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. Researchers at EPFL have created the first 4D lipid atlas of vertebrate development, revealing how fats shape our bodies from embryo to organism. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-lipid-blueprint-vertebrate-life-4d.html Biotechnology Wed, 03 Sep 2025 10:17:04 EDT news676113422 Astronomers are living in a golden age of bigger and better telescopes. But even our most advanced technology pales in comparison to the power of nature's own "cosmic magnifying glasses"—strong gravitational lenses. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-powerful-tool-astronomer-arsenal-lens.html Astronomy Wed, 20 Aug 2025 11:50:01 EDT news674907823 As Greenland's ice retreats, it's fueling tiny ocean organisms. To test why, scientists turned to a computer model from JPL and MIT that's been called a laboratory in itself. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-nasa-supercomputers-life-greenland-glacier.html Earth Sciences Wed, 06 Aug 2025 16:56:15 EDT news673718168 Police spending will rise by a real-terms 2.3% per year between now and 2028–29, the government announced in its latest spending review, drawn from local council tax. The government says this will help its mission to put 13,000 neighborhood police on the streets, and "keep communities safe." https://phys.org/news/2025-06-police-england-wales-money-funding.html Economics & Business Thu, 19 Jun 2025 12:16:04 EDT news669554161 The University of Jyväskylä (Finland), in collaboration with the Finnish Radiation and Nuclear Safety Authority (STUK), has developed a new type of handheld multi-purpose radiation detector that comprehensively detects all types of ionizing radiation. The device can be used by industrial and medical radiation users, regulatory authorities, the nuclear energy industry, first responders and military users. The technology has been patented and is currently being explored for commercialization. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-handheld-detector-ionizing-safety.html General Physics Tue, 15 Apr 2025 15:34:03 EDT news663950041 Knife Hunter, a new AI system developed by the University of Surrey, is offering "a glimpse of a not-too-distant future" where Britain's police forces and local authorities use AI to tackle knife crime in London and across the country. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-artificial-intelligence-reshaping-uk-war.html Political science Thu, 13 Feb 2025 10:50:44 EST news658666238 You'd be forgiven for thinking that young people are behind most knife crime in the UK. Media coverage often focuses on youth involvement, and the government's plan to halve knife crime focuses specifically on young people and vulnerable teenagers. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-images-knives-youth-knife-crime.html Social Sciences Thu, 17 Oct 2024 15:10:02 EDT news648395852 The knife attack on a dance class of children in Southport has left the country horrified. We do not yet know much about what happened, but a male aged 17 has been charged with the murder of three girls and 10 counts of attempted murder. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-southport-knife-crime-uk.html Social Sciences Mon, 05 Aug 2024 12:50:01 EDT news642080731 Seventy-eight percent of people in England and Wales think that crime has gone up in the last few years, according to the latest survey. But the data on actual crime shows the exact opposite. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-crime-fallen-years.html Social Sciences Tue, 14 May 2024 12:10:01 EDT news634906653 What is the origin of genetic diversity in plants? Can new mutations acquired during growth be passed on to seeds? INRAE scientists, in collaboration with CIRAD and the CNRS, have used the French Guiana forest as the setting for their research, leading to a series of discoveries on this fundamental question in biology. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-unveiling-rare-diversity-heritable-mutations.html Plants & Animals Thu, 29 Feb 2024 15:52:29 EST news628444347 Even the genes and proteins that have been most closely studied are still far from having given up all their secrets. Like a Swiss Army knife, they have many different, often unknown functions. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-aging-mechanism-nematodes.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 21 Feb 2024 14:16:07 EST news627747365 Consider the crustacean Parhyale hawaiensis, a tiny crustacean with some interesting attributes. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-disorder-robustness-embryonic-tiny-shrimp.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 29 Jun 2023 16:51:51 EDT news607276306 Seaweed is increasingly seen as a solution to many of the world's most pressing problems. Interest in farming seaweed has exploded. https://phys.org/news/2023-03-seaweed-world-ways.html Ecology Fri, 10 Mar 2023 12:58:04 EST news597675481 Researchers have discovered a new method for correcting errors in the calculations of quantum computers, potentially clearing a major obstacle to a powerful new realm of computing. https://phys.org/news/2022-09-erasure-key-quantum.html Quantum Physics Thu, 01 Sep 2022 08:58:20 EDT news581241495 Humans are the only species to live in every environmental niche in the world—from the icesheets to the deserts, rainforests to savannahs. As individuals we are rather puny, but when we are socially connected, we are the most dominant species on the planet. https://phys.org/news/2022-06-year-old-stone-swiss-army-knives.html Archaeology Fri, 10 Jun 2022 07:50:02 EDT news574065672 Proteins in the brain called prions are well known for their involvement in causing disease, but a study published today in eLife suggests they may help yeast cope with rapidly changing environmental conditions. https://phys.org/news/2021-09-proteins-yeast-conditions.html Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 21 Sep 2021 18:02:23 EDT news551466139 Phosphate pollution in rivers, lakes and other waterways has reached dangerous levels, causing algae blooms that starve fish and aquatic plants of oxygen. Meanwhile, farmers worldwide are coming to terms with a dwindling reserve of phosphate fertilizers that feed half the world's food supply. https://phys.org/news/2021-05-swiss-army-knife-pollution.html Materials Science Mon, 31 May 2021 15:00:03 EDT news541665599 A good way to find out what a cell is doing—whether it is growing out of control as in cancers, or is under the control of an invading virus, or is simply going about the routine business of a healthy cell—is to look at its gene expression. Though a vast majority of cells in an organism all contain the same genes, how those genes are expressed is what gives rise to different cell types—the difference between a muscle cell and a neuron, for example. https://phys.org/news/2021-04-swiss-army-knife-genomic.html Biotechnology Mon, 05 Apr 2021 08:51:01 EDT news536831458 Knife crime hit a record high in England and Wales before the COVID-19 lockdown came into place—with police reporting 46,265 cases for the year to March. The recent report by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said this was 51% higher compared to when the data was first collected in 2011. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-knife-crime-young-people.html Social Sciences Wed, 05 Aug 2020 08:11:22 EDT news515833878 Researchers from University of Hong Kong, Yonsei University, and Chinese University of Hong Kong published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines the relationship between animated movement speed in video ads and consumers' assessment of the product size. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-animation-affects-consumers-perception-product.html Economics & Business Tue, 04 Aug 2020 03:13:57 EDT news515729633 A photonic chip with no less than 128 tunable components proves to be a true computing "Swiss army knife" with a variety of applications. During her research on measuring light wavelengths using this photonic chip, Caterina Taballione of the University of Twente came across yet another application serendipitously—by sending single photons through the system instead of continuous light, the optical components can perform quantum operations, as well. The same chip works as a photonic quantum processor. https://phys.org/news/2019-07-quantum-photonics-serendipity.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 17 Jul 2019 10:14:46 EDT news482577249 It has been a busy few days in the fierce debate about addressing the knife crime problem in England and Wales. London Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick unveiled year-on-year declines in knife crime and homicides in the capital for the year ended March, and claimed it was thanks to more police stop and search. Just days earlier, the College of Policing, which oversees police standards in England and Wales, said more or less the opposite about the tactic. Stop and search, it said, risks aggrieving people subjected to it and making them more likely to commit violent crimes down the line; instead, it wants England and Wales to adopt the more progressive approach to policing that has emerged in Scotland. https://phys.org/news/2019-05-frequency-law-academic-cooperate.html Social Sciences Wed, 08 May 2019 10:00:02 EDT news476527774 Knife crime data from a 12-month period could be used to help forecast the London neighbourhoods most likely to suffer a fatal stabbing the following year, according to latest research. https://phys.org/news/2019-04-knife-crime-assault-fatal-stabbings.html Social Sciences Mon, 15 Apr 2019 03:41:46 EDT news474518499 Despite the recent spate of knife violence and homicide in some UK cities, the number of people injured in serious violence in England and Wales dropped by 1.7 percent between 2017 and 2018, according to a report published by Cardiff University. https://phys.org/news/2019-04-spate-knife-crime-uk-decline.html Social Sciences Fri, 12 Apr 2019 09:30:01 EDT news474278956 A new fingerprint technique capable of producing high-resolution images from the most challenging of metal surfaces, including knives and firearms—is already attracting interest from detectives working on cold cases. https://phys.org/news/2019-03-cutting-edge-fingerprint-technology-knife-crime.html Analytical Chemistry Tue, 19 Mar 2019 08:45:40 EDT news472203934 Violent crime among young people has reached a worrying high in parts of the UK over recent years. There's been a year-on-year increase in knife offences committed by young people since March 2014. In 2017/18 alone, there were more than 100 knife-related homicides with victims under 24 years old. London, in particular, has experienced a surge in knife-related incidents in 2019. https://phys.org/news/2019-03-violent-crime-decades-risky-young.html Social Sciences Thu, 07 Mar 2019 09:50:01 EST news471172574 Sprint users hoping to take advantage of the company's forthcoming 5G network now have a month to look forward to: May. https://phys.org/news/2019-02-sprint-5g-network-chicago-atlanta.html Telecom Wed, 27 Feb 2019 10:00:03 EST news470482940 The latest crime figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) offer a grim outlook on the state of criminal justice in England and Wales. Almost as if to head off criticism, the bulletin starts: "Over recent decades, we've seen continued falls in overall levels of crime but in the last year the trend has been more stable". Isn't that an odd way of introducing a rise in serious violent offences? https://phys.org/news/2018-10-knife-crime-homicide-figures-reveal.html Social Sciences Fri, 19 Oct 2018 09:30:04 EDT news459156513 This wonderful image shows the resplendent spiral galaxy NGC 3981 suspended in the inky blackness of space. This galaxy, which lies in the constellation of Crater (the Cup), was imaged in May 2018 using the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 - FORS2) instrument on ESO's Very Large Telescope - VLT). https://phys.org/news/2018-09-galactic-gem-fors2-instrument-captures.html Astronomy Wed, 12 Sep 2018 07:00:01 EDT news455943192 An open-source movement simulator that has already helped solve problems in medicine, paleontology, and animal locomotion has been expanded and improved, according to a new publication in the open-access journal PLOS Computational Biology. The software, called OpenSim, has been developed by a team at Stanford University, led by first authors Ajay Seth, Jennifer Hicks, and Thomas Uchida, with contributions from users around the world. The new paper reviews the software's wide range of applications and describes the improvements that can increase its utility even further. https://phys.org/news/2018-07-software-recreates-complex-movements-medical.html Software Thu, 26 Jul 2018 14:00:10 EDT news451801386