Physics News

Renee DiResta, author of “Invisible Rulers” and formerly with the Stanford Internet Observatory, a non-partisan disinformation research project. Understanding disinformation has emerged as a lightning rod in the United States ahead of the November election, with academics and think-tanks facing lawsuits by right-wing groups and subpoenas from a Republican-led congressional committee. The researchers are accused … Read more

The metasurface-based radiative cooling device adapts to ambient temperature changes. Credit: Junlin Yang (Beijing Institute of Technology). As the global energy crisis intensifies and climate change accelerates, finding sustainable solutions for energy management is increasingly urgent. One promising approach is passive radiative cooling, a technology that allows objects to cool by emitting heat directly into … Read more

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain In extraordinary times of rapid information production and sharing, distrust and disruption, disinformation is having an increasing impact on cities. And cities are on the front line of disinformation response strategies. Disinformation (which is the concerted fabrications that are deliberately misleading) and misinformation (the inaccurate information unintentionally held and/or shared) are … Read more

Graphical abstract. Credit: Current Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2024.08.006 Fruit flies walking on miniature treadmills are helping scientists learn how the nervous system enables animals to move in an unpredictable and complex world. Insights from using these fruit fly-sized treadmills were reported Aug. 30 in Current Biology. Several videos of the flies running on the treadmills … Read more

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain An experimental Moderna mRNA vaccine for mpox has demonstrated greater effectiveness than current shots in reducing disease symptoms and duration, according to an animal study published in the journal Cell on Wednesday. It comes amid an outbreak of the disease in Africa—partly driven by a new variant that emerged in the … Read more

by Myriam Durocher, Annika Walsh, Irena Knezevic and Madison Hynes, The Conversation Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain As more households in Canada experience food insecurity, food banks and other organizations are struggling to meet demand for their services. In 2023 alone, around 23% of Canadian households experienced some form of food insecurity. That translates to 8.7 … Read more

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain The Trump/Vance ticket seems to have a problem attracting the support of women voters. In fact, recent polling shows women in the battleground states report 17 points less support for the Trump/Vance ticket than men. When the data are split generationally, this gender divide becomes even more stark. Among those aged … Read more

Caenorhabditis elegans. Credit: Wikipedia Common drugs such as antidepressants enter the environment via sewage. In her PhD research, Toxicologist Merel van der Most has shown that this affects the behavior of nematodes. These drugs may also be harmful to many other aquatic creatures. Van der Most will receive her PhD at Wageningen University & Research … Read more

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain University of Adelaide researchers and collaborators from Lund University in Sweden have made a breakthrough in understanding how dragonflies’ brains work. The team, including Ph.D. candidate Mahdi Hussaini and Associate Professor Steven Wiederman from the University of Adelaide’s School of Biomedicine, analyzed the impact of temperature on the dragonfly’s ability to … Read more

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Rain and water in ponds and lakes slowly seeps into the soil, moving through minute cracks to refill underground aquifers. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), often described as forever chemicals, can tag along into groundwater that’s later removed for drinking. Researchers analyzed water from over 100 wells in Denmark for one … Read more