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(Phys.org)—A team of researchers with members from several institutions in Germany has found that the female burying beetle gives off a pheromone during parental care that causes male beetles to temper their sexual advances. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the team describes their study of hundreds of the beetles captured in a German forest and brought to their lab.

(Phys.org)—Global demand for data storage is constantly increasing, driven by new technologies such as Big Data and the Internet of Things, as well as personal and enterprise storage. The hard disk drives that currently store the majority of the world’s data have storage densities of just under 1 Terabit per square inch (Tb/in2).

A group of researchers, among them scientists from the IAC, has discovered one of the most distant and massive “hyperclusters” of galaxies found thus far: the BOSS Great Wall (BGW). According to Heidi Lietzen, the principal investigator of this research, there is probably no other similar system so clearly isolated and with a comparable size.

The historic climate agreement reached by more than 190 nations in December 2015 will require more than just the individual efforts of participating countries to meet their commitments to mitigate climate change. Too often overlooked is the crucial role the private sector, cities, states, regions, and societal groups are playing, and the major investments they are making to help ensure success of the Paris Agreement, as discussed in a Commentary published in Sustainability: The Journal of Record.

Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have adapted a technology developed for solar energy in order to selectively remove one of the trickiest and most-difficult-to-remove elements in nuclear waste pools across the country, making the storage of nuclear waste safer and nontoxic—and solving a decades-old problem.

The first population assessment since the end of the whaling era reveals that New Zealand southern right whales have some way to go before numbers return to pre-industrial levels. Reporting this week in Royal Society Open Science scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the University of Auckland, Oregon State University and the University of St Andrews, explain how they used historic logbook records from whaling ships and computer modelling to compare population numbers.

In many countries, including but not limited to Russia, frontier regions, populated more recently than the country’s core territory, tend to lag behind in terms of socio-economic development. This phenomenon can be explained by legacies such as state formation in remote regions and the autonomy traditionally enjoyed by new settlers, according to Roberto Foa (Harvard University) and Anna Nemirovskaya, senior research fellow of the HSE Laboratory for Comparative Social Research (LCSR).

Using some of the largest supercomputers available, physics researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have produced one of the largest simulations ever to help explain one of physics most daunting problems.

Electronics manufacturers constantly hunt for ways to make faster, cheaper computer chips, often by cutting production costs or by shrinking component sizes. Now, researchers report that DNA, the genetic material of life, might help accomplish this goal when it is formed into specific shapes through a process reminiscent of the ancient art of paper folding.

Hydrogen is the lightest and most plentiful element on Earth and in our universe. So it shouldn’t be a big surprise that scientists are pursuing hydrogen as a clean, carbon-free, virtually limitless energy source for cars and for a range of other uses, from portable generators to telecommunications towers—with water as the only byproduct of combustion.