure' in UK

A new report outlines the dismal state of England's physical and "social" infrastructure—from public services in health and education to the parks, cinemas and train stations that prop up communities—when compared to similar regions in what was once East Germany. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Astronomers determine the age of three mysterious baby stars at the heart of the Milky Way

Through analysis of high-resolution data from a 10-meter telescope in Hawaii, researchers at Lund University in Sweden have succeeded in generating new knowledge about three stars at the very heart of the Milky Way. The stars proved to be unusually young with a puzzling chemical … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Physicist explains X-rays that shouldn't exist in 'cold' plasma

For about 20 years, Caltech Professor of Applied Physics Paul Bellan and his group have been creating magnetically accelerated jets of plasma, an electrically conducting gas composed of ions and electrons, in a vacuum chamber big enough to hold a person. (Neon signs and lightning … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Top space telescope from Europe seeks to solve riddles of the universe

EU researchers expect unprecedented insights into galaxies from the study of a mysterious energy force. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

SETI: How we're searching for alien life at previously unexplored frequencies

Is there life beyond Earth? The question has turned out to be one of the hardest to answer in science. Despite the seemingly boundless expanse of the universe, which implies there's potential for abundant life, the vast distances between stars render the search akin to locating a … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Was going to space a good idea?

In 1963, six years after the first satellite was launched, editors from the Encyclopedia Britannica posed a question to five eminent thinkers of the day: "Has man's conquest of space increased or diminished his stature?" The respondents were philosopher Hannah Arendt, writer Aldo … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Securing the global food supply despite EU regulations

Researchers at the University of Bayreuth have compiled information to help political decision-makers better understand the individual options for a new EU-wide regulation of breeding technologies. The aim is to ensure the success of food producers in the EU on the global market. … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Closer look at the Menga dolmen shows it was one of the greatest engineering feats of the Neolithic

A team of archaeologists, geologists and historians affiliated with several institutions in Spain has found that the Menga dolmen represents one of the greatest engineering feats of the Neolithic. In their study, published in Scientific Reports, the group used new technology to l … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Why iconic trees are so important to us—and how replacing those that fall is often complicated

An ancient kola tree has been cut down in southern Ghana. Local tradition held that the tree had grown on the spot where spiritual leader Komfo Anokye had spat a kola nut onto the ground three centuries previously. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Researcher: With a cruel summer ahead, why is Australia so unprepared?

2023 has shattered climate records, accompanied by extreme weather that has left a trail of devastation and despair, according to the World Meteorological Organization at COP 28. Some of the most significant extreme heat events were in southern Europe and North Africa, especially … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Report: 1.5°C pathways can still be achieved while combining fairness and global climate protection

Global warming can still be limited to 1.5°C by 2100 while ensuring that the poor are not hit hardest by climate policies and climate impacts. This is achieved by immediately introducing broad carbon pricing together with re-distributive policies using carbon pricing revenues and … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Getting climate funds to conflict zones—a case for working with armed groups and local communities

Conflict-ridden and fragile countries are among the most vulnerable to climate change and least prepared to deal with it. They are largely excluded from climate adaptation programs and funding. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Socotra archipelago: Why the Emiratis have set their sights on the Arab world's Garden of Eden

Days into COP28 in Dubai, one little-known archipelago has come into sharp relief: Socotra. Composed of four small Yemeni islands, Socotra has been in the sights of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) ever since the civil war in Yemen erupted in September 2014. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

A forestry scientist explains how to choose the most sustainable Christmas tree, no matter what it's made of

Every year, Americans buy somewhere between 35 million and 50 million Christmas trees, and many more pull an artificial tree out of storage for the season. In all, about three-quarters of U.S. households typically have some kind of Christmas tree, surveys show. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Science is a human right—and its future is enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Dec. 10 marks the anniversary of the 1948 signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in the aftermath of the Holocaust. Though contested, imperfect and unfulfilled, the declaration remains a milestone in human civilization as one of the ea … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Hate crimes are on the rise—but the narrow legal definition makes it hard to charge and convict, researcher says

With hate crimes, context is everything, and events outside of the United States—like the war between Israel and Hamas—can have far-reaching and potentially tragic consequences. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

New study finds that male pathology in songbirds drives avian epidemic dynamics

New findings by biological sciences researchers at the University of Arkansas indicate that males play an outsized role in both the infection rate and spread of the avian bacterial pathogen Mycoplasma gallisepticum, a common cause of conjunctivitis in songbirds, particularly thos … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

How a thumb-sized climate migrant with a giant crab claw is disrupting the Northeast's Great Marsh ecosystem

Nine years ago, I stood on the muddy banks of the Great Marsh, a salt marsh an hour north of Boston, and pulled a thumb-sized crab with an absurdly large claw out of a burrow. I was looking at a fiddler crab—a species that wasn't supposed to be north of Cape Cod, let alone north … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

As school students strike for climate once more, here's how the movement and its tactics have changed

On Friday, students will once again down textbooks and laptops and go on strike for climate action. Many will give their schools a Climate Doctor's Certificate signed by three leading climate academics. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

New math approach provides insight into memory formation

The simple activity of walking through a room jumpstarts the neurons in the human brain. An explosion of electrochemical events or "neuronal spikes" appears at various times during the action. These spikes in activity, otherwise known as action potentials, are electrical impulses … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Saturn's icy moon may hold the building blocks of life

As astrophysics technology and research continue to advance, one question persists: is there life elsewhere in the universe? The Milky Way galaxy alone has hundreds of billions of celestial bodies, but scientists often look for three crucial elements in their ongoing search: wate … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Sulfur-cycling microbes could lead to new possibilities in river-wetland-ocean remediation

Nutrient cycles such as the carbon, nitrogen, phosphorous and sulfur cycles are critical processes that free up elements essential to life by recycling them through our water, air, and soil. Sulfur, specifically, is an integral element in producing amino acids, vitamins, and enzy … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Students around the world suffered huge learning setbacks during the pandemic, study finds

Students around the world suffered historic setbacks in reading and math during the COVID-19 pandemic, with declines in test scores so widespread that the United States climbed in global rankings simply by falling behind less sharply, a new study finds. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Climate change by numbers

As countries try to hammer out a response to climate change at the COP28 talks in Dubai, here are some key figures about how fossil fuels have warmed our world. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Nanomaterial with 'light switch' kills Gram-negative or Gram-positive bacteria

Health care-associated infections are a common problem in suppurating wound care, as is the rise in multi-drug resistant bacteria. In order to effectively and selectively combat bacterial infections, a team of researchers has developed a bactericidal nanomaterial equipped with a … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Research shows how important protein keeps our cell membranes in balance

Lipids are the main constituents of our cell membranes, which are formed as lipid bilayers. The distribution of lipids is far from uniform; it is asymmetric, with different lipid compositions in the outside and inside layers. This asymmetry is essential for a variety of cellular … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

'Shocking' discovery: Electricity from electric eels may transfer genetic material to nearby animals

The electric eel is the biggest power-making creature on Earth. It can release up to 860 volts, which is enough to run a machine. In a recent study, a research group from Nagoya University in Japan found electric eels can release enough electricity to genetically modify small fis … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Using machine learning to identify microbiota patterns important for plant protection

In a recent study published in Nature Communications, the Vorholt lab investigated the properties of plant microbiota involved in host protection against pathogen colonization. They identified the presence of specific strains that confer robust protection across different biotic … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

From infamy to ingenuity—bacterial hijack mechanisms as advanced genetic tools

Researchers have uncovered the intricate molecular mechanism used by parasitic phytoplasma bacteria, known for inducing "zombie-like" effects in plants. This detailed revelation opens new horizons for groundbreaking applications in biotechnology and even in biomedicine. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Atomically precise assembly of 2D materials paves way for next-generation electronics

Researchers at the University of Manchester have made a breakthrough in the transfer of 2D crystals, paving the way for their commercialization in next-generation electronics. This technique, detailed in a recent Nature Electronics article, utilizes a fully inorganic stamp to cre … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Mice pass the mirror test, a classic indicator of self-recognition

Researchers report December 5 in the journal Neuron that mice display behavior that resembles self-recognition when they see themselves in the mirror. When the researchers marked the foreheads of black-furred mice with a spot of white ink, the mice spent more time grooming their … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Major Antarctic glacier passed a tipping point in the last 80 years, research reveals

Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica has gone through an irreversible retreat, passing a tipping point within the last 80 years, researchers have found. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Identifying vintage wines by their chemical signature

Does every wine carry its own chemical signature and, if so, can this be used to identify its origin? Many specialists have tried to solve this mystery, without fully succeeding. By applying artificial intelligence tools to existing data, a team from the University of Geneva (UNI … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

BF23 bacteriophage study reveals that viruses can cope with bacterial restriction and modification

Bacteriophages are natural "predators" and enemies of bacteria. They are able to recognize specific types of bacteria and are considered safe for humans. Due to the increasing resistance of pathogenic microorganisms to antibiotics, bacteriophages have recently been considered as … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Polyoxometalates show promise as drug transporters into the cell

A research team from the University of Vienna, in collaboration with the Constructor University in Bremen, showed that polyoxometalates (POMs) can transport biologically relevant cargo through biological membranes. The study was recently published in Advanced Materials . It will … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Ice cores as a source for antimicrobials: From bioprospecting to biodesign

In November 2023, BioDesign Research published a perspective article titled "Ice Cores as a Source for Antimicrobials: From Bioprospecting to Biodesign," outlining a revolutionary approach to antibiotic discovery using ice cores. This innovative article comes at a pivotal time, a … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago