Enhancing rice biomass estimation with UAV-based models

Aboveground biomass (AGB) of rice, vital for carbon pool and yield estimation, is traditionally measured through labor-intensive manual sampling. Recent advancements employ remote sensing, particularly unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), to derive vegetation indices (VIs) from plant … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

High-valence metal-doped amorphous IrOx as stable electrocatalyst for acidic oxygen evolution reaction

Hydrogen has been regarded as a potential energy carrier instead of fossil fuels, addressing energy demand and environmental issues. Proton exchange membrane water electrolysis (PEMWE), with its high energy density, elevated hydrogen purity, and rapid system response, is consider … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Green growth or degrowth: What is the right way to tackle climate change?

Nearly all the world's governments and vast numbers of its people are convinced that addressing human-induced climate change is essential if healthy societies are to survive. The two solutions most often proposed go by various names but are widely known as "green growth" and "deg … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Comprehensive analysis of the telomere-to-telomere genome of soybean cultivar ZH13

Soybean (Glycine max) is one of the most crucial oil and protein crops, and contributes to more than a quarter of the protein utilized in both human food and animal feed. It is widely acknowledged that the cultivated soybean emerged through the domestication of its annual ancesto … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Coping with uncertainty in customer demand: How mathematics can improve logistics processes

How do you distribute drinking water fairly across an area recently hit by a natural disaster? Or how can you make sure you have enough bottles of water, granola bars and fruit in your delivery van to refill all the vending machines at a school when you don't know how full they a … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Climate adaptation funds are not reaching front-line communities: What needs to be done about it

Communities around the world face increasingly severe and frequent impacts from climate change. They are on the "frontlines" of droughts, flooding, desertification and sea level rise. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Next-generation space telescopes could use deformable mirrors to image Earth-sized worlds

Observing distant objects is no easy task, thanks to our planet's thick and fluffy atmosphere. As light passes through the upper reaches of our atmosphere, it is refracted and distorted, making it much harder to discern objects at cosmological distances (billions of light years a … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Most unmarried, low-income couples show positive co-parenting

Despite the many challenges they face, slightly more than half of unmarried low-income couples with children have positive co-parenting relationships, a new study found. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Oral delivery a possibility for silica-based nanocarriers for therapeutics

Take a pill, or get a shot? Given the choice, most people would likely go for the former. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

A novel quantification method for ribonucleotides, which are needed in almost all cellular processes

RNA (ribonucleic acid), which is made up of ribonucleotides, is a molecule found in all living organisms. RNA is thought to have probably preceded DNA in primordial life billions of years ago. RNA was eventually replaced by DNA as a chemically more stable carrier of genetic infor … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

A new map points at the impacts of rare earth elements

A map created by the Debt Observatory in Globalization in collaboration with the EJAtlas of Institute of Environmental Science and Technology of the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), the Institute for Policy Studies and CRAAD-OI Madagascar, documents 28 social and env … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Q&A: Scientific collaboration paves the way to cleaner technologies for industry

During the nearly five decades of its operation, the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Hamburg has developed many fruitful collaborations with other scientific institutions located in the Hamburg metropolitan area. One example is the long-lasting collaboration betwe … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Japanese snail adaptation and speciation in anti-predation escape behavior

Snails often get a bad rap for being slow and inefficient and are sometimes used to express laziness. However, a team of researchers from Kyoto and Hokkaido has now revealed that snails are anything but lazy, particularly when feeling threatened. Two species of the genus Karaftoh … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Researchers reveal the 'Viral Language' of the pandemic

Remember "COVIDiots" and the first protests by "anti-vaxxers"? | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Here's why union support is so high right now

Over 65,000 teachers in Québec could remain on strike until Christmas if a deal isn't reached, their union said on Sunday. The warning comes amid widespread labor unrest in the province, including nearly 570,000 workers on strike at the same time last week. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Algorithmic recommendation technology or human curation? Study of online news outlet suggests both

Recommender systems are machine learning applications in online platforms that automate tasks historically done by people. In the news industry, recommender algorithms can assume the tasks of editors who select which news stories people see online, with the goal of increasing the … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Alien haze, cooked in a lab, clears view to distant water worlds

Scientists have simulated conditions that allow hazy skies to form in water-rich exoplanets, a crucial step in determining how haziness muddles observations by ground and space telescopes. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Quality of tidal mudflats changes in gas extraction area of Wadden Sea

As tidal flats subside due to gas extraction, their composition changes. This is shown in a paper published in this month's Journal of Applied Ecology. "The average grain size in the parts of the mudflats where gas is extracted has decreased over 10% in 12 years. With that, sand … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Making a difference, belonging drives rural festival volunteers and bolsters community development

During Orange City's three-day tulip festival each May, the northwest Iowa town attracts roughly 40,000 visitors, more than six times its population. People come for the blooms and parades, traditional Dutch food and musical theater. For the community, it's an opportunity to cele … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

PUNCH mission advances toward 2025 launch

On November 17, 2023, the Polarimeter to UNify the Corona and Heliosphere (PUNCH) mission achieved an important milestone, passing its internal system integration review and clearing the mission to start integrating its four observatories. Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) lead … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Longing to know about longhorn beetles in Australia

The Titan beetle (Titanus giganteus) is the biggest beetle in the world. It's a dark brown colored longhorn that lives in the Amazon and grows to 17.7 centimeters long. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Facilitating learning chemistry with conceptual modeling

A team of researchers and teachers from the University of Twente have developed a novel teaching method that uses conceptual modeling to facilitate learning and foster creativity in classrooms of chemical science and engineering students. The students tackled real-world problems … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Beaver exploitation testifies to prey choice diversity of Middle Pleistocene hominins

Exploitation of smaller game is rarely documented before the latest phases of the Pleistocene, which is often taken to imply narrow diets for earlier hominins. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Silk lines help pirate spiders trick, capture eight-legged prey

Headlamps alone illuminated the trail bisecting the Costa Rican rainforest. Having waded the black of the Tirimbina reserve so often before, Gilbert Barrantes, Laura Segura Hernández and Diego Solano Brenes knew the routine. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Using the principles of evolution to defeat cancer

November 24 marked 164 years since the publication of Charles Darwin's revolutionary "On the Origin of Species," one of the most influential scientific books ever written. In acknowledgement, 24 November is known as "Evolution Day" or the quirkier titled "All Our Uncles are Monke … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Researcher: Honeybees cluster together when it's cold, but we've been completely wrong about why

Honeybees in man-made hives may have been suffering the cold unnecessarily for over a century because commercial hive designs are based on erroneous science, my new research shows. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Human rights law demands climate change adaptation, researchers say

Continued high emissions of greenhouse gases mean the well-being of all people now depends on profound changes in policies and practices to effect climate change adaptation. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

New study analyzes how people choose friendships at school

Researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and Loyola University have discovered that personality does not seem to have much influence when it comes to choosing social friendships at school, which are based more on the … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Night study of native plant survival

With land clearance, bushfires, weeds and climate change, small pockets of native vegetation are important for future plant and animal conservation—but do plants in small reserves struggle with reduced habitat for both plants and their pollinators? | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

The 'jigglings and wigglings of atoms' reveal key aspects of COVID-19 virulence evolution

Richard Feynman famously stated, "Everything that living things do can be understood in terms of the jigglings and wigglings of atoms." This week, Nature Nanotechnology features a study that sheds new light on the evolution of the coronavirus and its variants of concern by analyz … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

New platform solves key problems in targeted drug delivery

In recent years, cell and gene therapies have shown significant promise for treating cancer, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, heart disease, HIV/AIDS and other difficult-to-treat diseases. But the lack of effective ways to deliver biological treatments into the body has posed a major b … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

JWST reveals protoplanetary disks in a nearby star cluster

The Orion Nebula is a favorite among stargazers. It's a giant stellar nebula out of which, hot young stars are forming. Telescopically to the eye it appears as a gray/green haze of wonderment but cameras reveal the true glory of these star forming regions. The sun was once part o … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Where are all the double planets?

A recent study published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society examines formation mechanisms for how binary planets—two large planetary bodies orbiting each other—can be produced from a type of tidal heating known as tidal dissipation, or the energy that is sha … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Dark matter could help solve the final parsec problem of black holes

When galaxies collide, their supermassive black holes enter into a gravitational dance, gradually orbiting each other ever closer until eventually merging. We know they merge because we see the gravitational beasts that result, and we have detected the gravitational waves they em … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

What would happen to Earth if a rogue star came too close?

Stars are gravitationally fastened to their galaxies and move in concert with their surroundings. But sometimes, something breaks the bond. If a star gets too close to a supermassive black hole, for example, the black hole can expel it out into space as a rogue star. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Vera Rubin Observatory will find binary supermassive black holes: Here's how

When galaxies merge, we expect them to produce binary black holes (BBHs.) BBHs orbit one another closely, and when they merge, they produce gravitational waves that have been detected by LIGO-Virgo. The upcoming Vera Rubin Observatory should be able to find them before they merge … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Enhancing the immunosuppressive properties of human umbilical cord mesenchymal stem cells

Mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have great potential for the treatment of various immune diseases due to their unique immunomodulatory properties. However, MSCs exposed to the harsh inflammatory environment of damaged tissue after intravenous transplantation cannot exert their biol … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Deoxygenation levels similar to today's played major role in marine extinctions 200 million years ago

Scientists have made a surprising discovery that sheds new light on the role that oceanic deoxygenation (anoxia) played in one of the most devastating extinction events in Earth's history. Their finding has implications for current-day ecosystems—and serves as a warning that mari … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

There are many reasons disabled people can't just work from home: Cutting benefits won't fix the wider problems

As part of the UK government's latest economic plan, disabled people may have to look for jobs they can do from home or face cuts to their benefits. Previously, disabled people with limited ability to work may have received benefits without being required to look for work. Now, L … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Opinion: Responsible ESG investing in the Global South requires overcoming the Global North's savior complex

ESG standards (Environment, Social and Governance) are metrics designed to guide responsible investing. The "S" in ESG has evolved into the financial innovation of social impact investing (SII), which promotes social benefits such as environmental protection, gender equality and … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

This tiny spinal stimulator could someday have a big impact on paralysis

A Johns Hopkins materials scientist and a team of collaborators have developed a tiny device that may hold promise for restoring mobility to those with lower limb paralysis, a condition affecting approximately 1.4 million Americans. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Groundbreaking method to match celestial objects across telescopes

A team of Johns Hopkins researchers has developed a cutting-edge data science approach capable of matching observations of celestial objects taken across multiple telescope surveys, overcoming a significant challenge in modern astronomy. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Unlocking long-term genetic memory: Dormant bacterial spores offer key insights into evolutionary survival strategies

A recent study spearheaded by Prof. Sigal Ben Yehuda and her team at Hebrew University has unveiled a captivating facet of bacterial dormancy. Their research illuminates the mechanism through which dormant bacterial spores uphold and activate an enduring transcriptional program u … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Scientists 'fingerprint' methane to track a climate change culprit

Methane is the second-most abundant greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere, and its emissions have been rapidly—and mysteriously—rising since 2007. Though pervasive, the origin of the colorless compound is tricky to trace, complicating efforts to curb gases that trap heat in the at … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Researchers pioneer a new way of searching for dark matter

The existence of dark matter is a long-standing puzzle in our universe. Dark matter makes up about a quarter of our universe, yet it does not interact significantly with ordinary matter. | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

All-weather solar-powered CO₂ utilization achieved by mimicking natural photosynthesis

In a study published in National Science Review, researchers from the Institute of Earth Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), together with collaborators, have used the charge storage mechanism of tungsten-based nanomaterials for all-weather carbon dioxide (CO2) … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Study unveils new insights into asymmetric particle collisions

A study has been published in Nuclear Science and Techniques, by researchers led by Prof. Hua Zheng from Shaanxi Normal University, heralding a significant breakthrough in high-energy particle physics. This study sheds new light on the behavior of particles in high-energy collisi … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago

Researchers use AI to increase the high-temperature strength of nickel–aluminum alloys

A materials research team consisting of NIMS and Nagoya University has designed a novel two-step thermal aging schedule (i.e., non-isothermal aging or unconventional heat treatment) capable of fabricating nickel-aluminum (Ni-Al) alloys that are stronger at high temperatures than … | Continue reading


@phys.org | 1 year ago