Phys.org

Chitin, a chain of repeating sugar molecules, is the main building block of fungal cell walls. When fungi grow or are broken down, fragments of chitin chains of different lengths end up in the soil, and plants detect them to monitor the microbes around them.

Earlier this fall, researchers Sara Kalucza (Department of Sociology) and Anna Baranowska-Rataj (Center for Demographic and Aging Research, CEDAR) at Umeå University published a research article showing a connection between young people's school-to-work transitions and parental health. The research used data from CEDAR's demographic database.

Salty soil is a growing threat to crops worldwide. Hotter, drier weather has increased evaporation rates, drawing moisture from the soil and leaving behind concentrated mineral salts. At the same time, water shortages are forcing farmers to irrigate using water from lower-quality, saline or recycled sources. Scientists estimate that around half of the world's irrigated farmland is now affected by salinity to some degree.

A new study led by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) provides the most comprehensive observational analysis yet of the towering ice cliffs that fringe Earth's ice sheets, giving scientists new evidence to evaluate a long-debated process that could influence future sea level rise. Improving these projections is increasingly important as rising seas threaten coastal communities and infrastructure worldwide.

My recent discovery of a Roman fort and its extraordinary connection with medieval folklore was the fruition of many hours of painstaking research.

An international study has overturned a longstanding textbook view of how much energy animals use to travel, revealing that flying can sometimes be cheaper than swimming.

In an effort to conserve the world's plants and animals, governments have pledged to conserve 30% of the planet by 2030. Official figures suggest that attempts to reach this target on land have stalled, but a new study led by the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent in the United Kingdom shows 27% of land may already be conserved for biodiversity if you also count areas that aren't globally recognized but still support wildlife.

Americans who trust science and reason more than their churches' teachings, but still believe in God or attend services, are also more likely to believe in magic than those who prioritize religious teachings.

The spectacled cobra (Naja naja) is one of India's "big four" snakes responsible for most serious snakebite cases. It is currently considered one species, which lives across much of South Asia, with regional differences in color, hood markings and venom. However, it's still unclear which regional cobra populations represent separate evolutionary groups. A new study published in Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution has helped parse out which groups have different lineages, and when and where they may have diverged from their ancestors.

Nearly 50 million Americans ages 18 to 29 are eligible to vote in the upcoming midterm elections, and about 60% say they plan to. If they follow through, it would break midterm turnout records for voters under 30.

Three answers, three countries, one open-ended question: "Teaching is similar to what other occupation or activity?"

Physicists at Auburn University have used flashes of laser light to bring order to tiny electrically charged "islands" inside a crystal. The discovery helps answer a decades-old question about how the material organizes itself and shows how light could be used to control its behavior—a step toward exploring new technologies for processing and storing information.

For centuries, people across South and Southeast Asia recorded religious teachings, literary works, legal regulations and scientific knowledge on palm leaves. Before they could be inscribed or written on, the leaves had to undergo extensive preparation, with processing techniques varying across regions and potentially leaving distinct material signatures.

The World Health Organization on Thursday told countries to do more to prevent lead exposure, with hundreds of millions of children affected worldwide.

When the first Polynesian settlers arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand some 750 years ago, they found an environment very different from the lands they left behind.

Astronomers have used NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory to break down the cause of a remarkable formation of radio waves they have nicknamed the "Treble Clef" because its distinct shape strongly resembles the musical symbol.

In 2024, a collaborative Penn venture introduced a more objective way for people to examine how different outlets cover the same events and ultimately decide how they perceive and use information shared in the media. The Media Bias Detector, conceived in Penn's Computational Social Science (CSS) Lab, a joint venture of Penn Engineering, the Annenberg School for Communication and the Wharton School, uses artificial intelligence to analyze news articles for characteristics including topic, tone, political lean, and the facts and people included in coverage.

It was perhaps fitting, in a twisted, only-in-America way.

Fireworks are an integral part of many celebrations and cultural events. With their pretty colors, spectacular sights and big bangs, fireworks are a popular attraction for many people.

When light hits a tiny defect embedded in a solid material like diamond or silicon carbide, it can kick the defect's electrons into an excited state. These spin defects have the potential to be used as stable, readable qubits for quantum technologies, for example, quantum sensing. But modeling the full physics of their energetics over time—a key step in developing spin defects into new technologies—is a challenging task.