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. A team of scientists from around the world has created the first system that can predict when and where extremely powerful solar storms, called superflares, are most likely to happen. These storms can disrupt power grids, communications, and satellites, and even pose dangers to astronauts in space. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-solar-eruptions-sun-side-validate.html Astronomy Tue, 24 Feb 2026 19:20:01 EST news691166641 Over the past two decades, the Gulf of Maine has become a popular landing spot for invasive species from across the world, says Geoffrey Trussell, an evolutionary biologist and professor at Northeastern University's Marine Science Center in Nahant, Massachusetts. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-shells-sea-snails-invasive-predators.html Evolution Mon, 10 Mar 2025 10:09:04 EDT news660820141 Patterns in chaos have been proven, in the incredibly tiny quantum realm, by an international team co-led by UC Santa Cruz physicist Jairo Velasco, Jr. In a new paper published on November 27 in Nature, the researchers detail an experiment that confirms a theory first put forth 40 years ago stating that electrons confined in quantum space would move along common paths rather than producing a chaotic jumble of trajectories. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-physics-patterns-chaos-peculiar-quantum.html Quantum Physics Mon, 02 Dec 2024 13:38:45 EST news652369116 Physicists have been trying to design fusion reactors, technologies that can generate energy via nuclear fusion processes, for decades. The successful realization of fusion reactors relies on the ability to effectively confine charged particles with magnetic fields, as this in turn enables the control of high-energy plasma. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-family-optimized-omnigenous-magnetic-fields.html Plasma Physics Fri, 15 Nov 2024 07:50:01 EST news650799844 Touchscreens have long been integral to our everyday life—humans use them to work, play, talk with loved ones and snag Lightning Deals on Prime Day. In recent years, they've shown potential for the animal kingdom as well, leading to a growing body of academic research and a proliferation of consumer products promising to leverage technology to enhance our relationships with our pets. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-parrots-playing-tablet-games.html Plants & Animals Thu, 21 Mar 2024 14:37:07 EDT news630250623 Jellyfish can't do much besides swim, sting, eat, and breed. They don't even have brains. Yet, these simple creatures can easily journey to the depths of the oceans in a way that humans, despite all our sophistication, cannot. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-bionic-jellyfish-ocean-exploration.html Biotechnology Wed, 28 Feb 2024 17:12:04 EST news628362722 The chemical industry has long been shadowed by unwelcome images of billowing smokestacks and pipes discharging toxic effluent. Modern manufacturing practices have done much to mitigate the industry's environmental impact, but there remains room for improvement. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-team-combines-catalysts-common-chemical.html Analytical Chemistry Fri, 05 Jan 2024 13:20:03 EST news623683201 A study has shed new light on remarkable feats of navigation from cultures across the world: from sailors in the Marshall Islands using wave patterns to navigate the vast Pacific Ocean to indigenous communities in Alaska using stars to find their way across the Yukon. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-star-explores-remarkable-ways-traditional.html Social Sciences Thu, 21 Dec 2023 16:52:41 EST news622399958 When we last checked in with Caltech's Kerry Vahala three years ago, his lab had recently reported the development of a new optical device called a turnkey frequency microcomb that has applications in digital communications, precision time keeping, spectroscopy, and even astronomy. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-conjoined-racetracks-optical-device.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 08 Dec 2023 14:57:23 EST news621269838 For about 20 years, Caltech Professor of Applied Physics Paul Bellan and his group have been creating magnetically accelerated jets of plasma, an electrically conducting gas composed of ions and electrons, in a vacuum chamber big enough to hold a person. (Neon signs and lightning are everyday examples of plasma). https://phys.org/news/2023-12-physicist-x-rays-shouldnt-cold-plasma.html Plasma Physics Tue, 05 Dec 2023 12:38:25 EST news621002302 City dwellers have long had to contend with smog—that ugly haze that hangs over urban areas—as a result of emissions-producing human activities as diverse as manufacturing, mowing the lawn, driving cars, and even cooking. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-chemists-tackle-formation-natural-aerosols.html Analytical Chemistry Thu, 16 Nov 2023 16:38:04 EST news619375081 The sex hormone commonly known as estrogen plays an important role in multiple aspects of women's health and fertility. High levels of estrogen in the body are associated with breast and ovarian cancers, while low levels of estradiol can result in osteoporosis, heart disease, and even depression. (Estrogen is a class of hormones that includes estradiol as the most potent form). Estradiol is also necessary for the development of secondary sexual characteristics in women and regulates the reproductive cycle. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-wearable-aptamer-nanobiosensor-wirelessly-estrogen.html Bio & Medicine Thu, 28 Sep 2023 15:10:09 EDT news615132601 Late last year, Caltech researchers revealed that they had developed a new fabrication technique for printing microsized metal parts containing features about as thick as three or four sheets of paper. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-technique-3d-metals-nanoscale-reveals.html Nanophysics Thu, 21 Sep 2023 09:45:20 EDT news614508317 Chemotherapy as a treatment for cancer is one of the major medical success stories of the 20th century, but it's far from perfect. Anyone who has been through chemotherapy or who has had a friend or loved one go through it will be familiar with its many side effects: hair loss, nausea, weakened immune system, and even infertility and nerve damage. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-drug-delivery-platform-leverages-air-filled.html Bio & Medicine Tue, 19 Sep 2023 15:50:04 EDT news614357402 Between 1840 and 1867, thousands of enslaved Africans who had been "liberated" from slave ships intercepted by the British Royal Navy were taken to the South Atlantic island of St Helena. But little is written in history books or otherwise known about the lives of these individuals. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-dna-analyses-st-helena-liberated.html Archaeology Thu, 07 Sep 2023 11:00:01 EDT news613295886 Across the animal kingdom there are creatures that move through their environments not by walking or running or climbing but instead by simply changing the shape of their bodies. This kind of locomotion is found in snakes as they slither, in stingrays as they swim, and even in cats as they twist themselves to land on their feet as they fall. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-jellyfish-cat-snake-astronaut-common.html Mathematics Thu, 10 Aug 2023 08:59:30 EDT news610876760 Nearly every material, whether it is solid, liquid, or gas, expands when its temperature goes up and contracts when its temperature goes down. This property, called thermal expansion, makes a hot air balloon float, and the phenomenon has been harnessed to create thermostats that automatically turn a home furnace on and off. Railroads, bridges, and buildings are designed with this property in mind, and they are given room to expand without buckling or breaking on a hot day. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-alloys-dont-size.html Condensed Matter Thu, 27 Jul 2023 14:55:59 EDT news609688553 If you take an object and set it out in the sun, it will begin to warm up. This is because it is absorbing energy from the sun's rays and converting that energy to heat. If you leave that object outside, it will continue getting warmer, but only to a point. A sunbather lying on a beach won't catch fire, after all. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-energy-harvesting-law-breaking-device.html General Physics Tue, 25 Jul 2023 16:42:33 EDT news609522149 If you imagine yourself peering through a microscope, you probably picture looking at a glass slide with an amoeba, or maybe a human cell, or perhaps even a small insect of some kind. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-microscopy-techniques-combine-powerful-imaging.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 29 Jun 2023 15:16:03 EDT news607270561 Quantum computing, just like traditional computing, needs a way to store the information it uses and processes. On the computer you're using right now, information, whether it be photos of your dog, a reminder about a friend's birthday, or the words you're typing into browser's address bar, must be stored somewhere. Quantum computing, being a new field, is still working out where and how to store quantum information. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-device-door-quantum.html Quantum Physics Thu, 22 Jun 2023 16:32:03 EDT news606670321 Trapped electrons traveling in circular loops at extreme speeds inside graphene quantum dots are highly sensitive to external magnetic fields and could be used as novel magnetic field sensors with unique capabilities, according to a new study. https://phys.org/news/2023-03-graphene-quantum-dots-magnetic-field.html Nanophysics Mon, 06 Mar 2023 11:00:04 EST news597316480 Let's say you needed to move an individual cell from one place to another. How would you do it? Maybe some special tweezers? A really tiny shovel? https://phys.org/news/2023-02-cells-ultrasound.html Biotechnology Fri, 24 Feb 2023 04:31:34 EST news596435486 Stress isn't just the psychological pressure you feel in response to a looming deadline at work. It is also a description of the physical forces pushing, pulling, or twisting an object, structure, or material. Examples of stress include gravity dragging downward on a bridge, wind blowing against the side of a building, or even a waistband drawn taut by a big meal. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-rainbow-force-activated-pigments-stress.html Polymers Tue, 24 Jan 2023 10:29:15 EST news593778548 When asked to sign their name, comb their hair, or use a pair of scissors, most humans prefer to use one hand over the other. But being left-handed or right-handed—handedness—is a trait found not just in people. Many molecules, especially organic molecules, exhibit handedness as well. https://phys.org/news/2022-12-technique-precise-molecular-handedness-chemical.html Analytical Chemistry Mon, 12 Dec 2022 16:58:03 EST news590086681 In just about any situation in which electricity is being used, whether it is lighting a bedroom at night, keeping frozen food cold, or powering a car that is taking a commuter to work, some of that electrical energy is lost as heat. This is called resistance. Materials with lower resistance are better at conducting electricity while materials with higher resistance are worse at it. https://phys.org/news/2022-12-theory-magnetic-trends-high-temperature-superconductors.html Superconductivity Thu, 01 Dec 2022 10:00:22 EST news589111220 Electrons—those little subatomic particles that help make up the atoms in our bodies and the electricity flowing through your phone or computer right now—have some properties like mass and charge that will be familiar to anyone who has taken a high school physics class. But electrons also have a more abstract property known as spin, which describes how they interact with magnetic fields. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-theory-electron-aid-quantum-devices.html Quantum Physics Thu, 10 Nov 2022 09:57:03 EST news587296621 Whatever you are doing, whether it is driving a car, going for a jog, or even at your laziest, eating chips and watching TV on the couch, there is an entire suite of molecular machinery inside each of your cells hard at work. That machinery, far too small to see with the naked eye or even with many microscopes, creates energy for the cell, manufactures its proteins, makes copies of its DNA, and much more. https://phys.org/news/2022-06-decoding-key-cell-atom.html Biochemistry Fri, 10 Jun 2022 07:37:41 EDT news574065442 Aerospace engineers at MIT are testing a new concept for a hovering rover that levitates by harnessing the moon's natural charge. https://phys.org/news/2021-12-idea-rover.html Space Exploration Tue, 21 Dec 2021 11:02:48 EST news559306965 Most of us control light all the time without even thinking about it, usually in mundane ways: we don a pair of sunglasses and put on sunscreen, and close—or open—our window blinds. https://phys.org/news/2021-10-material-atoms-thick.html General Physics Fri, 22 Oct 2021 17:14:08 EDT news554141641 Scientists have gained the best view yet of the brightest explosions in the universe: A specialized observatory in Namibia has recorded the most energetic radiation and longest gamma-ray afterglow of a so-called gamma-ray burst (GRB) to date. The observations with the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.) challenge the established idea of how gamma-rays are produced in these colossal stellar explosions which are the birth cries of black holes, as the international team reports in the journal Science. https://phys.org/news/2021-06-front-row-view-reveals-exceptional-cosmic.html Astronomy Thu, 03 Jun 2021 14:00:01 EDT news541931544