SLAC scientists find a new way to explain how a black hole’s plasma jets boost particles to the highest energies observed in the universe. The results could also prove useful for fusion and accelerator research on Earth.
Why did the first big, complex organisms spring to life in deep, dark oceans where food was scarce? A new study finds great depths provided a stable, life-sustaining refuge from wild temperature swings in the shallows.
Brain scientists have plenty of ways to track the activity of individual neurons in the brain, but they’re all invasive. Now, Daniel Palanker and colleagues have found a way to literally watch neurons fire – no electrodes or chemical modifications required.
As climate change drives mountain-dwelling pikas to higher altitudes, the animals can dial certain genes up or down to make the most of their cooler home’s limited oxygen.
Figuring out how bacteria bring in nutrients could point to ways of killing them without poison. This research could also reveal how small organisms cooperate by generating networks of flow patterns.
Volcanic carbon dioxide vents off the coast of Italy are rapidly acidifying nearby waters. This natural laboratory provides a crystal ball-view into potential future marine biodiversity impacts around the world.
Simply learning of a genetic risk can alter a person’s physiology, a recent study found, causing people to perform less well on exercise tests or altering hormones that indicate fullness after a meal.
Zhang was a rare theorist who concerned himself with the implications of his abstract ideas about new quantum states of matter on experiments and future technologies.
