https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Keck Medicine of USC radiologists use computed tomography (CT) scanners to diagnose and treat patients' diseases and injuries. Recently, however, this advanced technology was put to a far more novel use: examining the bodies of two ancient Egyptian mummies. Radiologists conducted full-body CT scans of two Egyptian priests, Nes-Min, circa 330 BCE, and Nes-Hor, circa 190 BCE, whose bodies had been preserved for more than 2,200 years. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-ct-scans-unwrap-secrets-ancient.html Archaeology Tue, 03 Feb 2026 10:20:01 EST news689335852 Using the Baryons Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) spectrograph, astronomers have discovered five new carbon-enhanced metal-poor stars in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC). This is the first time such stars have been identified in this galaxy. The discovery was reported in a paper published January 15 on the arXiv pre-print server. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-carbon-metal-poor-stars-milky.html Astronomy Mon, 26 Jan 2026 09:40:05 EST news688642318 For decades, global efforts to combat climate change and protect biodiversity have relied on a high-tech promise: that satellite-derived maps can tell us exactly where the world's forests are. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-major-gaps-global-satellite-forests.html Environment Mon, 12 Jan 2026 12:35:26 EST news687443701 Brain dead after a hard day of work? It turns out it's totally fine to park yourself in front of the TV. It might even make recovery—an essential part of burnout prevention—easier. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-day-tv.html Social Sciences Wed, 07 Jan 2026 11:30:01 EST news687007464 Hypervelocity stars have, since the 1920s, been an important tool that allows astronomers to study the properties of the Milky Way galaxy, such as its gravitational potential and the distribution of matter. Now astronomers from China have made a large-volume search for hypervelocity stars by utilizing a special class of stars known for their distinct, regular, predictable pulsation behavior that makes them useful as distance indicators. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-runaway-stars-dark-milky.html Astronomy Thu, 01 Jan 2026 12:30:02 EST news686380319 An international team led by the University of Oxford has identified one of the largest rotating structures ever reported: a "razor-thin" string of galaxies embedded in a giant spinning cosmic filament, 140 million light-years away. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-astronomers-vast-filament-galaxies-million.html Astronomy Wed, 03 Dec 2025 19:10:04 EST news683971982 Every time a rocket is launched, tons of valuable materials are lost, and huge amounts of greenhouse gases and ozone-depleting chemicals are released into the atmosphere. Published in Chem Circularity, sustainability and space scientists discuss how the principles of reducing, reusing, and recycling could be applied to satellites and spacecraft—from design and manufacturing to in-orbit repair and end-of-life repurposing. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-experts-circular-economy-pollution-space.html Space Exploration Mon, 01 Dec 2025 11:00:06 EST news683537736 Globalization, migration, climate change and war—nation states are currently under huge pressure on many fronts. Understanding the forces that initially drove the emergence of states across the world may help explain why. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-real-states-emerged-thousands-years.html Archaeology Tue, 25 Nov 2025 13:23:04 EST news683299381 Sixty-six million years ago, two genera of long-necked, quadrupedal dinosaurs had an advantage over other sauropods: they could easily stand on their hind legs for extended periods. This allowed them to scare off potential predators and feed on leaves high up in trees, for example. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-south-american-necked-dinosaur-easily.html Molecular & Computational biology Thu, 23 Oct 2025 12:43:03 EDT news680442181 Ferroic materials such as ferromagnets and ferroelectrics underpin modern data storage, yet face limits: They switch slowly, or suffer from unstable polarization due to depolarizing fields respectively. A new class, ferroaxials, avoids these issues by hosting vortices of dipoles with clockwise or anticlockwise textures, but are hard to control. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-stable-ferroaxial-states-volatile-memory.html Condensed Matter Fri, 10 Oct 2025 12:33:03 EDT news679318381 Most Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) forest carbon offset projects significantly overstate their climate benefits, according to a new study published in Science. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-analysis-gaps-forest-carbon-offset.html Environment Thu, 09 Oct 2025 14:00:15 EDT news679156261 A team of researchers at the Ming Hsieh Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering has created a new breakthrough in photonics: the design of the first optical device that follows the emerging framework of optical thermodynamics. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-device-based-optical-thermodynamics-route.html General Physics Tue, 07 Oct 2025 10:29:04 EDT news679051742 Typically, the charge of electrons is used to store and process information in electronics-based devices. In spintronics, the focus is instead on the magnetic moment or on magnetic vortices, so-called skyrmions—the goal is smaller, faster, and more sustainable computers. To further increase storage density, skyrmions will not only be two-dimensional in the future, but will also conquer the third dimension. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-dimension-storage-physicists-hybrid-skyrmion.html Condensed Matter Mon, 06 Oct 2025 12:50:05 EDT news678973522 Dark energy—the term used to describe whatever is causing the universe to expand at an increasing rate—is one of the universe's greatest mysteries. The most widely accepted theory currently suggests that dark energy is constant, and the energy of empty space drives cosmic acceleration. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-dark-energy-evolving-astrophysicists-possibilities.html Astronomy Mon, 15 Sep 2025 08:48:04 EDT news677144881 Paleontologists at the University of Bristol have officially identified a new species of dinosaur from Triassic fossil beds in South Wales, near Penarth—more than 125 years after the specimen was initially reported. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-dinosaur-wales-museum-drawer.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 11 Sep 2025 10:10:05 EDT news676804201 Astronomers from Yonsei University in Seoul, South Korea, and elsewhere report the discovery of a new isolated early-type dwarf galaxy, which appears to have run away from the group environment. The finding is detailed in a paper published August 28 on the arXiv preprint server. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-isolated-early-dwarf-galaxy.html Astronomy Thu, 04 Sep 2025 08:00:01 EDT news676091661 Neural networks are computing systems designed to mimic both the structure and function of the human brain. Caltech researchers have been developing a neural network made out of strands of DNA instead of electronic parts that carries out computation through chemical reactions rather than digital signals. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-dna-based-neural-network-examples.html Biotechnology Wed, 03 Sep 2025 16:58:04 EDT news676137481 Fullerene is a cage-shaped molecule that has a lot of potential to boost the efficiency of catalytic systems. It works well as an electron buffer, which improves the efficiency of reactions such as hydrogen evolution, oxygen reduction, and carbon dioxide (CO2) reduction. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-fullerene-emerges-efficient-metal-free.html Analytical Chemistry Wed, 20 Aug 2025 12:43:03 EDT news674912582 A research team led by Hitoshi Yamamoto has unveiled new insights into how humans build and update reputations in cooperative social interactions. Human societies have achieved remarkable levels of cooperation, facilitated mainly by mechanisms of indirect reciprocity, where reputation and social norms play crucial roles. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-binary-nuanced-categories-good-neutral.html Social Sciences Mon, 18 Aug 2025 12:05:03 EDT news674737501 The ideological divide between opposing political groups has been drastically increasing in various countries worldwide. This phenomenon, known as political polarization, can lead to greater social division, extremism and political violence. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-rigid-negative-thought-patterns-linked.html Social Sciences Tue, 29 Jul 2025 07:50:01 EDT news672924515 Using 3D holograms polished by artificial intelligence, researchers introduce a lean, eyeglass-like 3D headset that they say is a significant step toward passing the "Visual Turing Test." https://phys.org/news/2025-07-3d-headset-holograms-ai-lifelike.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 28 Jul 2025 10:44:08 EDT news672918242 The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is tough on electronics. Situated inside a 17-mile-long tunnel that runs in a circle under the border between Switzerland and France, this massive scientific instrument accelerates particles close to the speed of light before smashing them together. The collisions yield tiny maelstroms of particles and energy that hint at answers to fundamental questions about the building blocks of matter. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-custom-silicon-chips.html General Physics Fri, 25 Jul 2025 11:05:59 EDT news672660354 The downstream consequences of religion, politics and war can have far-reaching effects on the environment and on the evolutionary processes affecting urban organisms, according to a new analysis from Washington University in St. Louis. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-religion-politics-war-urban-wildlife.html Evolution Wed, 02 Jul 2025 05:00:07 EDT news670577281 Researchers are merging multidisciplinary expertise with AI tools to document, reconstruct and preserve Europe's historical scents. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-reviving-europe-historical-scents-hell.html Analytical Chemistry Sat, 28 Jun 2025 12:00:01 EDT news670244189 Chemists from The University of Manchester and The Australian National University (ANU) have engineered a new type of molecule that can store information at temperatures as cold as the dark side of the moon at night, with major implications for the future of data storage technologies. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-molecule-magnet-sized-hard-capable.html Nanophysics Wed, 25 Jun 2025 11:00:04 EDT news670064521 Using AI to analyze brain scans of students solving math problems, researchers offer the first-ever glimpse into the neural roots of math learning disabilities. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-digital-twins-reveal-math-disabilities.html Mathematics Tue, 10 Jun 2025 11:50:01 EDT news668773093 Quasars are some of the brightest objects in the universe. A quasar is powered by large amounts of matter falling into the supermassive black hole at the center of a galaxy. Collisions and mergers between galaxies can cause quasar activity by feeding additional matter into the center of a galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-newly-cosmic-himalayas-quasar-cluster.html Astronomy Tue, 03 Jun 2025 11:12:25 EDT news668167941 A research team led by Prof. Wang Huiyuan from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) has made a groundbreaking discovery, identifying for the first time an exceptionally strong clustering pattern in diffuse dwarf galaxies. Their study, published in Nature, poses new challenges to the prevailing galaxy formation models within the Λ-Cold Dark Matter (ΛCDM) framework. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-dwarf-galaxy-clustering-standard-cold.html Astronomy Thu, 22 May 2025 10:08:03 EDT news667127281 When Jayedi Aman looks at a city, he notices more than just its buildings and streets—he considers how people move through and connect with those spaces. Aman, an assistant professor of architectural studies at the University of Missouri, suggests that the future design of cities may be guided as much by human experience as by physical materials. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-heartbeat-city-ai-tool-instagram.html Social Sciences Wed, 21 May 2025 10:37:04 EDT news667042621 The Parthenon, a mid-5th-century temple atop the hill of the Acropolis, is dedicated to Athena, the Greek deity of wisdom and the patron goddess of Athens. Despite enduring damage, that masterpiece remains a quintessential example of Classical Greek architecture, celebrated for the impressive 40-foot-tall chryselephantine (inlaid gold-and-ivory) statue of Athena housed within. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-3d-demystifies-parthenon-conditions-ancient.html Archaeology Sun, 18 May 2025 07:40:01 EDT news666686156