Often, physics can be used to make sense of the natural world. Increasingly though, scientists are looking at biological systems to spark new insights in physics. By studying squid skin, researchers have identified the first biological instance of a physical phenomenon called ‘hyperdisorder’, bringing new understanding into how growth can affect physics.

Published in PRX, an interdisciplinary team from the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) studied the effect of growth on pattern development within squid skin cells. By combining experimental imaging methods with theoretical modeling, they found new insights into the unusual arrangement of these cells, and created a general model of hyperdisorder applicable to a wide variety of growing systems. 

Along with nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus, iron is essential for the growth of microscopic phytoplankton in the ocean. However, a new study led by oceanographers at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa revealed that iron released from industrial processes, such as coal combustion and steel making, is altering the ecosystem in the North Pacific Transition Zone, a region just north of Hawai‘i that is important for fisheries in the Pacific.

New research from Colorado State University and Cornell University shows that the presence of solar panels in Colorado’s grasslands may reduce water stress, improve soil moisture levels and – particularly during dry years – increase plant growth by about 20% or more compared to open fields.

University of Tennessee, Knoxville Assistant Professor Tova Holmes is part of a scientific trio that won $1 million from the Simons Foundation to break new ground in particle physics and train young scientists to explore it.

Researchers from the University of Rochester and University of California, Santa Barbara, engineered a laser device smaller than a penny that they say could power everything from the LiDAR systems used in self-driving vehicles to gravitational wave detection, one of the most delicate experiments in existence to observe and understand our universe.

A team of University of Texas at Dallas researchers and their colleagues have discovered that the mixing of small particles between two solid electrolytes can generate an effect called a “space charge layer,” an accumulation of electric charge at the interface between the two materials.

The finding could aid the development of batteries with solid electrolytes, called solid-state batteries, for applications including mobile devices and electric vehicles.

Some microbes living on sand grains use up all the oxygen around them. Their neighbors, left without oxygen, make the best of it: They use nitrate in the surrounding water for denitrification – a process hardly possible when oxygen is present. This denitrification in sandy sediments in well-oxygenated waters can substantially contribute to nitrogen loss in the oceans.