RIVR and Evri debut wheeled-legged delivery robots in the UK, aiming to transform last-mile logistics with smart, scalable automation.
Scientists have transformed RNA, a biological molecule present in all living cells, into a biosensor that can detect tiny chemicals relevant to human health.
Research by Rutgers University-New Brunswick scientists centers on RNA, a nucleic acid that plays a crucial role in most cellular processes. Their work is expected to have applications in the surveillance of environmental chemicals and, ultimately, the diagnosis of critical diseases including neurological and cardiovascular diseases and cancer.
“Imagine that people will go to the hospital and give a sample of cells from their own bodies for regular check-ups,” said Enver Cagri Izgu, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology in the Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences and the corresponding author of the study.
An underwater drone with long, spinning arms like the flagella of bacteria could survey the seas without endangering marine life, its creators claim
A new study published in Nature Medicine has revealed the presence of microplastics – tiny fragments of degraded plastic – in human brain tissue. While previous research has identified microplastics in organs such as the liver, kidneys, and placenta, this study suggests that the brain may be especially vulnerable to these tiny synthetic particles.
Scientists have made a disturbing discovery: human brains contain microplastics, and at higher concentrations than other organs. Worse, brain levels have jumped 50% in just eight years.
Biotech company Colossal Biosciences said it has brought back the dire wolf, an animal that went extinct 10,000 years ago, through its de-extinction process.
For many years, physics studies focused on two main types of magnetism, namely ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. The first type entails the alignment of electron spins in the same direction, while the latter entails the alignment of electron spins in alternating, opposite directions.
Yet recent studies have discovered a new kind of magnetism, referred to as altermagnetism, which does not fit into either of the previously identified categories. Altermagnetism is characterized by the breaking of time-reversal symmetry (i.e., the symmetry of physical laws when time is reversed) and spin-split band structures, in materials that retain a zero net magnetization.
Researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and other institutes in China recently uncovered a new material that exhibits altermagnetism at room temperature, namely KV2Se2O. Their findings, published in Nature Physics, highlight the promise of KV₂Se₂O both for the study of altermagnetism and for the development of spintronic devices.
Scientists have discovered a new phylum of microbes in Earth’s Critical Zone, an area of deep soil that restores water quality. Ground water, which becomes drinking water, passes through where these microbes live, and they consume the remaining pollutants. The paper, “Diversification, niche adaptation and evolution of a candidate phylum thriving in the deep Critical Zone,” is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Leonardo da Vinci once said, “We know more about the movement of celestial bodies than about the soil underfoot.” James Tiedje, an expert in microbiology at Michigan State University, agrees with da Vinci. But he aims to change this through his work on the Critical Zone, part of the dynamic “living skin” of Earth.
“The Critical Zone extends from the tops of trees down through the soil to depths up to 700 feet,” Tiedje said. “This zone supports most life on the planet as it regulates essential processes like soil formation, water cycling and nutrient cycling, which are vital for food production, water quality and ecosystem health. Despite its importance, the deep Critical Zone is a new frontier because it’s a major part of Earth that is relatively unexplored.”
For the better part of a century, the quantum objects known as quasiparticles have been all dressed up with nowhere to go. But that may change, now that a Yale-led team of physicists has shown it is possible to exert a greater level of control over at least one type of quasiparticle.
The discovery upends decades of fundamental science and may have wide applications for quantum-related research in the years ahead.
A quasiparticle is an “emergent” quantum object—a central, core particle surrounded by other particles that, together, demonstrate properties not found in each individual component. Quasiparticles have become the central conceptual picture by which scientists try to understand interacting quantum systems, including those that may be used in computing, sensors, and other devices.
A new study from the Faculty of Medicine at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem sheds light on how bacterial motion influences the spread of antibiotic resistance. Led by Professor Sigal Ben-Yehuda and Professor Ilan Rosenshine from the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics, the research uncovers a direct connection between the rotation of bacterial flagella—structures used for movement—and the activation of genes that enable bacteria to transfer DNA to one another.
This process, known as bacterial conjugation, is a key mechanism by which genetic traits, particularly antibiotic resistance, are shared among bacterial populations. While conjugation has traditionally been associated with bacteria attaching to solid surfaces, the team investigated pLS20, a widespread conjugative plasmid in Bacilli species, which behaves differently. The study shows that in liquid environments, where bacteria rely on movement to navigate, the rotation of flagella acts as a mechanical signal that turns on a set of genes required for DNA transfer.
The researchers discovered that this signal triggers gene expression in a specific subset of donor cells, which then form clusters with recipient bacteria. These multicellular clusters bring the two types of cells into close contact, facilitating the transfer of genetic material.
Teleology is the idea that some processes in nature are directed toward a goal or an end. Today, it is commonly asserted that teleology is a remnant of antiquated ways of thinking about causation, and that it is not compatible with modern science, because it is fundamentally untestable.
In my opinion, such claims fail to take modern physics into account. Quantum theory involves a complex notion of causation, and it can naturally incorporate final conditions. However, to work with final conditions that are not imposed by external agents, we need to move into the realm of quantum cosmology, in which the whole universe is treated as a quantum system.
With this issue in mind, I studied final conditions in quantum cosmology. I found that cosmologies with such conditions generally predict a universe with accelerated expansion. Cosmic acceleration is a well-established fact, and also one of the most puzzling features of modern cosmology.