The move from two to three dimensions can have a significant impact on how a system behaves, whether it is folding a sheet of paper into a paper airplane or twisting a wire into a helical spring. At the nanoscale, 1,000 times smaller than a human hair, on

A study published in Science reveals that North American bird populations are declining most severely in areas where they should be thriving. Researchers from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology analyzed 36 million bird observations shared by birdwatchers to t

Carbyne, a one-dimensional chain of carbon atoms, is incredibly strong for being so thin, making it an intriguing possibility for use in next-generation electronics, but its extreme instability causing it to bend and snap on itself made it nearly impossib

A team led by Rice University bioscientist Caroline Ajo-Franklin has discovered how certain bacteria breathe by generating electricity, using a natural process that pushes electrons into their surroundings instead of breathing on oxygen.

Ferroelectrics are a class of materials that exhibit so-called spontaneous electric polarization, which is the separation of electric charges that can be reversed when an external electric field is applied to them. The dipole moments (i.e., pairs of equal

For billions of years, viruses and bacteria have been embroiled in an arms race. In response to constant attacks by viruses known as bacteriophages—more commonly called "phages"—bacteria evolve new ways to defend themselves. And, in turn, phages

Imagine trying to tell identical twins apart just by looking at their fingerprints. That's how challenging it can be for scientists to distinguish the tiny powdery pollen grains produced by fir, spruce and pine trees.

Scientists from The University of Manchester have changed our understanding of how cells in living organisms divide, which could revise what students are taught at school. In a study published today in Science, the researchers challenge conventional wisdo

Joel Harrison Gayford, a marine biologist at James Cook University, in Australia, who specializes in research focused on chondrichthyan evolution and ecology, has published a paper in the journal Royal Society Open Science regarding two unusual forms of r

A team of crop geneticists from Huazhong Agricultural University's National Key Laboratory of Crop Genetic Improvement and Hubei Hongshan Laboratory, both in China, has identified a gene variant that allows rice plants to continue producing grains at a h

Animal research on biomusicality, which looks at whether different species are capable of behaving in ways that show they recognize aspects of music, including rhythm and beat, remains a tantalizing field at the intersection of biology and psychology.

A team of evolutionary scientists, dermatologists and wildlife specialists affiliated with several institutions in Japan, Kenya and France has found that human skin wounds take nearly three times as long to heal as they do in other primates. In their stud