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. The sun had barely risen, but diver Elizaveta Bodrova was already raring to plunge into the cold waters of Lake Issyk-Kul, where the ruins of a once-thriving city have lain submerged for centuries. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-sunken-silk-road-city-reveals.html Archaeology Mon, 05 Oct 2026 02:38:24 EDT news710386670 When I explain topology to students, I start with a knot in a rope. You can stretch it, twist it or shake it, but the knot stays until you cut the rope. Physicists have found that some materials and devices carry similar "knots" in how waves move through them. These are topological properties, labeled by whole numbers that don't change under small imperfections. That robustness is why topology has become one of the central ideas in modern physics. It promises electronics, photonics and quantum devices that tolerate defects and noise. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-hidden-topology-energy-leaks.html Optics & Photonics Sat, 03 Oct 2026 13:40:01 EDT news710151198 Physicists with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign's Grainger College of Engineering have identified a new form of superconducting behavior. Experiments on the metal uranium ditelluride reveal that Cooper pairs, the composite electron units responsible for superconductivity, can organize into nonuniform patterns that exist even when the main superconducting phase is absent. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-cooper-pairs-superconducting-critical-temperature.html Superconductivity Sat, 03 Oct 2026 07:00:01 EDT news710216698 In 1960, Science, one of the world's leading science journals, published an article with an unambiguous title: Doomsday: Friday, 13 November, A.D. 2026. It predicted that on this future date—just over a month from today—the human population would approach infinity and effectively annihilate itself. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-scientists-friday-november-doomsday.html Mathematics Wed, 30 Sep 2026 17:10:01 EDT news710004362 As a deadly fungal disease ravages wild frog populations around the globe, scientists have identified potential locations in Panama where amphibians might persist despite the disease, according to new research from the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute (NZCBI) and Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) published in the Journal for Nature Conservation. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-climate-refuges-key-imperiled-amphibians.html Plants & Animals Wed, 30 Sep 2026 10:00:15 EDT news709899902 University of Massachusetts Amherst's Jeff Podos and his former graduate student João C.T. Menezes have identified two contenders for the title of world's loudest bird: the bare-throated bellbird and the red-legged seriema. Their findings also help explain why some birds are so much louder than others. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-biologists-world-loudest-birds.html Plants & Animals Tue, 29 Sep 2026 09:00:08 EDT news709804021 To build the ultrafast computers of the future, scientists are looking beyond the electrical charge of electrons to another property: their spin. While conventional hardware relies on the movement of charge to process data, tapping into this intrinsic quantum property could enable researchers to reinvent how information travels through a circuit. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-experimental-evidence-altermagnetism-layered-material.html Condensed Matter Mon, 28 Sep 2026 18:10:01 EDT news709834861 At the end of the last ice age, early humans crisscrossed the Americas following seasons, rivers and game, often with a trusty spear in hand. Nearly 13,000 years later, archaeologists are using those spearheads to study how America's first inhabitants understood risk. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ancient-spearheads-reveal-ice-age.html Archaeology Mon, 28 Sep 2026 17:20:05 EDT news709824662 In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, researchers have shown that magnetic order can survive weak quantum fluctuations in disordered magnets that lack an energy gap. The work establishes robust ferromagnetism in the two-dimensional random-bond quantum Ising model, confirming a longstanding conjecture in quantum statistical mechanics. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-magnetic-survives-weak-quantum-fluctuations.html Condensed Matter Mon, 28 Sep 2026 09:20:01 EDT news709547682 Wild African elephants living in the Mount Elgon region of Kenya appear to seek out specific plants when unwell. Local experts also reported mothers administering plant-based "medicine" to their offspring. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-african-elephants-medicinal-medication-documented.html Plants & Animals Fri, 25 Sep 2026 11:40:01 EDT news709547742 A monumental complex of ritual baths, most likely used by Jewish pilgrims visiting the Temple in Jerusalem, has been uncovered at the foot of the Temple Mount. Dating to the late Second Temple period (first century BCE–70 CE), the exceptionally well-preserved complex includes three large ritual baths (mikva'ot), a monumental plastered pool, a paved plaza and an extensive water system. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-monumental-reveal-pilgrims-purified-jerusalem.html Archaeology Thu, 24 Sep 2026 14:20:10 EDT news709463643 When Caitlin Bloomer wrestled the massive Crawzilla crawdad—yes, that's its actual common name—out of the muck during a biological survey in Kentucky, she was convinced it was the largest crayfish ever recorded. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-biologists-north-america-largest-crayfish.html Plants & Animals Wed, 23 Sep 2026 19:20:04 EDT news709401721 Propolis may not only inhibit the growth of certain fungi but also affect the activity of drugs used to treat fungal infections. Researchers have investigated how an ethanolic extract of Polish propolis interacts with various antifungal agents. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-bee-propolis-boosts-antifungal-drug.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 23 Sep 2026 18:00:10 EDT news709398541 When Fan Yang's children came home complaining about a crafting class, they had a particularly strong advocate. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-small-slightly-significant-affects.html Social Sciences Wed, 23 Sep 2026 14:20:10 EDT news709380421 Scientists using the STAR detector to study particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have found an intriguing dip in their data in a relatively unexplored region of the nuclear phase diagram—a map of how nuclear matter behaves under various conditions of temperature and density. The dip appears in data tracking collision-by-collision variations in the momenta of particles emerging from collisions between gold nuclei at RHIC, near RHIC's lowest collision energies. These collisions create the highest-density nuclear matter and may indicate that something interesting is happening in that dense region of the phase diagram. The findings are described in a paper just published in Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rhic-reveal-intriguing-dip-momentum.html General Physics Tue, 22 Sep 2026 16:40:08 EDT news709310101 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 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 What if signs of disease could be detected using nothing more than a tiny chip that fits in the palm of your hand and a camera, without ever visiting a hospital? A scene that once seemed possible only in science fiction has now moved one step closer to reality. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-portable-metasurface-biosensor-molecular-images.html Bio & Medicine Thu, 17 Sep 2026 15:30:02 EDT news708875641 An early-career Western Australian astrophysicist has helped uncover a universal rule behind one of the most powerful behaviors in the universe: when black holes launch jets. The discovery, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, shows black holes appear to fire off powerful jets at the same critical point in their feeding cycle—whether they are about 10 times the mass of the sun or millions of times heavier. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-black-holes-stellar-supermassive-size.html Astronomy Thu, 17 Sep 2026 11:30:01 EDT news708860241 Every new generation of phone display, television screen and solar panel is the result of precision optics experiments, which use lasers and other light sources to measure the optical properties of candidate materials. These experiments can take months to run, requiring scientists to meticulously angle and adjust delicate light sources, mirrors, cameras and other components in a process of careful, constant tuning that can be physically tedious and time-consuming. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-robotic-lab-optics-demand.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 17 Sep 2026 10:40:27 EDT news708854343 Researchers have developed a compact, handheld mid-infrared imaging spectrometer that can produce high-resolution chemical maps of a sample without using stains or labels. With further development, the handheld device might provide a portable and easy-to-use way to map the molecular makeup of tissues and other samples. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-handheld-scanner-lab-quality-chemical.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 17 Sep 2026 10:00:24 EDT news708794521 Brigid Lynch was working along a wooded creek in a mountainous part of the San Francisco Bay Area when something that didn't look like the rocks she'd been studying caught her eye. It turned out to be the fossilized tooth of a Pacific mastodon. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-tooth-pacific-mastodon-creek-san.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 16 Sep 2026 04:07:13 EDT news708750407 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 Researchers at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have developed an artificial intelligence framework that helps researchers use atomic force microscopes to identify important nanoscale features while autonomously targeting the most informative areas of a sample for closer study. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-microscopes-nanoscale-features-sample.html Bio & Medicine Sun, 13 Sep 2026 16:00:01 EDT news708262090 Paul K. Piff, UC Irvine associate professor of psychology, has officially been recognized for what millions of frustrated commuters have long suspected: The fancier the car, the worse the driver. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-psychologist-ig-nobel-rich-drivers.html Social Sciences Thu, 10 Sep 2026 17:50:01 EDT news708279121 Glioblastoma is one of the most aggressive and treatment-resistant brain cancers known to medicine, carrying a median survival of just 12–15 months, even with the best available care. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-nanodevices-effective-treatment-drug-resistant.html Bio & Medicine Thu, 10 Sep 2026 12:40:05 EDT news708253656 Cornell researchers have used artificial intelligence to uncover a previously unknown way cells control how proteins move inside them, a process essential for growth, communication and movement that is often disrupted in cancer. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-reveals-class-cellular-linked.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 09 Sep 2026 14:20:03 EDT news708172501 A new study reveals that horse personality is not only a matter of genetics, age or breed but also systematically linked to how horses are housed, ridden and cared for, and to the quality of the relationship they share with their owners. The findings underscore the importance of everyday management decisions for equine personality and welfare. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-engage-horses-personality.html Plants & Animals Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:40:04 EDT news708166321 It can't be heard, but different parts of the human body are in constant conversation, communicating to keep the entire system running efficiently. For biologists, being able to listen in on this discussion is a long-sought-after goal. Over the years, researchers have caught snippets of these exchanges, but the complete dialogue has remained out of reach. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-wholistic-view-cellular-communication-entire.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:00:15 EDT news708168661