PHYSorg · Page 20

Warzones, microplastics and light pollution pose serious new risks to bees and other pollinators over the next decade, according to a landmark report on World Bee Day (20 May 2025).

Grasses have evolved a wide variety of inflorescences, in which the seeds are arranged in many different ways: Some types form complex, branched inflorescences with multiple seeds, while others—such as barley—have much simpler inflorescences. In barley,…

Most land plants form mutually beneficial symbioses with fungi. The plant and the fungus exchange vital nutrients. A team led by Prof. Dr. Caroline Gutjahr at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Plant Physiology has uncovered a molecular mechanism that…

For decades, the signal crayfish has been an ecological troublemaker. It is invasive and widespread across Europe, Asia, and parts of the United States. Recently, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign have turned their attention back to…

Scientists from the University of South Bohemia and the Research Institute of Farm Animal Biology (FBN) have discovered that the increasing browning of our waters caused by organic substances poses a previously underestimated threat to rainbow trout. Fish…

Did you know goldfish can learn to drive cars? Have you heard bumblebees can learn to pull on a string? Would you believe some primates can perform calculations with Arabic numerals?

How life arose remains a looming question in science that researchers are seeking to answer by studying the features shared among life today. Everything alive is made up of cells, and what made the first cells different from chemical reactions occurring in the…

Any parent will tell you how useful it can be to have family living nearby, giving a helping hand when raising your children. In humans, relatives and even non-relatives act as childminders. Such behavior is widespread in other animals too, particularly birds.

Plastic pollution is harming invertebrates at the bottom of the food chain, including beetles, slugs, snails and earthworms, according to a new study by the University of Sussex and the University of Exeter. More than 1 in 10 samples had fragments of plastic…

A new aggressive potato blight strain was detected in Wales and eastern Scotland earlier this year. The strain, identified as EU 46, can withstand certain fungicides, making it harder to control. It serves as a stark reminder that nearly 175 years after…

They are very tiny, but they are a key source of information when it comes to Earth's evolutionary history: pollen grains are usually no larger than 20 micrometers, or 0.02 millimeters. Using these tiny particles, a research team at Leibniz University Hannover…

If you are sneezing this spring, you are not alone. Every year, plants release billions of pollen grains into the air, specks of male reproductive material that many of us notice only when we get watery eyes and runny noses.

Worldwide, coastal areas are squeezed between a rising sea level on one end and human structures on the other. The distance between a sandy coastline and the first human structures averages less than 400 meters around the world. And the narrower a coastline…

A word of caution to rice growers: the herbicide fluridone has become a valuable tool in fighting Palmer pigweed, but it can cause injury to some rice cultivars, depending on when it is used.

Forests on Indigenous lands in Panama have remained remarkably stable over the past two decades—more so than in protected areas—thanks in no small part to deeply rooted cultural values, a McGill-led study suggests.

The call of American bullfrogs was deafening when scientists from the University of California, Davis, first began researching the impact of invasive bullfrogs on native northwestern pond turtles at Yosemite National Park.

Sample loss has been a persistent problem in cryo-EM, a high-tech method for creating 3D models of molecules that reveal their inner structures. It occurs during an essential step of imaging preparation, when a sample is blotted with a filter to remove excess…

As concerns about waning antibiotic effectiveness grow, researchers are using unique tools to search for new ways to keep bacteria from causing infections in both humans and animals.

A six-month expedition to the tropical island of New Guinea has led to a remarkable discovery by a young Czech doctoral candidate from the Biology Center of the Czech Academy of Sciences and the University of South Bohemia. František Vejmělka has become the…

Living with wildlife is just something we do, whether we're waiting for turkeys to cross the road at UC Davis or watching a coyote trot across a field at dawn.