At what cost? Debate swirls on 'giveaways' after Amazon HQ deal

As the winners of the biggest corporate prize in decades—the new Amazon headquarters—relished their victory, debate was still raging over the billions of dollars in incentives offered to attract the fast-growing US technology colossus. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Undersea gas fires Egypt's regional energy dreams

Egypt is looking to use its vast, newly tapped undersea gas reserves to establish itself as a key energy exporter and revive its flagging economy. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Looters plunder Albania's sunken treasures

Albania's long underexplored coastal waters have become a hotspot for treasure hunters scooping up ancient pottery, sunken ship parts and other shell-encrusted relics that have lain on the seabed for centuries. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Sumatran elephant found dead with missing tusks in Indonesia

A Sumatran elephant has been found dead with its tusks removed in an apparent poaching case targeting the critically endangered animal, an Indonesian conservation official said Friday. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Italy's 'anti-Netflix' law to protect film industry

Italy is to introduce an obligatory delay between Italian films screening in cinemas and being shown on streaming services like Netflix, in a bid to protect its domestic film industry. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Rare Sumatran tiger rescued from beneath shop in Indonesia

A rare Sumatran tiger that was trapped beneath the floor of a shop for three days has been rescued, an Indonesian official said Saturday. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Vale ordered to pay tribes $26.8 mn over river contamination

A Brazil appeals court on Friday ordered mining giant Vale to pay two indigenous tribes $26.8 million over river contamination that harmed public health, the prosecutors' office said Friday. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Excavators find tombs buried in Bolivia 500 years ago

Archaeologists say they found tombs at a Bolivian quarry containing remains from more than 500 years ago that give an insight into the interaction of various peoples with the expanding Inca empire. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Fight over dinosaur fossils comes down to what's a mineral

About 66 million years after two dinosaurs died apparently locked in battle on the plains of modern-day Montana, an unusual fight over who owns the entangled fossils has become a multimillion-dollar issue that hinges on the legal definition of "mineral." | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Space station supplies launched, 2nd shipment in 2 days

A load of space station supplies rocketed into orbit from Virginia on Saturday, the second shipment in two days. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

New space industry emerges: on-orbit servicing

Imagine an airport where thousands of planes, empty of fuel, are left abandoned on the tarmac. That is what has been happening for decades with satellites that circle the Earth. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Eyeing echidnas: Study models echidna forelimbs to help shed new light on mammal evolution

These days, mammals can use their forelimbs to swim, jump, fly, climb, dig and just about everything in between, but the question of how all that diversity evolved has remained a vexing one for scientists. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Mexico says 48 manatee deaths due to heat, algae blooms

Mexican environmental authorities say a combination of hot weather, drought and toxic algae blooms contributed to the deaths of 48 manatees in the Gulf coast state of Tabasco this summer. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Russia stages first Soyuz launch since accident

A Russian Soyuz rocket with a cargo vessel blasted off Friday in the first launch to the International Space Station (ISS) since a manned accident last month. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

A new lead on a 50-year-old radiation damage mystery

For half a century, researchers have seen loops of displaced atoms appearing inside nuclear reactor steel after exposure to radiation, but no one could work out how. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Organizations with broad social ties help recovering from natural disasters

Communities recovering from natural disasters often see an increase in the number of businesses and non-profits that develop in the wake of the cleanup, but that apparent growth doesn't necessarily counterweigh the accompanying rise in poverty levels in areas transformed by event … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Dodging antibiotic resistance by curbing bacterial evolution

With many disease-causing bacteria ratcheting up their shields against current drugs, new tactics are vital to protect people from treatment-resistant infections. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Selling plants on Amazon: A forest of untapped opportunity

A first-of-its-kind study out of Kansas State University examined the the untapped market for selling plants online by horticultural businesses. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Color coded—matching taste with color

Color can impact the taste of food, and our experiences and expectations can affect how we taste food, according to Penn State researchers, who suggest this may have implications for how food and beverage industries should market their products. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Treated superalloys demonstrate unprecedented heat resistance

Researchers at Idaho National Laboratory have discovered how to make "superalloys" even more super, extending useful life by thousands of hours. The discovery could improve materials performance for electrical generators and nuclear reactors. The key is to heat and cool the super … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

NASA catches Tropical Cyclone Gaja's landfall

Caught in the act of landfall, Tropical Cyclone Gaja was seen by NASA's Aqua satellite as it passed overhead and collected temperature information. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Overflowing crater lakes carved canyons across Mars

Today, most of the water on Mars is locked away in frozen ice caps. But billions of years ago it flowed freely across the surface, forming rushing rivers that emptied into craters, forming lakes and seas. New research led by The University of Texas at Austin has found evidence th … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Communal rearing gives mice a competitive edge

Research by scientists at the University of Liverpool suggests that being raised communally makes mice more competitive when they're older. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

PNW woodlands will be less vulnerable to drought, fire than Rocky Mountain, Sierra forests

Forests in the Pacific Northwest will be less vulnerable to drought and fire over the next three decades than those in the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada, computer modeling by researchers in Oregon State University's College of Forestry shows. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Cargo ship launch clears crewed mission to space station

A Russian Soyuz rocket has put a cargo ship en route to the International Space Station, clearing the way for the next crewed mission. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

New discovery shows glass made from exploding stars

The next time you're gazing out of the window in search of inspiration, keep in mind the material you're looking through was forged inside the heart of an exploding ancient star. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

San Francisco chokes on toxic air as wildfires rage

Schools and tourist attractions across the San Francisco Bay Area were shut Friday as smoke from California's deadliest ever wildfire a three hour drive away produced air quality levels worse than in polluted megacities in South Asia. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Airbnb says revenue for 3Q was best ever, topping $1 billion

Airbnb had its best quarter ever, even as cities across the U.S. have started clamping down on the short-term rental market. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

SpaceX gets nod to put 12,000 satellites in orbit

SpaceX got the green light this week from US authorities to put a constellation of nearly 12,000 satellites into orbit in order to boost cheap, wireless internet access by the 2020s. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

NASA accepts delivery of European powerhouse for moonship

NASA has accepted delivery of a key European part needed to power the world's next-generation moonship. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

House passes bill to drop legal protections for gray wolves

The Republican-controlled House has passed a bill to drop legal protections for gray wolves across the lower 48 states, reopening a lengthy battle over the predator species. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Volkswagen to spend 44 bn euros on 'electric offensive'

German auto giant Volkswagen said Friday it will invest 44 billion euros by 2023 in the smarter, greener cars of the future as it ramps up efforts to shake off the "dieselgate" emissions cheating scandal. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Space-inspired speed breeding for crop improvement

Technology first used by NASA to grow plants extra-terrestrially is fast tracking improvements in a range of crops. Scientists at John Innes Centre and the University of Queensland have improved the technique, known as speed breeding, adapting it to work in vast glass houses and … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

VW wants to storm car market with mass-market electric model

German automaker Volkswagen says it will invest 44 billion euros ($50 billion) to develop autonomous and electric cars and expand the appeal of battery-powered vehicles by selling its upcoming I.D. compact for about what a diesel-powered Golf costs. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

What is augmented reality, anyway?

Augmented reality systems show virtual objects in the real world – like cat ears and whiskers on a Snapchat selfie, or how well a particular chair might fit in a room. The first big break for AR was the "Pokémon GO" game, released in 2016 with a feature that let players see virtu … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

A scar that the Woolsey Fire left behind

Fire destroys and decimates. It takes out almost everything in its path. In the wake of a fire, a burn scar appears which takes a long time to heal. The mountains of San Bernardino County in Southern California were in a healing pattern for ten years after the Paradise and Cedar … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Small satellites tackle big scientific questions

CU Boulder will soon have new eyes on the sun. Two miniature satellites designed by researchers at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics (LASP) are scheduled to launch later this month on Spaceflight's SSO-A: SmallSat Express mission onboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket fr … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Half of the world's annual precipitation falls in just 12 days, new study finds

Currently, half of the world's measured precipitation that falls in a year falls in just 12 days, according to a new analysis of data collected at weather stations across the globe. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

New research uncovers the predatory behavior of Florida's skull-collecting ant

"Add 'skull-collecting ant' to the list of strange creatures in Florida," says Adrian Smith a scientist at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and North Carolina State University. His new research describes the behavioral and chemical strategies of a Florida ant, Formic … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Why I quit my day job researching happiness and started cycling to Bhutan

I'd had enough. It was October 2017, and I'd been wondering what the point of my job was for far too long, and while I'm sure there was something meaningful somewhere and to someone in what I was doing day-to-day, it had certainly lost meaning for me. For all the good that writin … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

How fierce fall and winter winds fuel California fires

It doesn't take long in California to develop a feel for "fire weather." When it's hot and dry and the winds blow a certain way, there can be no doubt that, as in the past, landscapes will continue to be forged in fire. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Logging must stop in Melbourne's biggest water supply catchment

Continued logging in Melbourne's water catchments could reduce the city's water supply by the equivalent of 600,000 people's annual water use every year by 2050, according to our analysis. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Record-breaking Alps postcard sends message against climate change

A massive collage of 125,000 drawings and messages from children around the world about climate change was rolled out on a shrinking Swiss glacier Friday, smashing the world record for giant postcards. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago

Scientists produce 3-D chemical maps of single bacteria

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@phys.org | 5 years ago

Tiny raptor tracks lead to big discovery

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@phys.org | 5 years ago

Non-antibiotic drugs also speed up the spread of antibiotic resistance

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@phys.org | 5 years ago

You can't characterize human nature if studies overlook 85 percent of people on Earth

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@phys.org | 5 years ago

Cohousing is an inclusive approach to smart, sustainable cities

The idea that technology will fix complex and systemic problems like climate change, poverty, the housing crisis or health care is simplistic to say the least. We need a radical shift in how we live, and designing for environmental and social sustainability cannot simply be about … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 5 years ago