Many people are familiar with fossilized wood as a decorative item from a museum shop. However, the fact that it can preserve the geological history of entire regions spanning millions of years is a new discovery. A research team led by geologist Dr. Steffen Trümper from the University of Münster has now demonstrated for the first time that fossilized wood is a natural archive from which the geological history of an entire region over hundreds of millions of years can be deduced.
All four main LHC experiments have found new signs that oxygen and neon collisions may create the extreme state of matter that existed during the first microseconds after the Big Bang.
When scientists want to create a protein that can potentially treat disease, one approach is to begin with a different protein and evolve it in the lab, selecting over many generations for versions with a new, desired function.
Researchers, including those from the University of Tokyo, found a way to optimize how cells bind to small packages they release called extracellular vesicles. By coating the vesicles with metal ions, they made cells and their corresponding vesicles stick together more strongly than they would naturally. This reduced the time needed for cells to capture their own vesicles, even in mixtures containing billions of other vesicles.
Evolution is all about trade-offs. Traits that may be beneficial in one situation may backfire in another. Over millions of years, species can become specialized for one way of living rather than being equally good at everything. This explains why mammal teeth look the way they do today.
A careful statistical comparison of observations recorded by NASA's Juno mission and the Planetary Science Institute's Io Input Output observatory (IoIO) shows that IoIO observations reliably predict the density of Jupiter's plasma disk, an important part of Jupiter's magnetosphere, according to a new Geophysical Research Letters paper co-authored by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Jeff Morgenthaler. Jian-Zhao Wang of the University of Colorado Boulder is the paper's lead author.
Europa, one of Jupiter's icy moons, has long fascinated scientists because of what may lie beneath its frozen shell: a global ocean of liquid water. That hidden ocean has made Europa one of the most compelling places in the solar system to study the conditions that might support life. But new research led by Rutgers scientist Lujendra Ojha suggests one of the most promising shortcuts to Europa's ocean may be far more complicated than previously thought.
A scientific team led by Facility for Rare Isotope Beams, or FRIB, has identified the origin of a mysterious excess of low-energy gamma rays emitted by the nucleus zinc-70. They found that the excess is caused by magnetic transitions within the nucleus. The study, "Magnetic Character of the Low-Energy Enhancement in 70Zn," published in Nature, sheds light on a long-standing puzzle in nuclear physics and has far-reaching implications for astrophysics.
The promise of quantum computing is to solve complex problems faster and more energy-efficiently than today's supercomputers—from optimizing logistics to simulating molecules. This goal is coming within reach as the number of qubits—the computational units of quantum computing—increases.
Birdsong carries meaning across open space, helping birds attract mates, defend territory and communicate with rivals. While there has been much research into the use of birdsong across species, researchers have lacked a single global framework that explains birdsong complexity and how it differs from place to place. But now, in a study recently published in Science, a group of researchers in France have analyzed more than 116,000 bird songs from 3,160 passerine species around the world, allowing them to identify eight common motifs and explain differences in birdsong.
La Trobe University scientists have uncovered the critical role fatty cell structures play in our body's early detection and defense against viruses. Published in Nature Communications, the discovery could open the door to a new type of antiviral strategy that harnesses the body's innate defense mechanisms rather than targeting individual viruses.
Ancient samples from the moon's far side are helping scientists uncover how asteroid impacts shaped the early solar system. The findings challenge decades of thinking about when those impacts occurred and offer new insights into the conditions that influenced Earth's evolution.
The pearly razorfish (Xyrichtys novacula) is a small marine animal that lives in sandy coastal waters and feeds on creatures like shrimp. Known locally in Spain's Balearic Islands as raors, it is a popular dish in many homes and restaurants across the region.
Photonic microchips can process data at extremely high speeds and are embedded in a wide variety of today's technologies. Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light (MPL) and Harvard University have now succeeded in developing three functional components for such chips that are up to 500 times smaller than conventional designs. The researchers used inverse design, a computer algorithm, to achieve this. The results are published in Nature Communications.
The most severe droughts in the ancient Eastern Mediterranean arose when multiple natural climate cycles coincided, according to a new study from Stockholm University published in Science Advances. The findings shed new light on the climate conditions surrounding the Late Bronze Age collapse and may help improve understanding of future drought risks in a warming world.
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