https://phys.org/science-news/ en-us The latest science news on archaeology, fossils, mathematics, and science technology from Phys.org Students who open a personal social media account earlier in adolescence appear to perform worse on later standardized tests, according to a study in Nature Human Behaviour based on 5,227 Italian students. The authors speculate that these differences may be attributable to excessive social media engagement and disruptions to students' attention. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-kids-social-media-earlier-worse.html Social Sciences Mon, 03 Aug 2026 14:40:06 EDT news704980981 More than 1,000 years ago, two babies were tucked away in an abandoned Roman toilet channel. Yet, despite what the location suggests, they were cherished, not discarded. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-laid-rest-ancient-infants-twins.html Archaeology Sun, 02 Aug 2026 11:20:01 EDT news704550428 How do students actually use AI learning assistants? A new research paper by IU International University of Applied Sciences provides the first robust answers to this question. For the study "Using AI-based Learning Assistants in Higher Education: A Large-Scale Descriptive Analysis," the research team led by Prof. Dr.-Ing. Kristina Schaaff, Dr. Valerie Hekkel and Quintus Stierstorfer analyzed anonymized usage data from approximately 77,000 IU online students who were using the Learning Companion Syntea at the time of the study. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ai-mirrors-student-online-learners.html Education Sun, 02 Aug 2026 10:20:01 EDT news704721316 For archaeologists, the Coëby cemetery in Brittany, France, is a gold mine for research. It contains several prehistoric stone monuments and earth mounds. In a new study of two unusually large mounds, scientists may have stumbled upon a rare style of funerary monument. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-brittany-burial-mounds-human-stones.html Archaeology Sat, 01 Aug 2026 13:00:03 EDT news704706200 The ancient Egyptian god of the moon had two very different faces: a crescent-beaked white bird and a silver-coated baboon. Now, researchers think they may have found the common thread connecting them all. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-moonlight-fur-feathers-egyptian-god.html Archaeology Sat, 01 Aug 2026 11:00:01 EDT news704365393 Just 34% of people arrested by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents during President Donald Trump's second term have a criminal conviction, according to research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. That's a near-historic low, the authors note. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-people-ice-criminal-conviction-reveals.html Political science Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:40:03 EDT news704711881 Ancient Rome's greatest threat to food security wasn't the weather but the challenge of getting grain to the capital, according to a new study. By comparing hundreds of years of historical records with reconstructions of past climate, researchers found that periods of unusual heat, cold, drought or heavy rainfall rarely lined up with reported food shortages. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ancient-rome-food-shortages-logistics.html Archaeology Fri, 31 Jul 2026 12:20:03 EDT news704705829 Mathematicians have shown that completely fair elections are—in a sense—impossible. No electoral system can guarantee both that local votes translate directly into local seats and that total seat distribution matches overall vote shares—not without an indefinitely growing parliament. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-math-vote.html Mathematics Fri, 31 Jul 2026 05:00:05 EDT news704551291 A scientific paper reads as a clean progression from question to result. And yet, research almost never happens that way. Experiments fail, conversations redirect projects, and none of it survives into print. When the founders of a field retire, their tacit knowledge goes with them, and nothing records that it existed. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-inverting-seminar-recover-scientific-papers.html Education Fri, 31 Jul 2026 05:00:01 EDT news704619901 Ancient plant seeds provide important archaeological evidence for studying the evolution of human civilization. Lingnan University and Shandong University have jointly developed the world's first artificial intelligence (AI) archaeological system dedicated to identifying ancient Chinese plant seeds. The system emulates the identification process of archaeobotanical experts and achieves a classification accuracy of more than 90%. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ancient-chinese-seeds-spanning-years.html Archaeology Thu, 30 Jul 2026 16:00:09 EDT news704640122 A few years ago, the first ceramic finds came to light during construction work in the Burg district of the municipality of Hannersdorf. Geomagnetic surveys in subsequent years provided evidence of numerous kilns thought to lie hidden beneath the field. In a recent educational excavation led by Basema Hamarneh from the University of Vienna, archaeologists uncovered two pottery kilns. Another 100 kilns are thought to remain buried—an unprecedented discovery of a local production center for utilitarian pottery from the Roman period. The finds date from the mid-1st century to the mid-2nd century CE. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-roman-workshop-reveals-large-scale.html Archaeology Thu, 30 Jul 2026 15:00:04 EDT news704632681 For years, social media companies have faced pressure from users and government watchdogs to stop misinformation from distorting elections, deepening political divisions and undermining Americans' trust in institutions. But what if dramatically reducing people's exposure to unreliable sources that frequently spread misinformation doesn't actually change what they believe? https://phys.org/news/2026-07-misinformation-facebook-instagram.html Social Sciences Thu, 30 Jul 2026 10:20:08 EDT news704623622 How much of what you see on social media comes from sources that repeatedly post falsehoods? And if that content quietly vanished from your feed, would you believe anything different months later? https://phys.org/news/2026-07-exposure-untrustworthy-social-media-rare.html Social Sciences Thu, 30 Jul 2026 08:40:01 EDT news704611262 You might not often think about the molars of livestock, but everything from the grass they eat to the water they drink can tell a story about how people lived centuries ago. An international collaboration led by University of Michigan researchers examined herd management in medieval Kazakhstan using isotopes embedded in the enamel of sheep's molars. They found that people living in the arid region fine-tuned their animal-management strategies to succeed in a challenging environment. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-sheep-teeth-life-medieval-kazakhstan.html Archaeology Wed, 29 Jul 2026 18:00:03 EDT news704551022 Excavations at Hohle Fels Cave in the UNESCO World Heritage area of the Swabian Jura in southwestern Germany have again yielded two spectacular 40,000-year-old depictions of birds carved from mammoth ivory. The two figurines are the smallest discovered so far and are the size of a thumbnail, while still including many details. These remarkable finds come from the rich Aurignacian layers at Hohle Fels, which have produced some of the oldest figurative art known and date to the initial arrival of modern humans in the Upper Danube region. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ice-age-artists-thumbnail-size.html Archaeology Wed, 29 Jul 2026 17:40:01 EDT news704550903 New research conducted using airborne laser scanning reveals that a multicultural civilization that flourished in southwestern Amazonia between 600 BCE and 850 CE was home to millions of people. Spanning roughly 183,000 square kilometers (71,000 square miles), the Aquiry civilization built large centers for political and ritual purposes. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ancient-civilization-millions-flourished-amazon.html Archaeology Wed, 29 Jul 2026 15:40:02 EDT news704545984 People described as "problematic" internet users report higher stress, worse mood and greater neglect of other activities than those who surf the web sparingly, according to a study published in PLOS One by Silke M. Müller from the University Hospital Essen, Germany, and colleagues. These users also reported a stronger temptation to return to the internet. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-problematic-internet-users-crabbier-stressed.html Social Sciences Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:00:08 EDT news704446861 Comparing yourself with your partner is more common than you'd think. Psychologists even have a term for it: mate value discrepancy (MVD), which is the gap between how attractive, smart or successful each partner feels compared with the other. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-monogamy-jealousy-desirable-strain-relationships.html Social Sciences Wed, 29 Jul 2026 12:00:06 EDT news704539631 Using cargo recovered from one of Australia's most infamous shipwrecks, new Curtin University-led research has revealed how surprisingly sophisticated global supply chains helped source and transport construction materials in the 17th century. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-shipwreck-cargo-reveals-global-secrets.html Archaeology Wed, 29 Jul 2026 11:40:09 EDT news704539141 Why do some people who embrace conspiracy theories simply hold those beliefs, while others act on them? A new study published in the British Journal of Social Psychology identifies three characteristics that help determine when conspiracy beliefs are most likely to shape real-world behavior: how certain people are that the belief is true, how personally important they consider it, and whether they see it as "actionable"—useful for deciding what to do. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-conspiracy-beliefs-action.html Social Sciences Wed, 29 Jul 2026 10:20:08 EDT news704538721 When brands spend millions every year to transport Super Bowl audiences back in time during commercials, what happens if they choose the wrong era? Knowing who prefers which part of history is valuable marketing knowledge, and a new tool developed at the University of Arizona offers a way to measure which era evokes the most nostalgia. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-eras-audience-perspective-nostalgia.html Social Sciences Wed, 29 Jul 2026 07:00:01 EDT news704518201 Currently popular biographies of famous scientists may demotivate—rather than inspire—children's desire to study or pursue careers in science, according to researchers who studied the messages in 422 bestselling children's books. Study leader Jessica Gladstone, a professor of educational psychology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, said that while parents and educators often use these books to try to spark children's interest in science through exposure to role models, their narratives tend not to support this goal. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-scientists-biographies-demotivate-children-science.html Social Sciences Tue, 28 Jul 2026 18:20:07 EDT news704474581 Built from stones weighing between 2 and 25 tonnes (2 to 28 tons), the structure of Stonehenge demonstrates a scale of construction hard to imagine before the invention of the wheel. The mystery deepens when you consider that the stones are not from the local bedrock. So why these stones, and how did they get there? https://phys.org/news/2026-07-theory-sixtonne-stonehenge-scotland-thousands.html Archaeology Tue, 28 Jul 2026 16:20:01 EDT news704463949 Scientists have uncovered an ancient population previously unknown to science in Ladakh, a high-altitude region in northern India. Their studies revealed individuals with a nearly perfect 50–50 mix of South Asian-related and Tibetan-related ancestry who lived approximately 1,500 years ago. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-dna-uncover-forgotten-population-world.html Archaeology Tue, 28 Jul 2026 14:20:09 EDT news704462958 The existence of humans on Malta, a tiny Mediterranean island, during the Mesolithic period is puzzling. Archaeological evidence indicates that foragers occupied the Maltese islands between 8,500 and 7,500 years ago, and it is hypothesized that they arrived by sea. How did they survive over such an extended period, given the limited resources available on this small island? https://phys.org/news/2026-07-mesolithic-hunter-malta-sea.html Archaeology Tue, 28 Jul 2026 13:40:01 EDT news704459221 New research from the University of Sussex has revealed the biological limits to human compassion and empathy. The study found a stark contrast between how the brain processes information about risk to human lives and information about financial risk and could help explain why people can struggle to respond emotionally to large-scale humanitarian disasters. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-neuroscientists-reveal-limits-human-compassion.html Social Sciences Tue, 28 Jul 2026 09:54:10 EDT news704451227 A puzzle that can tell players how fast they think on their feet has been developed by a University of Leeds researcher. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-psychologist-puzzle-fast.html Social Sciences Tue, 28 Jul 2026 07:40:02 EDT news704442961 To explain the stock market's reaction to earnings results, investors and other market participants have used a standard tool for decades: the earnings surprise. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ai-day-stock.html Economics & Business Tue, 28 Jul 2026 07:20:03 EDT news704441797 School cellphone bans might seem like a good way to improve learning for elementary school children, but new research published in Behavioral Sciences shows that simply owning a cellphone correlates with worse reading comprehension. Whether a child brings the phone to school made no difference in reading comprehension, the team of UCLA psychologists and researchers found. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-kids-cellphones-poorer-comprehension-scores.html Social Sciences Mon, 27 Jul 2026 18:50:01 EDT news704390462 Encouraging people to contribute to a common good can have a surprising drawback: a risk that rewards become concentrated among a smaller group, putting the rest at a disadvantage. Put more simply, "equality and cooperation are often in conflict," says Joshua Plotkin, Walter H. and Leonore C. Annenberg Professor of the Natural Sciences in the School of Arts & Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-cautions-spur-inequality.html Mathematics Mon, 27 Jul 2026 16:00:01 EDT news704380802