Inspired by the collective dynamics of bacteria like E. coli and Bacillus subtilis, researchers at the University of Twente asked a simple but fundamental question: what happens when artificial swimmers are made rod-shaped rather than spherical, and how does shape control how they move as a group? "These dumb yet active rods follow only the laws of physics, which help to uncover the mechanics of collective bacterial behavior," says Hanumantha Rao Vutukuri. Their findings appear in Science.
A new type of radiofrequency trap can capture particles with extremely different requirements and could theoretically hold both types of particles at the same time. Researchers in the group of Professor Dmitry Budker from the PRISMA++ Cluster of Excellence and the Helmholtz Institute at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) were able to trap calcium ions or electrons in the same apparatus.
A lot of research goes into determining how to best predict the next eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano. Part of this involves pinning down how the magma migration system functions and evolves over time. The exact mechanism driving Yellowstone's volcanism and how magma travels from deep within Earth to the surface is still debated, but a new study, published in Science, offers up evidence that Yellowstone's underground magma system is largely driven by tectonics. This is in contrast with some previous theories which posit that a deep mantle plume is the main source of magma.
Most polychaete species spend their lives in burrows in the seabed. However, adult individuals of two species, Alitta succinea and Platynereis dumerilii, leave their burrows to spawn during warm summer nights around the full moon.
Cases of Borna disease virus 1 (BoDV-1) are extremely rare in humans, but in those who develop disease, the outcome is severe, almost always resulting in fatal encephalitis or inflammation in the brain. This zoonotic virus belongs to the order Mononegavirales, which includes the lethal viruses responsible for Ebola virus disease, measles, and rabies. The nucleoprotein-RNA complex in these viruses protects its genomic RNA and supports viral RNA synthesis, so understanding the structure of this complex is essential to targeting viral replication. Structural characterization has been completed for several mononegavirus families that more commonly infect humans, but detailed information for the family Bornaviridae has not been sufficiently explored.
As the Orion spacecraft hurtles home, friction caused by reentry into Earth's atmosphere will drastically decrease its speed from a potential 25,000 miles per hour (40,000 kilometers per hour).
Roman painters commissioned at the end of the 1st century to decorate the walls of the Domus of Salvius in present-day Cartagena could hardly have imagined that their technical expertise would still attract attention twenty centuries later. Analysis of wall paintings from one of the house's rooms—among the best preserved in ancient Carthago Nova—shows that these craftsmen possessed a sophisticated understanding of the materials used to produce pigments, as well as the effects achieved through combining them. In particular, researchers identified an advanced "recipe" that enabled them to reduce costs while ensuring the durability of the paint. This method relied on a mixture of pigments, including one of the most valued minerals of the time: costly cinnabar, often referred to as "red gold."
When we watch videos or ask AI questions, enormous amounts of data are constantly moving inside computers. In particular, data centers that support AI must process and transfer vast amounts of data at very high speeds. However, current computers have a fundamental limitation: the place where calculations are performed and the place where data is stored are physically separated.
Researchers from the Monash University School of Physics and Astronomy have flipped a long-held assumption in optics, showing that deliberately introducing controlled disorder into ultra-thin optical devices can dramatically increase their power and versatility, without making them bigger or more complex.
Rapid ocean warming is likely to make tropical cyclone rainfall more intense and longer lasting, increasing flood risks in parts of the North Atlantic region. A new study led by Newcastle University using satellite data shows that tropical cyclones and their post-tropical cyclone counterparts are responding quite differently to surface warming. The findings reveal that during the tropical cyclone phase, warmer and more humid conditions are causing storm slowdown and strongly increasing rainfall intensity.
A study published in Azania: Archaeological Research in Africa sheds new light on the westward spread of pearl millet (Pennisetum glaucum) agriculture in prehistoric West Africa. A recent survey documented its earliest known occurrence in the Lac de Guiers basin of Northern Senegal, around AD 200, coinciding with increasing aridification, which may have driven the expansion of dryland farming communities westward.
Tropical trees are better neighbors than trees in temperate forests, according to a study published in the journal Nature by researchers from 29 different institutions including the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and the ForestGEO global network of forest monitoring sites.
What if the Trojan horse had been pulled to pieces, revealing the ruse and fending off the invasion, just as it entered the gates of Troy? That's an apt description of a newly characterized bacterial defense system that chops up foreign DNA. Bacteria and the viruses that infect them, bacteriophages—phages for short—are ceaselessly at odds, with bacteria developing methods to protect themselves against phages that are constantly striving to overcome those safeguards.
We thought it was evolution, but an experiment with pencils shows that tips like teeth and thorns may owe their rounded shape to mechanical wear. Most of us have been stung by a bee, bitten by an animal, or scratched by a thorny bush. But very few of us have probably taken a close look at nature's painful, pointed tips.
Observations conducted with the Subaru Telescope and its first-generation wide-field camera, Suprime-Cam, have revealed new insights into the relationship between the color and size of Jupiter Trojan asteroids.
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