https://phys.org/science-news/ en-us The latest science news on archaeology, fossils, mathematics, and science technology from Phys.org Ancient Chinese authorities used many creative ways to punish people, often with methods designed to mark them for life. One brutal example mentioned repeatedly in historical texts is cutting off a person's nose. However, archaeologists in China have never found skeletal evidence to prove that it occurred. But that may have changed following the discovery of a skeleton of a woman who lived in China about 700 years ago. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-medieval-chinese-skeleton-reveal-evidence.html Archaeology Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:20:05 EDT news708943210 Douglas Seiler painstakingly sourced papyrus and reed pens from Egypt and traditional lampblack ink from Japan, then paid some high school students to inscribe the papyrus with lines from Star Wars and the Bible and a quote from the '60s sci-fi TV show The Outer Limits. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-year-scrolls-scientists.html Archaeology Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:00:04 EDT news708957783 One of Dublin's "lost" medieval castles has been found hiding in plain sight inside University College Dublin's Roebuck Castle. New research reveals that substantial remains of the Norman castle of Roebuck, an important fortress on one of the approach roads into the medieval city of Dublin, are preserved within the modern-day building. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-lost-medieval-castle-university-dublin.html Archaeology Fri, 18 Sep 2026 11:00:04 EDT news708940657 A new study sheds light on how Syrian archaeologists risked their lives to rescue approximately 30,000 priceless artifacts from the Deir ez-Zor Museum during the summers of 2014 and 2015 as the city faced the imminent threat of capture by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as Daesh. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-archaeological-treasures-imminent-destruction-syria.html Archaeology Fri, 18 Sep 2026 10:40:04 EDT news708943201 A Facebook post about your trip to Peru. An Amazon review of a new toaster oven. An email to the super about the inflatable reindeer blocking the hallway. You phrase and rephrase things all day without thinking that anyone—or anything—is putting words in your mouth. But what happens when AI joins the conversation? Are chatbots changing the way you write, talk and interact with others? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-bots-people-language-age-ai.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:51:23 EDT news708940190 Perfection is overrated—at least when it comes to complex systems like the power grid, food webs and advanced materials. For decades, scientists generally assumed that networks function most reliably when their individual components are as similar as possible. But real-world networks are rarely uniform. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-finely-tuned-mess-disorder-networks.html Mathematics Thu, 17 Sep 2026 19:40:04 EDT news708874381 Artificial intelligence programs used to classify images could be trained much more cheaply using a surprisingly simple method inspired by the childhood game of 20 Questions, according to new research posted to the arXiv preprint server by a team from the University of Bristol. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-simple-game-ai-future.html Mathematics Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:40:01 EDT news708858636 About 40 years ago, researchers found ancient ship carvings on a temple wall in Cyprus, possibly all carved at once at the tail end of the Bronze Age, around the time of the infamous Bronze Age collapse. Then, decades later, a new study revealed they had missed nearly two dozen ancient carvings. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-laser-scans-reveal-hidden-ship.html Archaeology Thu, 17 Sep 2026 09:20:06 EDT news708702559 Sir John Gage, a key figure in Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, saved a dangerous Catholic book from likely destruction, a new study suggests. The identification of six lost pages of a medieval bestseller—illicitly prized by Catholics in the Reformation—as belonging to Gage, exposes the split loyalties of one of Tudor England's great survivors. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-henry-viii-dissolution-stashed-catholic.html Archaeology Wed, 16 Sep 2026 19:10:01 EDT news708694681 Archaeologists have analyzed insect remains preserved in the 7th to 9th centuries AD funerary cave of Cruz de la Esquina, Gran Canaria, and found that it was used by the island's Indigenous people for food storage before being adapted into a burial site. The findings have been published in the journal Antiquity. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-insect-reveal-indigenous-burial-canary.html Archaeology Wed, 16 Sep 2026 19:00:08 EDT news708249456 The Black Death is often remembered as a single catastrophic event that swept across Europe between 1347 and 1353, killing millions. Yet the disease did not disappear after that first devastating outbreak. For more than four centuries, plague continued to return in recurring waves, reshaping communities, economies and societies across Europe and beyond. A new study led by researchers at the University of Tartu sheds fresh light on this long and complex history by analyzing the DNA of the plague bacterium preserved in archaeological human remains. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-sharper-picture-pandemic-uncovering-complex.html Archaeology Wed, 16 Sep 2026 18:00:06 EDT news708786505 Spain and Portugal are two of the world's most popular wine-growing countries, with regions such as Rioja and the Douro Valley producing millions of bottles every year. This winemaking tradition dates back thousands of years, but its exact origins remain a mystery. To understand how it all started, scientists led by Carolina Royo of the Instituto de Ciencias de la Vid y del Vino in Spain took a step back into the past and studied ancient grape seeds. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-iron-age-seeds-reveal-iberian.html Archaeology Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:50:02 EDT news708784803 Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have gleaned new insights into ancient water management in the French region around Nîmes by analyzing carbonate deposits within the Roman aqueduct that features the famous Pont du Gard bridge. Among other findings, the aqueduct—built around 50 A.D.—was expanded to include an additional water source after 11 years of operation; this event coincided with a historically documented dry spell. A century after the aqueduct's construction, the water supply to the city was deliberately throttled; it is likely that some of the water was diverted to agricultural land in the surrounding area instead. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-aqueduct-deposits-plague-cyprian-nmes.html Archaeology Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:20:09 EDT news708779341 Republicans and conservatives are more likely than Democrats or liberals to justify political violence in 17 surveyed situations, according to a study published in PLOS One by Garen J. Wintemute of the University of California, Davis, and colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-americans-political-violence-vary-sharply.html Social Sciences Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:00:24 EDT news708777241 X-ray technology and artificial intelligence—along with the discovery of lead in the ink of fragments from a collection of ancient Roman scrolls—could soon help scientists read long-lost texts buried by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE, according to a study published Sept. 16, 2026, in the journal PLOS One by Douglas Seiler, an affiliate of the University of California, Berkeley, U.S.; Jacob Michael LaManna of the National Institute of Standards and Technology, U.S.; David Kreimer of the University of California, Berkeley, U.S.; and colleagues. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-lost-ancient-scrolls-eruption-mount.html Archaeology Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:00:01 EDT news708611701 From social media to the streets of Washington, D.C., the organized white nationalist movement has become more visible in the United States over the past few decades. But the extent of this extremist movement's appeal to the broader public is less certain. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-predominantly-online-friendships-linked-greater.html Social Sciences Wed, 16 Sep 2026 13:00:05 EDT news708776221 Intricate designs engraved across the surface of 18,000-year-old female figurines carved from mammoth ivory were inspired by the distinctive growth patterns visible in the tusks, a new study published in the journal npj Heritage Science has revealed. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ice-age-carvers-mammoth-tusk.html Archaeology Wed, 16 Sep 2026 12:40:02 EDT news708770524 One of Athens' crowning jewels is the Parthenon, a classical temple on the Acropolis that overlooks the Greek capital. According to legend, many historians, textbooks and tour guides say the ancient Greek architects who designed it added subtle curves and other variations to correct optical illusions that would have disturbed the building's clean lines. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-mathematician-year-legend-parthenon-optical.html Mathematics Wed, 16 Sep 2026 10:30:01 EDT news708772079 In the hills of northwestern Morocco, overlooking the river that gives the site its name, research at Oued Beht is bringing to light a previously unknown chapter of the region's past. The discovery of a substantial built structure suggests that, during the second millennium BC, communities in northwestern Africa were actively shaping their environment. They were also engaging in broader networks of interaction across the Mediterranean world. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-history-rewritten-archaeological-site-morocco.html Archaeology Tue, 15 Sep 2026 18:00:01 EDT news708702974 A multidisciplinary team of researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark, Queen Mary University of London and other European institutions analyzed a data set representing almost 300,000 kilometers (186,000 miles) of Roman roads across the former empire, creating the most detailed quantitative picture yet of how the Roman road network was structured. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-roads-rome-roman.html Archaeology Tue, 15 Sep 2026 15:00:04 EDT news708692941 A new study finds that while most Americans are interested in science and believe it benefits society, the public's relationship with science is more complicated than those positive views suggest. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-americans-complicated-relationship-science.html Social Sciences Tue, 15 Sep 2026 12:20:07 EDT news708689761 A new study led by the University of Turku provides new insights into the population history of Finland during the Late Iron Age and the Middle Ages. The researchers analyzed the genomes of people who lived in southwestern Finland and Häme between the 11th and 13th centuries to investigate how the population changed over the course of the Middle Ages and how people were connected to other regions around the Baltic Sea. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ancient-dna-medieval-migration-sweden.html Archaeology Tue, 15 Sep 2026 11:20:03 EDT news708688684 More than 5,000 years ago, a royal woman named Meretneith (also written as Merneith) lived in ancient Egypt. She was possibly the daughter of Djer, the third king of the First Dynasty, a period when the first kings ruled over a unified Egypt. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-year-royal-mystery-digital-clues.html Archaeology Tue, 15 Sep 2026 10:40:04 EDT news708685202 Do you think that a person who reorganizes their life so that their aging parents can live with them would be likely to push another out of the way on the subway? What about greeting strangers with a smile? The answers to these questions are at the heart of a puzzle social psychologists have been debating for 30 years: how to best understand differences among cultures. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-responsibilities-social-relationships-easternwestern-cultural.html Social Sciences Tue, 15 Sep 2026 05:00:15 EDT news708625201 Australia had a much larger Indigenous population before the arrival of Europeans than previously thought, according to new research. The research also demonstrates much larger population losses resulting from colonization than previously believed, with an estimated 93% of the pre-European population lost in less than 80 years following the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-indigenous-australian-population-larger-previously.html Archaeology Tue, 15 Sep 2026 05:00:02 EDT news708611522 An international research team led by Dr. Gabriele Russo of the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen has re-examined historical fossil collections from Lebanon using modern methodology. The results, published today in two complementary studies in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, show that the Levant served as an important corridor for animals and various human lineages during the Pleistocene and that environmental conditions in the central part of the region differed significantly from those in the south. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-lebanon-years-climate-landscape-history.html Archaeology Mon, 14 Sep 2026 11:20:15 EDT news708600882 Anyone who has ever woken up with a hangover will recognize its physical and psychological effects: headache, nausea, self-loathing, regret and perhaps even some shame at the uninhibited behavior that accompanied the intoxication. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-history-hangover-remedies-cabbages-cloves.html Other Sat, 12 Sep 2026 16:00:01 EDT news708347759 Does the academic discipline of a scientist's doctorate accurately capture their disciplinary affiliation decades later? Consider a scientist who earned a doctorate in physics 25 years ago who now studies climate change, publishes primarily in interdisciplinary journals and considers herself a climate scientist. Does "physics" still accurately describe where she fits in science? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-captures-scientists-identities-shift-academic.html Social Sciences Fri, 11 Sep 2026 16:20:04 EDT news708347642 A study by Politecnico di Milano and the University of Insubria (Varese and Como) has been published in PLOS Digital Health. The study involved more than 700 children from primary and lower secondary school. The participants used the THInkPen (Tele-Health Ink Pen) while completing two BVSCO-3 tasks from the Battery for the Clinical Assessment of Writing and Orthographic Skills. This is the most widely used test in Italy for assessing writing difficulties, dysgraphia and dysorthography. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-smart-pen-pressure-movement-children.html Education Fri, 11 Sep 2026 14:40:02 EDT news708343381 In March 2021, Berkeley, Calif., became the first city in the world to ban the display of sugary beverages and snacks in store checkout lanes, where candy, chocolate and soda are commonly placed to encourage impulse buying while shoppers are in line. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-healthy-checkout-policy-soda-sales.html Economics & Business Fri, 11 Sep 2026 13:40:05 EDT news708343261