https://phys.org/science-news/ en-us The latest science news on archaeology, fossils, mathematics, and science technology from Phys.org Before murdering Molly Ticehurst in April 2024, court documents show Daniel Billings had threatened to exploit the limits of policing in her country town: "I will come in the middle of the night … The police won't stop me. I will get to you quicker than they will." https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rural-policing-gaps-domestic-violence.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 22:20:02 EDT news708932449 Sexual harassment between peers begins as early as Grade 4 and continues throughout lower secondary school. Most of those who sexually harass others have also experienced harassment themselves. These are among the findings of a doctoral thesis in psychology by Aziz-Kaan Dönmez from the University of Gothenburg, who studied peer sexual harassment among Swedish children and adolescents in Grades 4–9. Dönmez will defend his thesis on October 2. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-peer-sexual-emerges-early-highlighting.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 21:00:01 EDT news708940854 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 Despite the rapid development of generative AI and the high level of public interest, the use of AI in the day-to-day work of many employees is not yet the norm. This is the finding of the third wave of the Konstanz AI study, for which a total of 1,105 employees were surveyed in May 2026. The proportion of employees who use AI in their work rose only slightly from 35% to 38% compared with the previous year. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-workplace-ai-uneven-survey.html Economics & Business Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:20:02 EDT news708958562 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 People with power are more quickly singled out as the culprit when something goes wrong but it is unclear who made the mistake. That is shown by a series of studies by researchers at the University of Amsterdam. In one, they analyzed almost 100,000 everyday conflicts on the Reddit page "Am I the Asshole?" According to the researchers, people with power are more readily blamed because others think they can "get away with anything." The findings are published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-power-suspicion-cases-wrongdoing-people.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 15:00:01 EDT news708958382 The European Union has committed to achieving climate neutrality by 2050, a process that will require rapid and substantial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions across all economic sectors. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-europe-emissions-deindustrializing.html Economics & Business Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:40:07 EDT news708955862 Research from Queen Mary University of London explores how combining learner autonomy with student-led inquiry can create a more engaging and collaborative experience for international students learning academic English. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-students-voice-classroom.html Education Fri, 18 Sep 2026 13:40:05 EDT news708954782 Tariffs are usually debated as trade policy. But a study from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business treats them as something else: a mechanism for redistributing wealth. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-benefits-tariffs.html Economics & Business Fri, 18 Sep 2026 13:20:10 EDT news708954121 Have you ever stopped and listened to the background sounds in a room you are in? The hum of the ventilation? The buzz of electricity? While most of the time we are barely aware of these sounds, Arthur Jinyue Guo, a researcher at the RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Rhythm, Time and Motion, has revealed that they nevertheless affect our behavior. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-background-affect-human-behavior.html Other Fri, 18 Sep 2026 13:00:01 EDT news708953761 Legislation that affects or discriminates against transgender and gender-diverse individuals can cause more psychological distress than personal experiences of discrimination, according to new Virginia Commonwealth University research published in the journal American Psychologist. The study also found that individuals with those identities experienced psychological distress from anti-transgender laws even if they lived in a state with legislation that is friendly toward transgender and gender-diverse individuals. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-anti-transgender-legislation-psychological-distress.html Economics & Business Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:20:08 EDT news708949322 When a multimillion-dollar masterpiece vanishes from a museum, the public calls for tougher criminal penalties and better-funded police task forces. But research from Wake Forest University suggests that some of these intuitive solutions can backfire, resulting in more art crime, not less. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-art-heist-paradox-police-stolen.html Economics & Business Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:00:04 EDT news708948661 Humans are social animals, but we have a diversity of societies, each with its own customs, behaviors and expectations. It's obvious that those can affect how we respond to someone—favoring the comfort of familiar behaviors, for example—and people often try to account for that in themselves and others. But sometimes the effect is more subtle. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-cultural-norms-social-gestures.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 11:40:04 EDT news708940711 Is everyone entitled to a fair process before being forced out of their home? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-black-moms-pregnant-women-homes.html Economics & Business Fri, 18 Sep 2026 11:20:07 EDT news708945002 One of Dublin's "lost" medieval castles has been found hiding in plain sight inside University College Dublin's Roebuck Castle. New research reveals that substantial remains of the Norman castle of Roebuck, an important fortress on one of the approach roads into the medieval city of Dublin, are preserved within the modern-day building. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-lost-medieval-castle-university-dublin.html Archaeology Fri, 18 Sep 2026 11:00:04 EDT news708940657 Students may come for the dog, but new research from UBC Okanagan published in the Journal of College Student Mental Health suggests that's not always what they leave with. In a study of 676 students—most in their first year—researchers asked an open-ended question about what made a therapy dog visit meaningful and found the answers extended well past the animals themselves. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-puppy-therapy-dogs-students.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 11:00:01 EDT news708943261 A new study sheds light on how Syrian archaeologists risked their lives to rescue approximately 30,000 priceless artifacts from the Deir ez-Zor Museum during the summers of 2014 and 2015 as the city faced the imminent threat of capture by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), also known as Daesh. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-archaeological-treasures-imminent-destruction-syria.html Archaeology Fri, 18 Sep 2026 10:40:04 EDT news708943201 Within a decade, New Zealand will officially become a "super-aged" society, with more than one in five residents—around 1.2 million people—aged 65 or older. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-zealand-superaged-decade-cities-ready.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 09:20:04 EDT news708931681 Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing the tasks people do at work and the skills they need. As work changes, being able to move between jobs, and sometimes industries, may become increasingly important. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-reshapes-jobs-workers-industries.html Economics & Business Fri, 18 Sep 2026 09:00:01 EDT news708931561 A Facebook post about your trip to Peru. An Amazon review of a new toaster oven. An email to the super about the inflatable reindeer blocking the hallway. You phrase and rephrase things all day without thinking that anyone—or anything—is putting words in your mouth. But what happens when AI joins the conversation? Are chatbots changing the way you write, talk and interact with others? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-bots-people-language-age-ai.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:51:23 EDT news708940190 After a six-week delay, Immigration Minister Tony Burke has announced changes to the migration system. Amid all the analysis and discussion it triggered, there was nothing to indicate an understanding that these changes need to have a safety net for victim-survivors of domestic and family violence. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-immigration-policy-safety-domestic-violence.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:40:02 EDT news708930542 A study published in Police Quarterly explores how Canadian courts respond when police officers break the law. The research, co-led by Brock University Assistant Professor of Political Science Danielle McNabb and University of Guelph Associate Professor of Political Science Kate Puddister, presents the first large-scale empirical analysis of how Canadian courts sentence police officers convicted of breaching the public's trust. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-canadian-courts-police-misconduct-sentencing.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:00:01 EDT news708930121 A text from your neighborhood gardening club friend Ben offering a deal on seeds might seem too specific to be a scam. But that kind of personalization is exactly what can make phishing messages convincing. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-humans-ai-scam-effectively.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 07:20:01 EDT news708927902 Brian Druker, M.D., has pretty much done it all as a pioneer in precision medicine. He developed a drug that turned chronic myeloid leukemia from a death sentence into a manageable condition; his discovery spurred the development of numerous similar life-saving precision therapies; and he is the animating force behind the Knight Cancer Institute's initiative at Oregon Health & Science University to end cancer as we know it. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-experts-advice-era-artificial-intelligence.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 07:00:03 EDT news708924781 A new report from the Brookings Institution presents evidence that increasing the size of the U.S. nuclear arsenal could make nuclear crises more likely. This raises an important challenge to arguments that the U.S. must consider increasing its stockpile in response to China's growing nuclear capabilities. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-nuclear-arsenal-americans-safe.html Political science Fri, 18 Sep 2026 03:00:03 EDT news708917447 Imagine it's the dead of night. Your phone pings with a text—it's a government emergency alert: "Leave your home immediately! Only take with you enough supplies for the next three days." What would you want in your go-bag? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-prepping-disaster-dont-teddy.html Social Sciences Thu, 17 Sep 2026 22:00:01 EDT news708879002 On June 18, 2026, on the sidelines of the European Council in Brussels, the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Council of the European Union signed a joint declaration making culture a strategic priority for the first time. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-museums-prescription-cultural-crucial-health.html Social Sciences Thu, 17 Sep 2026 21:20:02 EDT news708878821 The new EU Packaging Regulation (PPWR) has been in effect since Aug. 12, 2026. Under this regulation, beginning in January 2030, the food service industry may no longer buy food or toiletries packaged in single-use plastic—for example, ketchup packets or individually wrapped bars of soap. This is increasing pressure on hotels, restaurants and catering businesses to act. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-circular-economy-hotels.html Economics & Business Thu, 17 Sep 2026 20:00:02 EDT news708878041 Perfection is overrated—at least when it comes to complex systems like the power grid, food webs and advanced materials. For decades, scientists generally assumed that networks function most reliably when their individual components are as similar as possible. But real-world networks are rarely uniform. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-finely-tuned-mess-disorder-networks.html Mathematics Thu, 17 Sep 2026 19:40:04 EDT news708874381 "People who are determined, passionate and believe in their ability to improve appear more likely to flourish and experience meaningful, engaging lives," says Professor Hermundur Sigmundsson at NTNU's Department of Psychology. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-traits-people-greater.html Social Sciences Thu, 17 Sep 2026 18:20:05 EDT news708868697