Huawei calls on US, others to show proof of security risk

The chairman of Huawei challenged the United States and other governments to provide evidence for claims the Chinese tech giant is a security risk as the company launched a public relations effort Tuesday to defuse fears that threaten its role in next-generation communications. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Elon Musk to unveil underground tunnel, transport cars

Tech entrepreneur Elon Musk is set to unveil an underground transportation tunnel on Tuesday that could move people faster than subways. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Genetic cause of ALS and frontotemporal dementia blocked by RNA-binding compound

Since the ice bucket challenge went viral in 2014, raising awareness and funding for ALS research, scientists have learned much about a disease that disconnects muscles from nerves, leading to muscle atrophy and eventual death. Their ultimate goal is to create medications capable … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

First snapshot of exciton-polariton condensation process

An ANU advance provides never-before-achieved 'snapshot' of Bose-Einstein condensation. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

We finally have the rulebook for the Paris Agreement, but global climate action is still inadequate

Three years after the Paris Agreement was struck, we now finally know the rules – or most of them, at least – for its implementation. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Christmas is hectic, but slowing things down might be about to become the new status symbol

Increasing numbers of people are searching for ways to slow down their fast paced consumer lives by turning to slower forms of consumption, such as using limited holiday time to walk ancient pilgrimage routes, research by Royal Holloway, University of London, has found. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

New Horizons spacecraft takes the inside course to Ultima Thule

With no apparent hazards in its way, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft has been given a "go" to stay on its optimal path to Ultima Thule as it speeds closer to a Jan. 1 flyby of the Kuiper Belt object a billion miles beyond Pluto – the farthest planetary flyby in history. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Willow tits survive best with support from a flock

Willow tits (Poecile montanus) generally reside in one territorial area throughout their adult lives. But brutal winters in the north kill off many of them. They aren't able to manage well on their own, and storing seeds in the autumn is not always enough. For the young of the ye … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

The influence of magnetic fields on thin film structures

A team of scientists from Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, together with their colleagues from Russia, Japan, and Australia, have studied the influence of inhomogeneous magnetic fields applied during the fabrication process of thin-film structures made from nickel-iron an … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Correlation between the structure and magnetic properties of ceramics

A team of Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University (BFU) together with an international scientific group has studied a correlation between the structure of ceramic materials based on bismuth ferrite (BiFeO3) and their magnetic properties. In their work, the scientists determined t … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Characteristics of submesoscale geophysical turbulence

A KAIST research team has reported some of unique characteristics and driving forces behind submesoscale geophysical turbulence. Using big data analysis on ocean surface currents and chlorophyll concentrations observed using coastal radars and satellites has brought better unders … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Research finds ethical sourcing of seeds required for global restoration

Hundreds of thousands of tonnes of wild seeds are needed to restore plant ecosystems globally but overharvesting risks their depletion unless ethical seed-sourcing regulations are developed, Curtin University research has found. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Research reveals the key to reducing prison radicalisation

New research from The ANU shows people imprisoned on terrorism offences stand a better chance of being rehabilitated when placed in general prison populations, than when kept in isolation or in a separate location with other terrorists. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Mysterious giant dust particles found at gravity-defying distances

An unknown influence is allowing giant dust particles to spread around the world and could be contributing to global warming, scientists have found. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Research brings swine industry closer to broad virus protection

After eight years of gathering data from more than 1,000 pigs infected with porcine circovirus 2, University of Nebraska–Lincoln researchers have identified the gene associated with pigs' susceptibility to the deadly swine disease. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Satellite data exposes looting

More than 2,500 years ago, horse riding nomads expanded their cultural realm throughout the Eurasian steppe from Southern Siberia to Eastern Europe. These tribes buried their dead in large burial mounds, often with elaborate golden jewelry and weapons of superior craftsmanship. M … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Climate action must now focus on the global rich and their corporations

The latest UN climate talks, known as COP24, have just concluded. The supposed story this time was one of a grinding victory by the EU and developing nations over recalcitrant petro-states – Russia, the US, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. These four, condemned as "climate villains" over … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Scientists reveal how water fleas settled during the Ice Age

A new study shows that the roots used by three close species of microscopic Daphnia crustaceans to settle across the territory of Northern Eurasia differed greatly. The findings shed light on how continental freshwater fauna formed. The results are published in PLOS ONE. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Adventures in phase space: Unified map on plastic and elastic glasses

Glasses are an enigma among solid phases. Like crystalline solids they are hard, but unlike crystals they are amorphous on the molecular scale. Because of this structural disorder, each piece of glass is technically out of equilibrium, and unique. As a result, its properties depe … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Leafcutter ant colonies may be an overlooked source of carbon dioxide emissions, new study finds

Factories mass produce goods for society and many emit greenhouse gases in the process, but not all are run by humans. Some factories lie underground and are operated around the clock by tireless six-legged workers. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Researchers develop cell-sucking technology

Single-cell mass spectroscopy is a technology to analyze target cell organelles almost as they are, by taking them out from a living cell at a desired time point using a nanospray tip while tracking the cell movement under microscope. This technology is highly expected to be a po … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

High negative pressure limits dispersion of airborne contaminants in hospitals and renovation sites

Maintaining a high negative pressure in airborne infection isolation rooms of hospitals (over -10 Pa) and in renovation sites (over -5 Pa) effectively limits the dispersion of airborne contaminants and dust, a new study from the University of Eastern Finland shows. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Old mines cast a long shadow on their surroundings

Local stakeholders need more information than is currently available to them on the impacts of former mining activities on ground water and surface water, potential soil contamination, and the safety of natural products, a new study from Finland shows. The majority of the respond … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Changing variable in equation used to project climate change to give more accurate estimate of precipitation changes

A team of researchers from Australia and China has changed a variable used in an equation to project precipitation as the climate changes, and in so doing, has found that the planet may not become drier as many have suggested. In their paper published in Nature Climate Change, th … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Globally, new solar power plants added almost 35% to new power generating capacity in 2017

For the 8th year now, solar power attracted the largest share of new investments in renewable energies, according to the new JRC PV status report 2018. The EUR140billion investments in solar energy globally accounted for almost 60 percent of all new renewable energy investments. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Have we reached Peak Car?

General Motors has announced it's shuttering five production facilities and killing six vehicle platforms by the end of 2019 as it reallocates resources towards self-driving technologies and electric vehicles. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

New guidelines for responding to cyber attacks don't go far enough

Debates about cyber security in Australia over the past few weeks have largely centred around the passing of the government's controversial Assistance and Access bill. But while government access to encrypted messages is an important subject, protecting Australia from threat coul … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Searching for the source of planarians' regenerative powers

Using a technique that involves analyzing thousands of single cells, scientists have figured out a new way to capture a stem cell that underlies flatworm regeneration. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

New bright high-redshift quasar discovered using VISTA

Using the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope for Astronomy (VISTA), astronomers have detected a new bright quasar at a redshift of about 6.8. The newly identified quasar, designated VHS J0411-0907, is the brightest object in the near-infrared J-band among the known quasars at … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Perfect beverages and liquid food down to the molecular level

Bartenders and cocktail enthusiasts know it: proportions matter. A bit too much or slightly too little of an ingredient, and the person drinking will never look back. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Looking for LUCA, the last universal common ancestor

Around 4 billion years ago there lived a microbe called LUCA: the Last Universal Common Ancestor. There is evidence that it could have lived a somewhat 'alien' lifestyle, hidden away deep underground in iron-sulfur rich hydrothermal vents. Anaerobic and autotrophic, it didn't bre … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

New type of low-energy nanolaser that shines in all directions

Researchers in Eindhoven have developed a new type of low-energy, nanoscale laser that shines in all directions. The key to its omnidirectional light emission is the introduction of something that is usually highly undesirable in nanotechnology: irregularities in the materials. T … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

What 'social class transitioners' bring to the workplace

A new study argues that "social class transitioners" – people who move between different socioeconomic classes through their lifetime – bring a unique and valuable skillset to the workplace. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Explaining differences in rates of evolution

Scientists look to fossils and evolutionary trees to help determine the rate of evolution – albeit with conflicting results. A new model by ETH researchers has helped to resolve these contradictions. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Scientists to explore future use of bacteria-based active agents

Biosurfactants with the ability to replace harmful petroleum based surfactants in everyday products are a step closer to becoming the norm. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Video: Nanoparticles reach clinical trials for prostate cancer

When Frank Billingsley announced he had prostate cancer, the outpouring of sympathy was overwhelming. But one email among the mass of messages the chief meteorologist at KPRC-TV in Houston received stood out. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Wastewater treatment plants can become sustainable biorefineries

In the future, wastewater treatment plants can have a broader function by being converted into biorefineries. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

China's win-at-all-costs approach suggests it will follow its own dangerous path in biomedicine

The world was shocked by Chinese scientist He Jiankui's recent claim that he'd brought to term twin babies whose genes – inheritable by their own potential descendants – he had modified as embryos. The genetic edit, He said, was meant to make the girls resistant to HIV infection. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Machine learning to predict and optimise the deformation of materials

Researchers at Tampere University of Technology and Aalto University taught machine learning algorithms to predict how materials stretch. This new application of machine learning opens new opportunities in physics and possible applications can be found in the design of new optima … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Holographic acoustic tweezers able to manipulate multiple objects in 3-D space

A pair of researchers, one with the Public University of Navarre, the other with the University of Bristol, has developed a system of holographic acoustic tweezers that can be used to manipulate multiple objects simultaneously in 3-D space. Asier Marzo and Bruce Drinkwater descri … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Salmon may lose the ability to smell danger as carbon emissions rise

The ability to smell is critical for salmon. They depend on scent to avoid predators, sniff out prey and find their way home at the end of their lives when they return to the streams where they hatched to spawn and die. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

MuSCAT2 to find Earth-like planets in the TESS era

A Japan-Spain team has developed a powerful 4-color simultaneous camera named MuSCAT2 for the 1.52-m Telescopio Carlos Sánchez at the Teide Observatory, Canaries, Spain. The instrument aims to find a large number of transiting exoplanets, including Earth-like habitable planets or … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Carbon fuels go green for renewable energy

For decades, scientists have searched for effective ways to remove excess carbon dioxide emissions from the air, and recycle them into products such as renewable fuels. But the process of converting carbon dioxide into useful chemicals is tedious, expensive, and wasteful and thus … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Massive new dark matter detector gets its 'eyes'

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) dark matter detector, which will soon start its search for the elusive particles thought to account for a majority of matter in the universe, had its first set of "eyes" delivered Thursday. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Carbon nanotubes mime biology

Cellular membranes serve as an ideal example of a system that is multifunctional, tunable, precise and efficient. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

The science of seeing art and color

During three trips to London at the turn of the 20th century, Claude Monet painted more than 40 versions of a single scene: the Waterloo Bridge over the Thames River. Monet's main subject was not the bridge itself, however; he was most captivated by the landscape and atmosphere o … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Gravity is mathematically relatable to dynamics of subatomic particles

Albert Einstein's desk can still be found on the second floor of Princeton's physics department. Positioned in front of a floor-to-ceiling blackboard covered with equations, the desk seems to embody the spirit of the frizzy-haired genius as he asks the department's current occupa … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Researchers uncover the detailed molecular structure of the sporopollenin polymer

For hundreds of millions of years, plants thrived in the Earth's oceans, safe from harsh conditions found on land, such as drought and ultraviolet radiation. Then, roughly 450 million years ago, plants found a way to make the move to land: They evolved spores—small reproductive c … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago