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. Older adults and technology haven't always had the smoothest relationship. From learning to use email to operating smartphones, each new wave has brought fresh challenges and frustrations. Now, mastering QR codes is the latest hurdle. Recent research from the University of South Florida shows that when these interactions are difficult, customer satisfaction and loyalty can suffer. Since COVID-19, there's been a dramatic rise in the use of QR codes, particularly in hospitality settings such as restaurants. This shift has been especially challenging for older adults. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-qr-codes-older-customers.html Economics & Business Wed, 22 Apr 2026 17:00:06 EDT news696090842 For decades, two different viruses were believed to be responsible for a common, untreatable disease in dahlias, a colorful, high-value flower grown worldwide. Virologists at Washington State University have now learned that the two viruses, known as dahlia mosaic virus and the dahlia common mosaic virus, are variants of the same viral species. Based on the sequencing and comparison of the viruses' genomes, the discovery was published in the journal Archives of Virology. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-dahlia-viruses-variants-species.html Plants & Animals Wed, 22 Apr 2026 16:20:05 EDT news696081482 At 9 p.m., shops, restaurants and cafes go dark across the city of Cairo, where a stringent curfew has been imposed to mitigate the energy shock triggered by the conflict in the Gulf. The measure may prove difficult to enforce among people accustomed to long, convivial evenings, but the outlook is far from reassuring. Reports from inland areas indicate that petrol stations are running dry, raising fears that the emergency will last longer than expected. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-world-crisis-leaders-resisting-remote.html Economics & Business Tue, 21 Apr 2026 21:40:01 EDT news695998022 Florida's Indian River Lagoon has been an ecosystem in decline going back to 2011, when harmful algal blooms led to a severe decline in seagrass, the foundational component of shallow coastal ecosystems. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-hurricanes-devastated-florida-east-coast.html Ecology Tue, 21 Apr 2026 19:00:06 EDT news695997422 Melbourne home sellers and landlords lost up to $55 million a week as sales prices and rents declined after the second severely restrictive COVID-19 lockdown (July 2020) to attract buyers and renters who were relocating to less restrictive lockdowns outside the city, a QUT-led study has found. The findings are published in the journal Real Estate Economics. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-severe-covid-lockdowns-home-sellers.html Economics & Business Tue, 21 Apr 2026 10:00:01 EDT news695983381 By a dictionary definition, the word resilient means an ability to recover from or adjust easily to misfortune or change. The key words here? "Recover" and "change." https://phys.org/news/2026-04-canada-uk-g7-nations-resilient.html Education Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:00:04 EDT news695902862 A seismic hush fell over U.S. and Canadian cities that were in the "path of totality" during the 8 April 2024 total solar eclipse, according to new research presented at the 2026 SSA Annual Meeting. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-total-solar-eclipse-quiets-seismic.html Earth Sciences Mon, 20 Apr 2026 09:40:01 EDT news695893561 Photosynthetic bacteria helped shape planet Earth. Among them are cyanobacteria that produced the oxygen in the atmosphere and made complex life possible, captivating scientists for decades. Now, researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) report a surprising new discovery—a system thought to separate DNA has developed to sculpt the shape of the cell in cyanobacteria instead. The results, published in Science, shed light on how protein systems evolve and how multicellularity emerged in this type of ecologically essential bacteria. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-cyanobacteria-scientists-evolutionary-shift.html Evolution Thu, 16 Apr 2026 14:00:07 EDT news695472121 What happens inside the lungs before COVID-19 symptoms appear? Research in mink offers a rare window into the early stages of the disease. These insights matter for both animal and human health. Researchers and veterinary pathologists from Wageningen Bioveterinary Research (WBVR, part of Wageningen University & Research), together with Royal GD and Utrecht University, followed the course of SARS-CoV-2 infection in mink. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-covid-mink-farm-reveals-early.html Veterinary medicine Wed, 15 Apr 2026 22:00:01 EDT news695463744 If you can't get no satisfaction, then maybe it's because happiness does not only stem from pleasure or a meaningful existence. Instead, a new Simon Fraser University study suggests that freedom is the key to happiness. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-autonomy-key-happiness.html Social Sciences Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:20:02 EDT news695474282 A multidisciplinary archaeological team has examined plague burials from a 17th-century monastery turned hospital in Basel, Switzerland, shedding light on how social status impacted plague mortality in Early Modern Europe. Their study, "All equal in the face of death? Life histories of confirmed victims of the last plague epidemic in Basel," is published in the journal Antiquity. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-great-equalizer-young-laborers-hardest.html Archaeology Tue, 14 Apr 2026 05:00:05 EDT news694964942 Child marriage in Malawi has proven to be a persistent problem. Nearly 40% of girls are married by the age of 18 despite legal reforms. New research from the University of Kansas draws on insights from those working on the issue in the country. Attempts to combat child marriage are often guided by well-intentioned approaches that do not always align and leave out key stakeholders and local knowledge, according to Linda Banda, a Malawi native and KU alumna. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-efforts-child-marriage-malawi-local.html Social Sciences Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:00:14 EDT news695302921 The wave-shaped chart Ratul Chowdhury pulls up on a computer monitor in his office captures the evolutionary cat-and-mouse game his research lab is up against. The undulating curves track variants of the porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) virus, which causes a swine disease that annually costs the global pork industry more than $1 billion—damage attributable in part to how quickly it adapts to escape from immune defenses. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-future-proofing-livestock-vaccines-viruses.html Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 13 Apr 2026 13:20:06 EDT news695300942 From the Wright brothers' first flight to the speedy development of COVID-19 vaccines, collaboration has been key to innovation. Paradoxically, even competitors can benefit from collaboration—when they hold different pieces of the same puzzle. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-knowledge-firewalls-alliance-firms-weaken.html Economics & Business Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:40:04 EDT news695041455 Millions of students nationwide use text-supplemented audiobooks, learning tools that are thought to help those who struggle with reading keep up in the classroom. A new study by scientists at MIT's McGovern Institute for Brain Research finds that many students do benefit from audiobooks, gaining new vocabulary through the stories they hear. But study participants learned significantly more when audiobooks were paired with explicit one-on-one instruction—and this was especially true for students who were poor readers. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-audiobooks-students-words-paired.html Education Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:20:04 EDT news695045461 Hedgehogs, elephants, pangolins, bears or fennec foxes: many wild species are sold as pets, hunting trophies, for traditional medicine, biomedical research, or for their meat or fur. These practices, whether legal or illegal, concern one-quarter of all mammal species. Now a study conducted at the Department of Ecology and Evolution of the University of Lausanne (Unil) quantifies the impact of wildlife trade on the exchange of germs and parasites between animals and humans. The work, titled "Wildlife trade drives animal-to-human pathogen transmission over 40 years," appears in Science. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-wildlife-pathogen-transmission-years-spillover.html Ecology Thu, 09 Apr 2026 14:00:08 EDT news694945081 Johannesburg's air quality has never really been measured systematically. Like many other cities across the globe, scientists have battled to develop cost-effective monitoring systems that provide accurate real-time data on air pollution. This is all about to change, thanks to some home-grown tech and the power of AI. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ai-driven-air-quality.html Environment Thu, 09 Apr 2026 11:20:03 EDT news694948742 From space, Earth's populated areas glow on the otherwise "black marble" of the planet at night. For decades, scientists assumed this glow was steadily increasing as the world developed. However, a new study published in Nature flips this narrative. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-satellites-capture-volatile-humanluminescence-relationship.html Environment Wed, 08 Apr 2026 18:40:01 EDT news694880162 The potent emerald-green blend of wormwood, green anise and fennel, known as "the Green Fairy," was once celebrated by French society, including artists from Baudelaire to Van Gogh. By the early 1900s, France consumed more absinthe than the rest of the world put together. Yet within decades, it was banned and deemed a "national poison." https://phys.org/news/2026-04-absinthe-france-aromatic-spirit-modern.html Social Sciences Wed, 08 Apr 2026 09:30:01 EDT news694859222 Emissions of two major pollutants have steadily decreased on Salt Lake City roads over the past two decades, while levels of carbon dioxide emissions, a related gas blamed for climate change, remained steady, according to a new study by University of Utah atmospheric scientists conducted in partnership with the federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The research is published in the journal Atmospheric Environment. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-salt-lake-city-downward-emissions.html Environment Wed, 01 Apr 2026 16:40:05 EDT news694279921 As the UK entered COVID-19 lockdown in March 2020, security services and counterterrorism officials warned of a new threat forming in young people's bedrooms. Superintendent Matthew Davison, head of Prevent North-East, cautioned that extremists were deliberately targeting isolated young people online, while Detective Superintendent Jim Hall in Wales warned of rising exposure to radicalizing material on social media. The narrative was compelling: a generation of bored and frustrated young people across the United Kingdom cut off from schools, colleges and universities, isolated from friends and routines, spending unprecedented hours of screen time online, rendering them susceptible to recruitment by far-right and Islamist propagandists. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-covid-pandemic-nudged-young-people.html Social Sciences Tue, 31 Mar 2026 14:10:01 EDT news694174969 An international team of scientists is warning that everyday antibacterial soaps, wipes, sprays, and other "germ-killing" products are quietly contributing to the global rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) while providing no added health benefit for most consumer uses. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-antibacterial-soaps-fuel-antimicrobial-resistance.html Environment Tue, 31 Mar 2026 09:20:03 EDT news694167135 People's political persuasions can have a significant influence on their initial response to a global health crisis, according to new research. But while they do tend to respond to guidance issued or followed by their political leaders of choice, the study showed that people's behavior can be altered by targeted interventions that highlight the potential impact of choices they make on those around them. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-normative-messaging-bridges-partisan-gap.html Social Sciences Mon, 30 Mar 2026 17:20:06 EDT news694071969 When you go out to run errands on the weekend, you're on a "tour" as defined by human mobility researchers. Same if you book a guided tour of a famous city or take a trip on a cruise boat that reaches multiple ports. A characteristic of such tours is that you begin and end up in the same place and take intermediate stops along the way. The number of stops is the tour's "length." https://phys.org/news/2026-03-science-delivery.html Mathematics Mon, 30 Mar 2026 14:20:02 EDT news694089403 Nucleic acids such as DNA and RNA play a central role in gene therapies and vaccines. They store and transmit biological information. In order for them to work in the body, they must enter the cells using chemical carrier systems. Researchers at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon are now proposing a new strategy for developing such systems: instead of using the same carrier material for different nucleic acids, the carrier should be individually adapted to the respective payload. This could improve the effectiveness of vaccines, for example. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-lipid-nanoparticles-custom-polymers-ai.html Bio & Medicine Thu, 26 Mar 2026 17:50:01 EDT news693763621 Analysis of two decades of student data at a large U.S. university suggests that grade inflation exists in graduate education. Researcher Vivien Lee and colleagues at the University of Minnesota, U.S., present these findings in the journal PLOS One. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-significant-grade-inflation-decades-worth.html Education Wed, 25 Mar 2026 14:00:03 EDT news693587581 A new paper in Genome Biology and Evolution, indicates that while the COVID-19 virus has developed rapidly since 2019, it has done so within limited genetic channels. These genetic limits have remained unchanged. Despite scientists' earlier fears about dramatic, rapid evolution of the COVID-19 virus, it appears recent changes in the virus were relatively constrained; the virus altered by combining pre-existing mutations. The virus has not expanded the number of genetic routes it can take to evolve. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-uncovering-evolutionary-limits-covid-virus.html Evolution Wed, 25 Mar 2026 00:10:02 EDT news693576421 When holidays or pandemics shut down schools, gender differences in children's reading habits widen; boys stop reading, while girls continue, according to a new study from the University of Copenhagen. The researchers say their findings suggest that boys are more dependent on school routines and expectations than girls. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-boys-ditch-schools-girls.html Social Sciences Tue, 24 Mar 2026 13:00:01 EDT news693570698 Following the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, lateral flow assays (LFAs)—the category of test strips in which the presence or lack of a pink line indicates whether a specific molecule, like a drug or a virus, has been detected—became household items. Yet despite their ubiquity and decades of development, there has not been a quantitative, physics-grounded method for explaining the sensitivity and limits of LFAs to help guide their design. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-sensitive-fentanyl-physics.html Bio & Medicine Tue, 24 Mar 2026 11:00:07 EDT news693479511 Penn Engineers have redesigned a key component of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), the delivery vehicles behind mRNA vaccines, to steer the particles toward lymph nodes while reducing off-target delivery to the liver. The advance could make mRNA vaccines more efficient, potentially achieving strong immune protection at lower doses. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-lipid-nanoparticle-precision-mrna-vaccine.html Bio & Medicine Tue, 24 Mar 2026 08:00:03 EDT news693489121