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Categories: Ecology: Animals, Physics: General

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A study done on 336 cities in China concludes that heat-retaining buildings and paved surfaces are directly related to a loss in bird diversity. It is likely that the patterns documented in this study are occurring in other large cities across the globe that have abundant asphalt, steel, and concrete with little green vegetation.

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Researchers demonstrate that a vast multitude of birds and mammals can be detected by simply swabbing the DNA left behind by animals from leaves. They showcased the power of this approach in an ecosystem that hosts a ton of wildlife and where detecting animals has historically proven extremely challenging -- the tropical rainforest.

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Physicists use a 350-year-old theorem that explains the workings of pendulums and planets to reveal new properties of light waves.

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New research shows that a single mutation that has immediate effects on plant fitness is maintained over the long term in natural plant populations, despite theories predict the contrary. The researchers located and identified the gene that regulates the amount of an active defense hormone. Mutants in this gene are susceptible to herbivore attack. However, they compensate for impaired defenses through robust genetic networks. When fewer herbivores attack, they even grow faster and produce more offspring.

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Scientists have observed novel ergodicity-breaking in C60, a highly symmetric molecule composed of 60 carbon atoms arranged on the vertices of a 'soccer ball' pattern (with 20 hexagon faces and 12 pentagon faces). Their results revealed ergodicity breaking in the rotations of C60. Remarkably, they found that this ergodicity breaking occurs without symmetry breaking and can even turn on and off as the molecule spins faster and faster. Understanding ergodicity breaking can help scientists design better-optimized materials for energy and heat transfer.

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In 1956, theoretical physicist David Pines predicted that electrons in a solid can do something strange. While they normally have a mass and an electric charge, Pines asserted that they can combine to form a composite particle that is massless, neutral, and does not interact with light. He called this particle a 'demon.' Now, researchers have finally found Pines' demon 67 years after it was predicted.

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Radiocarbon dating on bones in the La Brea Tar Pits lead archaeologists to warn that history may be repeating itself.

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A new study shows that urban great tits have paler plumage than their countryside counterparts. Since the yellow pigment of the breast feathers of great tits comes from the food they eat, the paler yellow plumage of urban birds indicates that the urban environment affects the entire food chain.

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Conventional wisdom among ecologists holds that the more species there are inhabiting an ecosystem, the less vulnerable any one species will be to a threat like a parasite. A new study of tadpoles illustrates how overlapping biological and environmental factors can complicate how we value protecting diverse animal communities. The researchers found that environmental pollutants like road salt influence whether increased biodiversity helps or hinders disease outbreaks in wildlife, which can complicate how we value protecting diverse animal communities.

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Though cars are the biggest threat to coyotes taking up residence in U.S. cities, a new study suggests urban living poses a different kind of hazard to coyote health -- in the form of chronic stress. Researchers examined the concentration of the stress hormone cortisol in the hair of almost 100 coyotes living in the Chicago Metropolitan Area. Results showed that coyotes that lived in the most-developed areas had higher cortisol levels -- a proxy for chronic stress -- than animals living in suburban or natural areas.

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Quantum physicists have successfully simulated super diffusion in a system of interacting quantum particles on a quantum computer. This is the first step in doing highly challenging quantum transport calculations on quantum hardware and, as the hardware improves over time, such work promises to shed new light in condensed matter physics and materials science.

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Materials are often considered to be one phase, but many engineering materials contain two or more phases, improving their properties and performance. These two-phase materials have inclusions, called precipitates, embedded in the microstructure. Alloys, a combination of two or more types of metals, are used in many applications, like turbines for jet engines and light-weight alloys for automotive applications, because they have very good mechanical properties due to those embedded precipitates. The average precipitate size, however, tends to increase over time-in a process called coarsening-which results in a degradation of performance for microstructures with nanoscale precipitates.

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In the intricate realm of wave turbulence, where predictability falters and chaos reigns, a groundbreaking study has emerged. The new research explores the heart of wave turbulence using an ultracold quantum gas, revealing new insights that could advance our understanding of non-equilibrium physics and have significant implications for various fields.

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Research is underway around the world to find alternatives to our current electronic computing technology, as great, electron-based systems have limitations. A new way of transmitting information is emerging from the field of magnonics: instead of electron exchange, the waves generated in magnetic media could be used for transmission, but magnonics-based computing has been (too) slow to date. Scientists have now discovered a significant new method: When the intensity is increased, the spin waves become shorter and faster -- another step towards magnon computing.

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Researchers have found a way to control the interaction of light and quantum 'spin' in organic semiconductors, that works even at room temperature.

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Graphene nanoribbons have outstanding properties that can be precisely controlled. Researchers have succeeded in attaching electrodes to individual atomically precise nanoribbons, paving the way for precise characterization of the fascinating ribbons and their possible use in quantum technology.

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A team of scientists developed a new quantum-mechanics-based approach to predict metal ductility. The team demonstrated its effectiveness on refractory multi-principal-element alloys.

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Scientists have made a significant advance in developing alternative materials for the high-speed memory chips that let computers access information quickly and that bypass the limitations of existing materials. They have discovered a way that allows them to make sense of previously hard-to-read data stored in these alternative materials, known as antiferromagnets.

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Using scaffolds of folded DNA, engineers assembled arrays of quantum rods with desirable photonic properties that could enable them to be used as highly efficient micro-LEDs for televisions or virtual reality devices.

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Systems in the Universe trend toward disorder, with only applied energy keeping the chaos at bay. The concept is called entropy, and examples can be found everywhere: ice melting, campfire burning, water boiling. Zentropy theory, however, adds another level to the mix.