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. For decades, the ability to visualize the chemical composition of materials, whether for diagnosing a disease, assessing food quality, or analyzing pollution, depended on large, expensive laboratory instruments called spectrometers. These devices work by taking light, spreading it out into a rainbow using a prism or grating, and measuring the intensity of each color. The problem is that spreading light requires a long physical path, making the device inherently bulky. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ai-driven-ultrafast-spectrometer-chip.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 20 Jan 2026 17:40:02 EST news688142668 The public could have days or months of warning about a major earthquake through identification of prior low-level tectonic unrest over large areas, according to research by a University of Alaska Fairbanks scientist who analyzed two major quakes in Alaska and California. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-geophysicist-method-months-major-earthquakes.html Earth Sciences Fri, 30 Aug 2024 09:22:04 EDT news644228521 The field of photonic integrated circuits focuses on the miniaturization of photonic elements and their integration in photonic chips—circuits that carry out a range of calculations using photons, rather than electrons as are used in electronic circuits. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-propagates-circuits-chips.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 31 Jan 2024 15:58:47 EST news625939122 Researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M), the Polytechnic University of Madrid (UPM) and Loyola University have discovered that personality does not seem to have much influence when it comes to choosing social friendships at school, which are based more on the closeness of our contacts, according to a study recently published in the journal PNAS. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-people-friendships-school.html Social Sciences Mon, 27 Nov 2023 12:44:00 EST news620311437 A new study from Western researchers examining the impacts of the school closures and remote learning on elementary students during the COVID-19 pandemic has tapped the perspective of a critical group: teachers. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-students-low-income-households-experienced-losses.html Economics & Business Wed, 27 Sep 2023 09:44:03 EDT news615026641 Tiny magnetic whirlpools could transform memory storage in high performance computers. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-game-changer-generation-microelectronics.html Nanophysics Mon, 21 Nov 2022 14:31:03 EST news588263461 The family background of UK children still influences their educational achievements at primary school as much as it did nearly one hundred years ago, a major new study has revealed. https://phys.org/news/2022-04-impact-family-background-children-unchanged.html Social Sciences Wed, 20 Apr 2022 05:00:01 EDT news569647324 Smartphones can improve academic performance, when used appropriately, according to new research by the School of Business. https://phys.org/news/2021-08-smartphones-academic-appropriately.html Education Tue, 31 Aug 2021 08:13:34 EDT news549616411 A universe evolves over billions upon billions of years, but researchers have developed a way to create a complex simulated universe in less than a day. The technique, published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, brings together machine learning, high-performance computing and astrophysics and will help to usher in a new era of high-resolution cosmology simulations. https://phys.org/news/2021-05-machine-cosmological-simulations.html Astronomy Wed, 05 May 2021 04:07:50 EDT news539406465 By using machine learning as an image processing technique, scientists can dramatically accelerate the heretofore laborious manual process of quantitatively looking for and at interfaces without having to sacrifice accuracy. https://phys.org/news/2020-03-scientists-pair-machine-tomography-material.html General Physics Mon, 02 Mar 2020 09:16:18 EST news502362974 To synthesize high-performance materials for organic photovoltaics (OPVs) that convert solar radiation into direct current, materials scientists must meaningfully establish the relationship between chemical structures and their photovoltaic properties. In a new study on Science Advances, Wenbo Sun and a team including researchers from the School of Energy and Power Engineering, School of Automation, Computer Science, Electrical Engineering and Green and Intelligent Technology, established a new database of more than 1,700 donor materials using existing literature reports. They used supervised learning with machine learning models to build structure-property relationships and fast screen OPV materials using a variety of inputs for different ML algorithms. https://phys.org/news/2019-11-machine-learning-assisted-molecular-high-performance-photovoltaic.html Materials Science Tue, 19 Nov 2019 09:40:01 EST news493369335 A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in Germany and the U.S. has developed a deep learning algorithm that can be used for motion capture of animals of any kind. In their paper published in the journal Nature Neuroscience, the group describes their tracking tool called DeepLabCut, how it works and how to use it. Kunlin Wei and Konrad Kording with the University of Peking and the University of Pennsylvania respectively offer a News & Views piece on the work done by the group in the same journal issue. https://phys.org/news/2018-08-deep-motion-capture-deeplabcut.html Computer Sciences Thu, 23 Aug 2018 08:30:01 EDT news454229287 Experiencing math anxiety—nervousness and discomfort in relation to math—impairs math performance for some students, but new research shows that it's linked with improved performance for others, at least to a degree. The findings are published in Psychological Science, a journal of the Association for Psychological Science. https://phys.org/news/2015-11-math-anxiety-doesnt-equal-poor.html Social Sciences Wed, 04 Nov 2015 13:10:04 EST news365864994