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. An international study led by the Institute of Evolutionary Biology (IBE, CSIC-UPF) in Barcelona, the Natural Sciences Museum of Barcelona, Harvard University and the University of the Basque Country (EHU) has reconstructed the genetic history of the Iberian Peninsula between the first and eighth centuries A.D. using 243 ancient genomes from 31 archaeological sites. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-suebi-alans-visigoths-erase-deep.html Archaeology Wed, 21 Oct 2026 11:00:46 EDT news711719289 The oxygen in about every other breath we take comes from microscopic cells—phytoplankton—drifting in the surface of the ocean. Among them is Prochlorococcus, the smallest and most abundant photosynthetic organism in the seas. It single-handedly accounts for roughly 10% of all the carbon that the land and the oceans pull from the atmosphere each year. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ocean-abundant-loner-microbe-sticky.html Ecology Wed, 21 Oct 2026 09:00:06 EDT news711791161 Scientists at Columbia University and Imperial College London have found that the largest canyon system in the solar system is still active and shaping Mars today, billions of years after it first formed. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-giant-canyon-mars-tectonically-today.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 20 Oct 2026 09:20:36 EDT news711705481 In a deep, dark part of the Gulf of Mexico, the number of marine animals plummeted by about 60% in the years following the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion, a new study found. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-marine-life-declined-gulf-mexico.html Ecology Tue, 20 Oct 2026 05:39:07 EDT news711693484 Japanese scientists are readying a mission to Mars' moons to retrieve samples that could help unlock the origins of the solar system and life on Earth, in what aims to be the first round trip to the Martian region. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-japan-historic-mission-mars-moon.html Space Exploration Sun, 18 Oct 2026 16:20:01 EDT news711555681 A phenomenon rarer than a solar eclipse and more powerful than any single storm system is unfolding this fall, and NASA is tracking it closely. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nasa-satellites-historic-el-nio.html Earth Sciences Fri, 16 Oct 2026 12:44:08 EDT news711373385 A new ice sheet model developed by glaciologists at the University of California, Irvine and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory projects that the melting of Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica will contribute up to 30 millimeters (1.2 inches) of sea level rise by 2100—twice previous estimates—even without additional climate warming. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-thwaites-glacier-contribute-sea-previously.html Earth Sciences Tue, 13 Oct 2026 17:50:01 EDT news711130141 A Southwest Research Institute (SwRI)-led team has developed an improved model for predicting solar events that incorporates activity on the far side of the sun. The team studied near-simultaneous maps of the whole solar surface from 2010 to 2014, combining Earth observations with data from space-based assets showing the opposite side. The resulting framework constructs surface flux transport (SFT) models that are more complete and accurate than any previous model. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-solar-sun-accurately-side.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 13 Oct 2026 13:20:20 EDT news711112322 Recent research shows that gravity and quantum information are deeply connected and that the shape of spacetime can be traced back to the way information is stored in quantum fields. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-gravity-quantum-linked-derivation-einstein.html General Physics Mon, 12 Oct 2026 19:20:01 EDT news711039286 Elephants shape the African savanna. They consume huge amounts of forage, dig for water, topple trees and affect all the animals around them. So, what happens to their outsized presence after these iconic animals pass away? https://phys.org/news/2026-10-elephants-savanna-death.html Plants & Animals Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:00:11 EDT news711014041 In the deep sea, it never stops snowing. The type of snow that falls in the ocean, known as marine snow, is very different from the flaky geometric wonders that fall on land. Marine snow describes tiny clumps of organic and inorganic detritus—think mucus, poop, silt, dead plankton, etc.—that rain from the shallows into the deep. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-gooier-marine-carbon.html Earth Sciences Mon, 12 Oct 2026 10:00:01 EDT news711015241 Just two weeks after it was launched, the Copernicus Sentinel-3C satellite returned its first images and measurements from two of its key instruments—a major milestone that confirms the satellite is working well and on track to monitor the health of Earth's oceans, land, cryosphere and atmosphere. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-sentinel-3c-views-earth.html Earth Sciences Thu, 08 Oct 2026 18:40:14 EDT news710690581 Using data from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys, with help from artificial intelligence, an international team of scientists has discovered 70 new gravitational lenses—rare cosmic alignments that act as natural magnifying glasses. The new lenses further expand one of the largest collections of confirmed lenses to date and will allow scientists to study dark matter, galaxy evolution and the structure of the universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-largest-2d-universe-scientists-gravitational.html Astronomy Thu, 08 Oct 2026 09:40:12 EDT news710669701 Tiny photosynthetic organisms in the Baltic Sea can contribute substantially to the transport of carbon from surface waters to deeper parts of the sea. A new study from the Department of Ecology, Environment and Plant Sciences at Stockholm University shows that their ability to form colonies and aggregates is an important factor determining how much of their biomass sinks. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-tiny-photosynthetic-carbon-depths-baltic.html Earth Sciences Wed, 07 Oct 2026 19:40:01 EDT news710605201 As waves of humans left Africa tens of thousands of years ago, eventually populating the entire planet, they were joined on their world-conquering ride by the trillions of microorganisms that compose the gut microbiome. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-gut-bacteria-reveal-ancient-human.html Evolution Wed, 07 Oct 2026 11:01:10 EDT news710523661 Creating a quantum device often begins by intentionally damaging a crystal. Scientists fire an ultrafast laser pulse into a material, knocking atoms out of place and leaving behind tiny imperfections called vacancies. Far from being flaws, these vacancies can behave as qubits—the fundamental building blocks of quantum information. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ray-technique-reveals-quantum-materials.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 06 Oct 2026 17:20:08 EDT news710508661 A core assumption in any democracy is that citizens with access to information will make reasoned decisions on political candidates and policy issues. But a new study by UC Berkeley social scientists finds that Americans usually don't consider the full scope of difficult issues, instead basing their opinions on mental shortcuts that sidestep complexity. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-complex-political-issues-americans-shortcuts.html Political science Fri, 02 Oct 2026 16:40:02 EDT news710160246 When it comes to mental health, it may not be how much time you have that matters, but rather how you feel about the time you have. That's one key takeaway of a new University of Colorado Boulder study examining the relationship between time and mental health. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-short-good.html Social Sciences Wed, 30 Sep 2026 17:30:01 EDT news710004901 In 2025, along parts of Kamchatka's coast in Russia, a magnitude 8.8 earthquake caused a tsunami to surge nearly 20 meters (65 feet) above sea level. Yet across the Pacific, its waves were much smaller than those produced by the region's great 9.0 earthquake in 1952. How could the tsunami climb so high near the source yet have a comparatively modest impact far away? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-kamchatka-giant-earthquake-smaller-tsunami.html Earth Sciences Wed, 30 Sep 2026 08:40:05 EDT news709909032 RNA vaccines and other nucleic acid therapeutics are typically packaged within fatty molecules known as lipid nanoparticles (LNPs). MIT researchers have now developed a way to produce these particles much more quickly and with more precise control over their size and shape. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-automated-lipid-nanoparticle-production-rna.html Bio & Medicine Mon, 28 Sep 2026 13:20:07 EDT news709813443 When Pliny the Younger recorded his firsthand experience of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius 2,000 years ago—a cataclysm that buried Pompeii and killed his uncle, Pliny the Elder—he provided enough detail about the date to allow scientists to benchmark methods for dating volcanic eruptions. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-pompeii-destruction-calibrate-volcanic-dating.html Earth Sciences Fri, 25 Sep 2026 14:00:12 EDT news709388799 The seafloor is more than just the ground beneath the sea. Two-thirds of Earth's surface is covered by oceans, which have an average depth of almost 4 kilometers (2.5 miles). For a long time, the seafloor's remoteness protected it from widespread human disturbance. But that is changing: Bottom trawling now reaches depths of around 4,000 meters (13,100 feet) and already disturbs up to 2% of the global seafloor each year. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-healthy-seafloor-earth.html Earth Sciences Wed, 23 Sep 2026 11:40:08 EDT news709374843 If you're swimming in the Salish Sea late at night and feel a skittering along your calves, tiny hairy feet tip-tapping their way higher and higher toward your face, don't worry—it's probably just the stuff of nightmares: hairy-legged, red-eyed sea spiders newly discovered by UBC researchers. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-hairy-feet-red-eyes-salish.html Evolution Wed, 23 Sep 2026 11:20:10 EDT news709374541 When an abstract-looking ivory artifact emerged from the Hohle Fels cave in southern Germany in 2015, archaeologists didn't know quite what to make of it. Previously, the same cave had yielded what may be the world's oldest musical flutes, as well as one of humanity's earliest pieces of figurative art, the iconic Venus of Hohle Fels. At first glance, this strange new discovery—a 20-centimeter (8-inch) rod perforated with four small holes—seemed comparatively unspectacular. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rope-twine-thread-invisible-technologies.html Archaeology Tue, 22 Sep 2026 09:20:04 EDT news709286574 While the Discovery Channel's annual Shark Week event has given the public greater familiarity with sharks, much about them—from their mysterious love lives to how their eating habits bring them into conflict with recreational anglers—remains a mystery to scientists. Now, two new studies led by researchers from the University of Massachusetts Amherst peer into these important aspects of shark biology to help guide real-world conservation strategies. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-prey-nurse-shark-northeast-angler.html Plants & Animals Mon, 21 Sep 2026 19:00:01 EDT news709220523 Around 631,000 years ago—a geological blink of an eye—catastrophe unfolded in what is now northwestern Wyoming, U.S. During what is thought to have been a series of immense volcanic eruptions, life within hundreds of kilometers of the blasts was shattered. Ash was dispersed across much of North America, and the effects were felt worldwide. This was a super-eruption of the massive volcanic system located in what is now Yellowstone National Park. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-humanity-blowbyblow-account-yellowstone-supervolcano.html Earth Sciences Mon, 21 Sep 2026 10:40:06 EDT news709205583 Scientists have long speculated why Venus, with a size, mass and structure similar to Earth's, doesn't have a moon. New UC Riverside research shows that our hungry twin likely swallowed it. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-venus-ate-moon-earth-twin.html Planetary Sciences Sun, 20 Sep 2026 14:30:02 EDT news708620804 Mitochondria—tiny structures that convert nutrients into energy—are often depicted as discrete kidney bean-shaped objects. But in reality, they form a dynamic, interconnected network throughout the entire cell, rapidly splitting and fusing as they're transported to where energy is needed most. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-virtual-cells-built-4d-ai.html Cell & Microbiology Sun, 20 Sep 2026 12:00:05 EDT news708876106 Mysterious trenches stretching for kilometers across southern Australia's Nullarbor Plain have been revealed as the surface footprints of deep, hidden ancient cave systems. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-nullarbor-reveals-surface-deep-hidden.html Earth Sciences Thu, 17 Sep 2026 13:20:27 EDT news708857883 Scientists have discovered a crater on the moon that's bigger than the Roman Colosseum and is the result of a powerful impact two years ago that initially went undetected. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-nasa-spacecraft-huge-crater-moon.html Space Exploration Thu, 17 Sep 2026 04:12:32 EDT news708837122