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. Earlier this year, an outbreak of Andes hantavirus on a cruise ship, which killed three passengers and sickened 13, highlighted the lack of approved vaccines or treatments for the virus. In a study published in Nature, scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and collaborators from Institut Pasteur and LSU Health Shreveport show how the virus recognizes its target on a human cell, a finding that could lead to effective therapies against Andes virus and other hantaviruses. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-scientists-reveal-deadly-andes-hantavirus.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 21 Oct 2026 11:00:15 EDT news711712681 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 NASA has taken the next step in the process of developing a new all-glass telescope for the LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission, a space observatory designed to detect ripples in space-time called gravitational waves. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nasa-advances-lisa-mission-contributions.html Astronomy Fri, 09 Oct 2026 16:40:01 EDT news710759228 Researchers from The Australian National University (ANU) have engineered new optical coatings for LIGO, the global collaboration hunting gravitational waves from colliding black holes and neutron stars. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ultra-precise-coatings-power-generation.html Astronomy Thu, 01 Oct 2026 14:40:18 EDT news710073602 Does gravity act equally on all particles in the universe, or are there differences between ordinary and exotic matter? Physics professor Anna Soter and her team at ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI) in Villigen are investigating this question. "We have taken an important step toward carrying out an exciting experiment on this topic," says Soter. "We want to measure the gravitational interaction of the muon." https://phys.org/news/2026-09-particle-einstein-theory-gravity.html General Physics Tue, 15 Sep 2026 09:40:06 EDT news708683461 Physicists at the University of Oxford have helped confirm that one of the strangest phenomena in physics—quantum entanglement—occurs even among some of the heaviest and most fleeting particles ever created. The discovery, made using the world's most powerful particle collider at CERN, has been published in Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-physicists-uncover-spooky-quantum-effect.html Quantum Physics Mon, 14 Sep 2026 10:12:41 EDT news708599518 Welcome back to our series on Interstellar Travel, where we look at the many proposals made for sending missions to the stars since the dawn of the Space Age. In our first installment, we examined how Cold War-era developments in nuclear weapons and rockets paralleled advances in space exploration, resulting in proposals for nuclear rockets. We then examined how the creation of thermonuclear weapons led to applications in fusion propulsion. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-interstellar-warp-wormholes-halo.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 31 Aug 2026 11:40:04 EDT news707391962 A popular myth about black holes is that they act like giant cosmic vacuum cleaners, sucking in everything around them. But Wladimir Lyra's research found a new mechanism around supermassive black holes that is more like a cosmic nursery, giving birth to planets more massive than Jupiter. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-supermassive-black-holes-massive-planets.html Astronomy Thu, 13 Aug 2026 09:11:08 EDT news705831033 In early 2025, special signals wended their way through a fiber-optic highway strung above the streets and sidewalks of the Maryland suburbs. The arrival of those signals at their destination marks a significant step toward a long-held dream of building a "quantum network." Researchers believe that this emerging technology could someday link quantum devices in ways that supercharge scientific research, enable ultrasecure communications and boost the power of future quantum computers. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-spooky-particles-transit-dc-suburbs.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 05 Aug 2026 16:30:01 EDT news705164821 Scientists plan to use a total solar eclipse that will be visible in Spain next week as a rare chance to learn more about the stormy, unpredictable nature of our star. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-total-eclipse-scientists-chance-probe.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 05 Aug 2026 07:00:02 EDT news705116543 More than a century after Albert Einstein first transformed our understanding of gravity, his general theory of relativity continues to withstand ever more demanding experimental tests. Now, an international team led by Ignazio Ciufolini at the Chinese Academy of Sciences has carried out the most precise measurement yet of one of the theory's most subtle predictions: the dragging of spacetime caused by Earth's rotation. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-validate-einstein.html Astronomy Tue, 14 Jul 2026 07:30:01 EDT news703154341 Mathematicians are challenging the idea that dark energy is responsible for the accelerating expansion of the universe. In a new paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A, mathematicians from the University of California, Davis, provide mathematical proof that instabilities inherent in the Einstein-Euler equations imply that the current model of the expanding universe is not viable. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-dark-energy-equation-mathematicians-standard.html Astronomy Thu, 28 May 2026 13:20:06 EDT news699190321 A team from Vienna and Frankfurt has found a formula describing a strange phenomenon: Space and time can form a kind of "crystal" that may turn into a black hole. The results are described in Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-crystals-space-phenomenon-collapse-tiny.html General Physics Thu, 21 May 2026 12:00:03 EDT news698578142 Fluorescent probes have transformed modern biology by allowing researchers to tag and visualize individual molecules in living cells, tissues, and animals. Using these tools, researchers can watch viruses infect cells in real time, observe cellular trash collection, and track the signaling that spurs tumor growth. Now, scientists at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies have developed a new molecular imaging technology that illuminates proteins inside living cells and animals far more clearly than before. Described in Nature Methods, the system uses engineered fluorescent nanobodies—tiny antibody-like protein fragments—that light up only when they bind to their specific targets. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-believing-smart-probes-reveal-proteins.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 22 Apr 2026 05:00:08 EDT news695981161 Gravity, as most people understand it, is the familiar force that pulls a falling apple toward Earth. But for astronomers and theoretical physicists, it is also a vexing invisible architect that guides the shape and evolution of the largest cosmic structures across the universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-gravity-newton-einstein-cosmic-scales.html General Physics Wed, 15 Apr 2026 19:40:04 EDT news695485862 Astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets around single stars, but few around binary stars—even though both types of stars are equally common. Physicists can now explain the dearth. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-tatooine-planets-rare-general-binary.html Astronomy Fri, 30 Jan 2026 12:27:18 EST news688998421 For those who watch gravitational waves roll in from the universe, GW250114 is a big one. It's the clearest gravitational wave signal from a binary black hole merger to date, and it gives researchers an opportunity to test Albert Einstein's theory of gravity, known as general relativity. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-gravitational-einstein-theory-general.html General Physics Thu, 29 Jan 2026 12:26:45 EST news688911961 Time feels like the most basic feature of reality. Seconds tick, days pass and everything from planetary motion to human memory seems to unfold along a single, irreversible direction. We are born and we die, in exactly that order. We plan our lives around time, measure it obsessively and experience it as an unbroken flow from past to future. It feels so obvious that time moves forward that questioning it can seem almost pointless. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-fundamental-reality-quiet-revolution-physics.html Quantum Physics Thu, 29 Jan 2026 11:20:54 EST news688908002 Wormholes are often imagined as tunnels through space or time—shortcuts across the universe. But this image rests on a misunderstanding of work by physicists Albert Einstein and Nathan Rosen. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-wormholes-weve-reveal-deeper-universe.html General Physics Thu, 15 Jan 2026 15:40:41 EST news687714002 Scientists in China have performed an experiment first proposed by Albert Einstein almost a century ago when he sought to disprove the quantum mechanical principle of complementarity put forth by Niels Bohr and his school of physicists. Bohr claimed there are properties of particles that cannot simultaneously be measured. The new result backs up the Copenhagen school yet again, with the potential to shed light on other, less settled questions in quantum mechanics. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-real-life-niels-bohr-theoretical.html General Physics Wed, 31 Dec 2025 11:09:13 EST news686378683 When two black holes merge or two neutron stars collide, gravitational waves can be generated. They spread at the speed of light and cause tiny distortions in space-time. Albert Einstein predicted their existence, and the first direct experimental observation dates from 2015. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-laser-quantum-nature-gravity-graviton.html General Physics Tue, 16 Dec 2025 15:20:02 EST news685120627 In 1887, one of the most important experiments in the history of physics took place. American scientists Michelson and Morley failed to measure the speed of Earth by comparing the speed of light in the direction of Earth's motion with that perpendicular to it. That arguably most important zero measurement in the history of science led Einstein to postulate that the speed of light is constant and consequently to formulate his theory of special relativity. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-physicists-constancy-unprecedented-accuracy.html General Physics Wed, 19 Nov 2025 12:50:01 EST news682778406 "Time flies," "time waits for no one," "as time goes on": The way we speak about time tends to strongly imply that the passage of time is some sort of real process that happens out there in the world. We inhabit the present moment and move through time, even as events come and go, fading into the past. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-philosopher-psychological.html Social Sciences Wed, 12 Nov 2025 13:35:04 EST news682176901 In a paper published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, the international LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration reports on the detection of two gravitational wave events in October and November of 2024 with unusual black hole spins. This observation adds an important new piece to our understanding of the most elusive phenomena in the universe. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-gravitational-events-hint-generation-black.html Astronomy Tue, 28 Oct 2025 11:00:10 EDT news680862782 An international team of scientists has unveiled the most comprehensive model yet that explains how cells control the flow of materials in and out of their nuclei—solving one of biology's oldest mysteries. The breakthrough, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sheds light on a process that goes awry in cancer, viral infections, and neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and ALS. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-molecular-reveals-cells-traffic-nucleus.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 20 Oct 2025 11:27:38 EDT news680178451 Some Nobel laureates were straight-A students from the get-go. But others AFP spoke to recounted how they cut class, got expelled, and had doubts about their future. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-unconventional-paths-nobels.html Other Fri, 03 Oct 2025 05:29:52 EDT news678688185 Many governments and tech companies are investing heavily in quantum technologies. In New Zealand, the recently announced Institute for Advanced Technology is also envisioned to focus on this area of research. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-spooky-action-distance-beginner-quantum.html Quantum Physics Thu, 02 Oct 2025 09:35:05 EDT news678616502 The universe is approaching the midpoint of its 33-billion-year lifespan, a Cornell physicist calculates with new data from dark-energy observatories. After expanding to its peak size about 11 billion years from now, it will begin to contract—snapping back like a rubber band to a single point at the end. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-dark-energy-observatories-universe-big.html Astronomy Wed, 01 Oct 2025 12:56:30 EDT news678542187 The Irish mathematician and physicist William Rowan Hamilton, who was born 220 years ago last month, is famous for carving some mathematical graffiti into Dublin's Broome Bridge in 1843. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-years-quantum-mechanics-scientist-glimpsed.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 24 Sep 2025 12:03:03 EDT news677934181 A decade ago, scientists first detected ripples in the fabric of space-time, called gravitational waves, from the collision of two black holes. Now, thanks to improved technology and a bit of luck, a newly detected black hole merger is providing the clearest evidence yet of how black holes work—and, in the process, offering long-sought confirmation of fundamental predictions by Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-black-hole-einstein-hawking.html General Physics Wed, 10 Sep 2025 11:00:40 EDT news676639833