Early life forms on Earth may have been able to generate metabolic energy from sunlight using a purple-pigmented molecule called retinal that possibly predates the evolution of chlorophyll and photosynthesis. If retinal has evolved on other worlds, it could create a a distinctive … | Continue reading
A pair of researchers at the University of Sydney has found that puffed rice and milk can serve as a stand-in to simulate collapsing ice shelves and rockfill dams. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, Itai Einav and François Guillard discuss their experiments … | Continue reading
For the first time, scientists have traced the north-south shifts of the northern-most edge of the tropics back 800 years, reports a University of Arizona-led international team. | Continue reading
Severe climate events could cause shortages in the global beer supply, according to new research involving the University of East Anglia (UEA). | Continue reading
Leaving a major political body is nothing new for mainland Britain. In 409AD, more than 350 years after the Roman conquest of 43AD, the island slipped from the control of the Roman Empire. Much like the present Brexit, the process of this secession and its practical impacts on Br … | Continue reading
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have found the oldest clue yet of animal life, dating back at least 100 million years before the famous Cambrian explosion of animal fossils. | Continue reading
A research arm of the U.S. military is exploring the possibility of deploying insects to make plants more resilient by altering their genes. Some experts say the work may be seen as a potential biological weapon. | Continue reading
Ethanol can make an important contribution to climate protection: at TU Wien, a diesel engine has been developed that can run on over 70 percent bioethanol. | Continue reading
Chemists at The Ohio State University have developed a new and improved way to generate molecules that can enable the design of new types of synthetic drugs. | Continue reading
They lived for two years and 20 minutes under the glass of a miniature Earth, complete with an ocean, rain forest, desert, grasslands and mangroves. Their air and water were recycled, and they grew the sweet potatoes, rice and other food they needed to survive. | Continue reading
(PhysOrg.com) -- More than 500 years ago, Leonardo da Vinci observed a particular relationship between the size of a tree’s trunk and the size of its branches. Specifically, the combined cross-sectional areas of a tree’s daughter branches are equal to the cross-sectio … | Continue reading
Quantum secure direct communication transmits secret information directly without encryption. Recently, a research team led by Prof. Gui-Lu Long from Tsinghua University proposed a measurement-and-device-independent quantum secure direct communication protocol using Einstein-Podo … | Continue reading
After millions of years living in constant darkness, a species of blind cavefish found only in Somalia has lost an ancient system of DNA repair. That DNA repair system, found in organisms including bacteria, fungi, plants, and most other animals, harnesses energy from visible lig … | Continue reading
A team of researchers from the University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory has conducted an ultra-precise measurement of the fine-structure constant, and in so doing, have found evidence that casts doubts on dark photon theory. In their paper published in t … | Continue reading
A Spanish consumer group said Wednesday it will sue Facebook over the alleged misuse of the personal data of 26 million users of the social network in Spain. | Continue reading
A global shift toward healthy and more plant-based diets, halving food loss and waste, and improving farming practices and technologies are required to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050, a new study finds. Adopting these options reduces the risk of crossing global enviro … | Continue reading
Scientists from the University of Bath have helped to figure out why shoals of fish flash silver as they twist through the water by studying how the shiny silver cells are created in zebrafish. | Continue reading
To send a text message, there's not only "an app for that," there are dozens of apps for that. | Continue reading
Dwarf planet Ceres experienced an indirect polar reorientation of approximately 36 degrees, a new paper by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Pasquale Tricarico says. | Continue reading
NASA's Voyager 2 probe, currently on a journey toward interstellar space, has detected an increase in cosmic rays that originate outside our solar system. Launched in 1977, Voyager 2 is a little less than 11 billion miles (about 17.7 billion kilometers) from Earth, or more than 1 … | Continue reading
Sporting a trendy brown bob, a humanoid robot named Erica chats to a man in front of stunned audience members in Madrid. | Continue reading
Three US researchers have pulled off a sophisticated hoax by publishing fake research with ridiculous conclusions in sociology journals to expose what they see as ideological bias and a lack of rigorous vetting at these publications. | Continue reading
Engineers at Johns Hopkins University have created an electronic skin, which when added to a prosthetic hand allows the user to feel objects as if through their own hand, including feeling pain when touching a sharp object. | Continue reading
IBM researchers are developing a new computer architecture, better equipped to handle increased data loads from artificial intelligence. Their designs draw on concepts from the human brain and significantly outperform conventional computers in comparative studies. They report on … | Continue reading
The night sky seems serene, but telescopes tell us that the universe is filled with collisions and explosions. Distant, violent events signal their presence by spewing light and particles in all directions. When these messengers reach Earth, scientists can use them to map out the … | Continue reading
A pair of Columbia University astronomers using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Kepler Space Telescope have assembled compelling evidence for the existence of a moon orbiting a gas-giant planet 8,000 light-years away. | Continue reading
Three researchers on Tuesday shared the 2018 Nobel Physics Prize for inventions in the field of laser physics which have paved the way for advanced precision instruments used in corrective eye surgery and industry, the jury said. | Continue reading
Big storms are getting bigger. Typhoon Jebi became the strongest tropical cyclone to hit Japan in 25 years and killed at least 10 people this past summer. Hurricane Florence awed even veteran meteorologists with its powerful combination of high winds and extreme moisture when it … | Continue reading
Researchers at CU Boulder report that they may have solved a geophysical mystery, pinning down the likely cause of a phenomenon that resembles a wrench in the engine of the planet. | Continue reading
An international team of scientists led by the University of Groningen's Zernike Institute for Advanced Materials created quantum bits that emit photons that describe their state at wavelengths close to those used by telecom providers. These qubits are based on silicon carbide in … | Continue reading
Soon, powerful quantum computers will be able to easily crack conventional mathematically encrypted codes. Entangled photons generated by a spaceborne quantum source could enable hack-proof key exchange for ultra high security applications. A Fraunhofer research team has develope … | Continue reading
Ultra-faint dwarf galaxies are the smallest, most dark matter dominated, and least chemically enriched stellar systems in the universe, and are important targets for understanding dark matter and galaxy formation. They comprise by number the majority of galaxies in the universe, … | Continue reading
A race by U.S. tech companies to build a new generation of powerful "quantum computers" could get a $1.3 billion boost from Congress, fueled in part by lawmakers' fear of growing competition from China. | Continue reading
Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC), believe clouds of dust, rather than twin black holes, can explain the features found in active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The team publish their results today (14 June) in a paper in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astrono … | Continue reading