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. Earth's mantle is a restless, enigmatic engine that powers volcanism, recycles crust, and regulates the long-term evolution of the planet. But one of its most elusive characteristics—the redox state, or the balance of oxidized and reduced chemical species—remains difficult to measure directly. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-beneath-kilometers-scientists-natural-evidence.html Earth Sciences Mon, 22 Sep 2025 05:00:01 EDT news677502001 A new paper led by a York University professor and published today in Nature Astronomy introduces a simple theoretical framework to describe the evolution of the coupled interior–atmosphere system of hot rocky exoplanets known as "lava planets." https://phys.org/news/2025-07-lava-planets-evolve.html Astronomy Tue, 29 Jul 2025 13:23:57 EDT news673014232 In a study published in Science Advances, scientists have used new lithium isotope (δ7Li) data to show that continental clay export promoted organic carbon burial and thus atmospheric oxygenation during the Cambrian period. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-clay-carbon-burial-early-paleozoic.html Environment Mon, 15 Apr 2024 09:22:02 EDT news632391721 Enhanced rock weathering—a nature-based carbon dioxide removal process that accelerates natural weathering—results in significantly higher first year crop yields, improved soil pH, and higher nutrient uptake, according to a paper, published in PLOS ONE on 27 March. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-weathering-results-higher-crop-yields.html Agriculture Mon, 08 Apr 2024 10:32:05 EDT news631791122 Global warming has been attributed to the sharp increase in heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions, in particular CO2 emissions. Carbon capture technology, such as using adsorbents to capture and store CO2 from ambient air, is a promising solution to mitigate emissions. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-scientists-2d-nanosheets-sustainable-carbon.html Nanomaterials Thu, 06 Jul 2023 10:21:25 EDT news607857681 The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captured images of a brown dwarf with silicate particles in its atmosphere. In their paper posted on the arXiv preprint server, astronomers describe their analysis of the brown dwarf and its unique atmosphere. https://phys.org/news/2022-09-webb-telescope-brown-dwarf-clouds.html Astronomy Tue, 06 Sep 2022 10:48:21 EDT news581680068 Water is essential for life on Earth and other planets, and scientists have found ample evidence of water in Mars' early history. But Mars has no liquid water on its surface today. New research from Washington University in St. Louis suggests a fundamental reason: Mars may be just too small to hold onto large amounts of water. https://phys.org/news/2021-09-mars-habitability-limited-small-size.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 20 Sep 2021 15:00:05 EDT news551361558 Brown dwarfs are the cosmic equivalent of tweeners. They're too massive to be planets and too small to sustain nuclear fusion in their cores, which powers stars. Many brown dwarfs are nomadic. They do not orbit stars but drift among them as loners. https://phys.org/news/2021-06-astronomers-probe-layer-cake-brown-dwarf.html Astronomy Thu, 10 Jun 2021 08:45:04 EDT news542533490 Astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy and the University of Jena have obtained a clearer view of nature's tiny deep-space laboratories: tiny dust grains covered with ice. Instead of regular shapes covered thickly in ice, such grains appear to be fluffy networks of dust, with thin ice layers. In particular, that means the dust grains have considerably larger surfaces, which is where most of the chemical reactions take place. Hence, the new structure has fundamental consequences for astronomers' view of organic chemistry in space—and thus for the genesis of prebiotic molecules that could have played an important role for the origin of life on Earth. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-complex-astrochemistry-thin-ice-grains.html General Physics Mon, 08 Jun 2020 08:40:05 EDT news510824393 Giant planets in our solar system and circling other stars have exotic clouds unlike anything on Earth, and the gas giants orbiting close to their stars—so-called hot Jupiters—boast the most extreme. https://phys.org/news/2020-05-astronomers-cloud-atlas-hot-jupiter-like.html Astronomy Tue, 26 May 2020 13:21:00 EDT news509718056 Research published this week by University of Wisconsin-Madison scientists shows how bacteria can degrade solid bedrock, jump-starting a long process of alteration that creates the mineral portion of soil. https://phys.org/news/2019-12-hard-bacteria-soil.html Earth Sciences Mon, 16 Dec 2019 15:00:13 EST news495700289 JILA scientists have developed a fast, simple sample preparation method that enhances imaging of DNA to better analyze its physical properties and interactions. https://phys.org/news/2019-04-jila-minute-sample-dna-imaging.html Bio & Medicine Mon, 08 Apr 2019 15:57:50 EDT news473957862 It's amazing what a difference a little water can make. The Moon formed between about 4.4 and 4.5 billion years ago when an object collided with the still-forming proto-Earth. This impact created a hot and partially vaporized disk of material that rotated around the baby planet, eventually cooling and accreting into the Moon. https://phys.org/news/2018-02-moon-story.html Space Exploration Tue, 27 Feb 2018 09:44:32 EST news438947055 An international study on glass led by ANU and the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris in France could lead to the development of shatter-proof mobile phone screens. https://phys.org/news/2017-12-shatter-proof-mobile-screens-closer.html Condensed Matter Tue, 12 Dec 2017 08:49:41 EST news432290973 An international team of researchers led by geoscientists with the Virginia Tech College of Science recently discovered that deep portions of Earth's mantle might be as hot as it was more than 2.5 billion years ago. https://phys.org/news/2017-05-hottest-lavas-erupted-billion-years.html Earth Sciences Mon, 22 May 2017 11:00:11 EDT news414650855 Measurements of an element in Earth and Moon rocks have just disproved the leading hypotheses for the origin of the Moon. https://phys.org/news/2016-09-chemistry-moon-proto-earth-mantle-relocated.html Space Exploration Mon, 12 Sep 2016 11:00:03 EDT news392883494 The media often imply that the goal of the hunt for extrasolar planets is to find a rocky planet about the size of Earth orbiting a star like the sun at a distance that would allow liquid water to persist on its surface. In other words, the goal is to find Earth 2.0. https://phys.org/news/2016-06-hot-rocky-planets-composition-components.html Astronomy Tue, 28 Jun 2016 09:59:25 EDT news386326756 (Phys.org)—HD 189733b, located some 64 light years away, is the closest "hot Jupiter" exoplanet to Earth. Thanks to its proximity, it is a great target for atmospheric observations. Now, an international team of astronomers has presented a model of the planet's chemically complex gaseous layer, unveiling the structure and composition of mineral clouds in the atmosphere. The study was published Mar. 30 in a paper on the arXiv pre-print server. https://phys.org/news/2016-04-astronomers-composition-clouds-hot-jupiter.html Astronomy Wed, 06 Apr 2016 09:10:02 EDT news379141433 Researchers in the lab of Antoine Allanore, the Thomas B. King Assistant Professor of Metallurgy at MIT, have been working on potash alternatives for three years. In a paper published Oct. 20 in PLOS One, Allanore group postdoc Davide Ciceri demonstrates through microfluidic experiments that feldspar interacting with an acid solution can release sufficient quantities of potassium for agriculture. https://phys.org/news/2015-11-feldspar-potassium-higher-implications-agriculture.html Environment Wed, 11 Nov 2015 07:30:25 EST news366449409 Sunlight can be brutal. It wears down even the strongest structures, including rooftops and naval ships, and it heats up metal slides and bleachers until they're too hot to use. To fend off damage and heat from the sun's harsh rays, scientists have developed a new, environmentally friendly paint out of glass that bounces sunlight off metal surfaces—keeping them cool and durable. https://phys.org/news/2015-08-glass-metal-roofs-cool-sunny.html Materials Science Sun, 16 Aug 2015 09:36:29 EDT news358936577 Two new papers from members of the MESSENGER Science Team provide global-scale maps of Mercury's surface chemistry that reveal previously unrecognized geochemical terranes—large regions that have compositions distinct from their surroundings. The presence of these large terranes has important implications for the history of the planet. https://phys.org/news/2015-03-mercury-surface-composition-illuminate-planet.html Space Exploration Fri, 13 Mar 2015 11:30:39 EDT news345465029 For thousands of years, human beings have stared up at the sky and wondered about the Red Planet. Easily seen from Earth with the naked eye, ancient astronomers have charted its course across the heavens with regularity. By the 19th century, with the development of powerful enough telescopes, scientists began to observe the planet's surface and speculate about the possibility of life existing there. https://phys.org/news/2015-02-mars.html Space Exploration Thu, 26 Feb 2015 10:20:02 EST news344165345 (Phys.org) —A team of researchers working at Université libre de Bruxelles in Brussels has devised a means for studying the growth of near 2D chemical gardens in a lab. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers discuss the difficulty in studying 3D chemical gardens and the advantages of using their method to learn more about the processes involved in their growth. https://phys.org/news/2014-11-d-chemical-gardens-video.html Materials Science Tue, 11 Nov 2014 10:10:02 EST news334921457 (Phys.org) —In the hunt for early life, geobiologists seek evidence of ancient microbes in the form of trace fossils – geological records of biological activity – embedded in lavas beneath the ocean floor. Filamentous titanite (a calcium titanium silicate mineral) microtextures found in 3.45 billion-year-old volcanic pillow lavas of the Barberton greenstone belt of South Africa, have been argued previously2 to be Earth's oldest trace fossil, representing the mineralized remains of microbial tunnels in seafloor volcanic glass. However, scientists at the University of Bergen, Norway have reported new data based on in situ U-Pb (uranium-lead) dating, metamorphic temperature mapping constraints and morphological observations that bring the biological origin of these fossils into serious question. The new age determined for the titanite microtextures is much younger than the eruptive and seafloor hydrothermal age of the previously proposed bioalteration model. As a result, the researchers have analyzed these fossils' syngenicity (age as estimated by a textural, chemical, mineral, or biological feature formed at the same time as its encapsulating material) and biogenicity (any chemical and/or morphological signature preserved over a range of spatial scales in rocks, minerals, ice, or dust particles that are uniquely produced by past or present organisms). The scientists conclude that the oldest bona fide biogenic trace fossil now reverts to roughly 1.7 Ga microborings in silicified stromatolites found in China, and that the search for subsurface life – both on the early Earth as well as in extraterrestrial mafic–ultramafic rocks1, such as Martian basalts – be based not only on new biosignatures, but on new detection techniques as well. https://phys.org/news/2014-06-proof-life-reevaluating-oldest-archean.html Earth Sciences Tue, 24 Jun 2014 09:30:01 EDT news322802145 (Phys.org) —A new discovery by researchers from the University of Notre Dame's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences could change prevailing assumptions about the chemical makeup of the Earth's mantle. https://phys.org/news/2013-11-discovery-scientists-rethink-chemical-makeup.html Earth Sciences Tue, 12 Nov 2013 08:15:06 EST news303466494 (Phys.org)—Although scientists know that when silicon mixes with water, hydrogen is produced through oxidation, no one expected how quickly silicon nanoparticles might perform this task. As a new study has revealed, 10-nm silicon nanoparticles can generate hydrogen 150 times faster than 100-nm silicon nanoparticles, and 1,000 times faster than bulk silicon. The discovery could pave the way toward rapid "just add water" hydrogen generation technologies for portable devices without the need for light, heat, or electricity. https://phys.org/news/2013-01-nanosilicon-rapidly-electricity.html Nanomaterials Thu, 24 Jan 2013 09:00:01 EST news278228854 (PhysOrg.com) -- For most everyone alive today, it's almost a fundamental fact. Life began in the ocean and evolved into all of the different organisms that exist today. The idea that this could be wrong causes great discomfort, like discovering as an adult that you were adopted as a child. Nonetheless, a team of diverse scientists led by Armen Mulkidjanian is suggesting that very thing; instead of life beginning in deep thermal vents in the ocean, the prevailing view, they say it perhaps instead started in landlocked freshwater pools created by thermal vapor. Their theory is based, as they explain in their paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, mostly on the idea that the sea is just too salty to provide the ideal conditions necessary to spur life into existence. https://phys.org/news/2012-02-scientist-life-began-freshwater-pond.html Earth Sciences Tue, 14 Feb 2012 07:36:39 EST news248427366 (PhysOrg.com) -- Analysis of new images of a curious “hot spot” on the far side of the Moon reveal it to be a small volcanic province created by the upwelling of silicic magma. The unusual location of the province and the surprising composition of the lava that formed it offer tantalizing clues to the Moon’s thermal history. https://phys.org/news/2011-07-unique-volcanic-complex-moon-side.html Space Exploration Mon, 25 Jul 2011 07:32:21 EDT news230797904 What spreads the sea floors and moves the continents? What melts iron in the outer core and enables the Earth's magnetic field? Heat. Geologists have used temperature measurements from more than 20,000 boreholes around the world to estimate that some 44 terawatts (44 trillion watts) of heat continually flow from Earth's interior into space. Where does it come from? https://phys.org/news/2011-07-earth-cooking.html General Physics Sun, 17 Jul 2011 13:00:01 EDT news230119974 (PhysOrg.com) -- The moon is more geologically complex than previously thought, scientists report Sept. 17 in two papers published in the journal Science. https://phys.org/news/2010-09-scientists-insights-moon-rich-geologic.html Space Exploration Thu, 16 Sep 2010 15:01:54 EDT news203868091