News tagged with royal society

Scientists show how to erase information without using energy

(PhysOrg.com) -- Until now, scientists have thought that the process of erasing information requires energy. But a new study shows that, theoretically, information can be erased without using any energy at ...

Physics / General Physics

created Jan 25, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (31) | comments 32 | with audio podcast feature

Scientists investigate how chemicals evolved into communication signals

(PhysOrg.com) -- Living things possess many diverse ways of communicating, but perhaps the oldest and most widespread form of communication involves the use of chemicals. From animals and plants to bacteria ...

Biology / Plants & Animals

created Jan 11, 2011 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (4) | comments 3 | with audio podcast feature

To build a cooperative society, is it better to punish or reward?

(PhysOrg.com) -- One of the basic components of a functional, cooperative society is a code of law, where the laws are usually enforced by some kind of incentive. Social incentives can either be positive (rewards) or negative ...

Other Sciences / Mathematics

created Apr 19, 2010 | popularity 4 / 5 (25) | comments 91 | with audio podcast feature

Ultra-cool companion helps reveal giant planets

(Phys.org) -- An international team of astronomers led by David Pinfield of the University of Hertfordshire has found a brown dwarf that is more than 99% hydrogen and helium. Described as ultra-cool, it has ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 10, 2012 | popularity 4.8 / 5 (6) | comments 0 | with audio podcast

Researchers say galaxy may swarm with 'nomad planets'

(PhysOrg.com) -- Our galaxy may be awash in homeless planets, wandering through space instead of orbiting a star.

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 23, 2012 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (23) | comments 31 | with audio podcast

Spitzer finds solid buckyballs in space

(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers using data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have, for the first time, discovered buckyballs in a solid form in space. Prior to this discovery, the microscopic carbon spheres ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Feb 22, 2012 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (15) | comments 13 | with audio podcast

Japanese researchers turn a crab shell transparent

A group of researchers working out of Kyoto University in Japan have successfully transformed a normal crab into one that is transparent. As they describe in their paper published in the British Royal Society ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Dec 01, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (8) | comments 8 | with audio podcast report

Was the real discovery of the expanding universe lost in translation?

(PhysOrg.com) -- The greatest astronomical discovery of the 20th century may have been credited to the wrong person. But it turns out to have been nobody's fault except for that of the actual original discoverer ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Nov 09, 2011 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (17) | comments 13 | with audio podcast

'Darkest' world enlightens astronomers about mysterious light-gobbling planet

(PhysOrg.com) -- A giant Jupiter-like gas planet has been revealed to be the most light-thirsty object in the known universe -- a finding that may help astronomers better understand a mysterious characteristic ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created Sep 27, 2011 | popularity 4.9 / 5 (18) | comments 53 | with audio podcast

First life may have arisen above serpentine rock, researchers say

(PhysOrg.com) -- About 3.8 billion years ago, Earth was teeming with unicellular life. A little more than 4.5 billion years ago, the Earth was a ball of vaporous rock. And somewhere in between, the first organisms ...

Space & Earth / Earth Sciences

created Sep 23, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (7) | comments 10 | with audio podcast

A toss of the dice reveals the truth

In a new study published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, researchers show how a simple toss of the dice can help to bring out honest answers when people are asked difficult questions.

Other Sciences / Other

created Aug 02, 2011 | popularity 4.6 / 5 (10) | comments 6 | with audio podcast report

Researchers develop “net” nanodetector

Bin Ding and his team of researchers at Donghua University, Shanghai, China, have developed a new method of testing for formaldehyde using an electro-spinning netting technique. The process, described in their paper published ...

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Aug 01, 2011 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0 | with audio podcast report

Black holes spinning faster than ever before

(PhysOrg.com) -- Two UK astronomers have found that the giant black holes in the centre of galaxies are on average spinning faster than at any time in the history of the Universe. Dr Alejo Martinez-Sansigre ...

Space & Earth / Astronomy

created May 23, 2011 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (15) | comments 15 | with audio podcast

I control therefore I am: chimps self-aware, says study

Chimpanzees are self-aware and can anticipate the impact of their actions on the environment around them, an ability once thought to be uniquely human, according to a study released Wednesday.

Biology / Plants & Animals

created May 04, 2011 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (16) | comments 26

Weird Australian hammer-tooth marsupial fossil found

(PhysOrg.com) -- Fossils of bizarre lizard-like, snail-eating marsupials have been discovered by UNSW palaeontologists in an ancient fossil field in the Riversleigh World Heritage area in Queensland. The fossils ...

Other Sciences / Archaeology & Fossils

created Apr 20, 2011 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (10) | comments 0 | with audio podcast