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 New results from the STAR experiment at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) provide strong evidence that smashing oxygen nuclei together at nearly the speed of light generates a quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a type of matter that existed just after the birth of the universe. The data, just published in Physical Review Letters, show that energetic jets of particles lose energy as they traverse the hot, dense matter left in the collision's wake. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-oxygen-collisions-evidence-jet-quenching.html General Physics Tue, 20 Oct 2026 17:20:01 EDT news711719881 Tiny atoms and molecules are constantly bombarding each other all around us. While we regularly measure the large-scale effects of these interactions, measuring the effect of each individual collision is far more difficult. But now, researchers have managed to measure how tiny gas particles affect a single silica particle in the lab. In their new study, published in Physical Review Letters, the team describes how they detected the momentum transfers of individual collisions of gas particles with a nanoparticle levitated in laser light. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-individual-atomic-collisions-lab-potentially.html General Physics Tue, 20 Oct 2026 13:10:01 EDT news711719258 Some supermassive black holes rapidly consume surrounding matter while simultaneously firing powerful streams of plasma into space at nearly the speed of light. However, this creates a physical puzzle: rapid feeding is expected to form a cold, flat accretion disk around the black hole, which prevents powerful jets from forming. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-hot-plasma-rapidly-black-holes.html Astronomy Tue, 20 Oct 2026 12:40:01 EDT news711711481 During the COVID-19 pandemic, air travel declined dramatically. Many view the disruption as a potential tipping point for reducing emissions from the aviation sector. However, once travel restrictions were lifted, passenger traffic quickly rebounded to prepandemic levels and, in many regions, even surpassed them. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-social-norms-infrastructure-climate-transitions.html Environment Mon, 19 Oct 2026 14:20:01 EDT news711628141 Einstein's theory of general relativity describes gravity as the bending of spacetime, a mathematical model that combines three-dimensional space and time into a single, four-dimensional continuum. The theory also predicts that a rotating object, such as Earth, slightly drags the surrounding spacetime as it rotates, a phenomenon known as frame-dragging. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum-sensor-earth-spacetime.html General Physics Thu, 15 Oct 2026 06:40:01 EDT news711189722 An international collaboration led by a research group from GSI/FAIR in Darmstadt, Germany, has achieved the first measurement of the chemical stability of a superheavy element compound. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-superheavy-element-compound-reveals-weaker.html Analytical Chemistry Wed, 14 Oct 2026 15:40:02 EDT news711197821 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 For many years, the simplest view of dark energy has been that it remains unchanged. Throughout cosmic history, the mysterious ingredient believed to drive the universe's accelerated expansion is thought to have behaved in the same way at every epoch. However, an increasing number of observations are challenging this idea. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-alternative-gravity-theory-explanation-dark.html Astronomy Mon, 12 Oct 2026 13:40:14 EDT news711029618 Every black hole hides a question at its center. Einstein's theory predicts that whatever falls in is crushed into a singularity, a point of infinite density where the theory itself breaks down. Most physicists expect quantum gravity to replace that point with something finite. But the center lies hidden behind the horizon. How could we ever learn what is there? https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum-cores-fingerprints-black-holes.html General Physics Fri, 09 Oct 2026 17:40:01 EDT news710671667 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 Quantum technologies are considered key technologies of the future. However, research in this field requires not only scientific expertise but sometimes also highly specialized laboratory conditions. Bose–Einstein condensates are a remarkable example, in which atoms move in lockstep, making quantum-mechanical effects visible not only at the level of individual atoms but also on a macroscopic scale. The first Bose–Einstein condensates were observed in ultracold atomic gases at temperatures close to absolute zero. The cooling required to achieve this was technically demanding, costly and restricted to specialized laboratories. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-layered-semiconductor-magnetic-emitted-quantum.html Condensed Matter Thu, 08 Oct 2026 16:00:11 EDT news710679481 Modern technological breakthroughs like lasers, MRI scanners, semiconductors and quantum computers rest on the study of quantum mechanics. However, the field has predominantly focused on (sub)atomic phenomena far removed from our human senses. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum-shifting-centimeter-scale-lab.html General Physics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 14:00:50 EDT news710514722 Collisions between particles at high energies can sometimes produce new particles and shed light on interactions between the fundamental constituents of matter. Simulating these collisions and their underlying processes could yield valuable insights into how matter behaves at extremely small scales. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum-shortcut-particle-collisions-easier.html General Physics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 08:00:01 EDT news710065765 An international team of astronomers, including researchers from the Department of Physics and the Hong Kong Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (HKIAA) at The University of Hong Kong (HKU), has discovered a previously hidden phase of high-energy activity following the merger of compact stars. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-hidden-ray-phase-revealed-neutron.html Astronomy Sun, 04 Oct 2026 13:00:02 EDT news710002099 Neutron stars, the extremely dense remains of massive stars that exploded at the end of their lives, are widely studied astrophysical objects. Some of these stars, known as pulsars, spin and send out beams of radio waves, making them appear to pulse as the beams sweep past Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-astronomers-lowest-mass-neutron-star.html Astronomy Fri, 02 Oct 2026 08:20:08 EDT news709902345 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 For decades, astronomers have identified collisions between two neutron stars through bursts of gamma rays that can disappear in less than two seconds. But some of these violent encounters may also reveal themselves through X-ray flashes lasting several minutes. A new study published in Science Bulletin provides evidence for this connection, suggesting that merging neutron stars could be hiding among cosmic flashes whose origins have remained uncertain. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-astronomers-link-mysterious-cosmic-collisions.html Astronomy Wed, 30 Sep 2026 15:40:15 EDT news709986721 Strike a bell, and it rings with a pitch and a fading that tell you about the bell: its size, its shape, the metal it is made of. Black holes ring too. When two merge, the newborn black hole shivers and sheds gravitational waves in a brief, dying chord, and since 2015, gravitational-wave detectors have been listening. The notes of that chord, which physicists call quasinormal modes, depend only on the black hole's mass and spin and on the law of gravity itself. Change the law, and the chord changes. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-higher-dimensional-black-holes-exact.html General Physics Thu, 24 Sep 2026 17:20:04 EDT news709463984 Astrophysicists from The University of Hong Kong (HKU), working with a research team led by Beijing Normal University (BNU), have developed a more physically realistic approach to testing how ultralight, or "fuzzy," dark matter could influence gravitationally lensed images. The study is the first to make gravitational-lensing predictions directly from three-dimensional wave simulations of fuzzy dark matter. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-astrophysicists-simulations-window-dark.html Astronomy Wed, 23 Sep 2026 19:40:05 EDT news709402442 A research team led by faculty at the Duke Quantum Center (DQC) has observed string-breaking dynamics related to particle-antiparticle formation on a quantum simulator, among the first such observations in quantum physics. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-quantum-device-simulates.html General Physics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 09:40:01 EDT news709372313 Unlike electric charge, as far as we know all mass is positive, and positive masses attract one another. Could negative mass exist, and if so, what would be the ramifications? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-negative-mass.html General Physics Wed, 23 Sep 2026 09:20:12 EDT news709372229 Understanding the origin, acceleration and propagation of high-energy cosmic rays has been a century-old mystery in astrophysics. Recently, joint observations from China's Einstein Probe (EP) satellite and the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) showed an extraordinarily long X-ray tail near a pulsar about 4,600 light-years (27 quadrillion miles) from Earth—one that had never before been seen in full. The tail extends about 42 light-years (250 trillion miles) and stretches in the same direction as ultrahigh-energy gamma-ray emission detected by LHAASO, with the two showing a close spatial match. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-year-ray-tail-links-pulsar.html Astronomy Tue, 22 Sep 2026 03:57:28 EDT news709268201 Physicists at UC Santa Barbara have extended the search for evidence of microscopic black holes produced at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The formation of these tiny, fleeting objects at the LHC represents one way theorists have sought to resolve anomalies in our understanding of the basic structure of spacetime, while the method used to look for them demonstrates a new way of searching for new particles. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-physicists-quantum-black-holes-lhc.html General Physics Fri, 18 Sep 2026 14:20:07 EDT news708954181 Molecular gases are a new form of artificial quantum matter. However, when these molecules collide, they are often lost extremely rapidly. Researchers from Radboud University and Columbia University have been able to suppress this collisional loss, paving the way for strongly interacting quantum matter. This new artificial quantum matter allows researchers to study quantum behavior relevant to electrons in real materials. Their results are published in Science. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-extremely-stable-quantum-gas-lens.html Condensed Matter Fri, 18 Sep 2026 12:20:01 EDT news708945122 Somewhere between the microscopic realm of elementary particles and the macroscopic world of human beings, something strange happens: The rules of quantum physics, which work so exquisitely for tiny atoms, seem to lose their grip as objects grow larger. Pondering where and how this shift from small-scale quantum fuzziness to everyday sharp certainty happens gives rise to thought-experiment oddities like Schrödinger's famous dead-and-alive cat. The process by which quantum phenomena like superposition—the paradoxical affliction of Schrödinger's cat—fade into the classical reality we experience is known as decoherence. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-schrdinger-cat-underground-gravity-quantum.html General Physics Thu, 17 Sep 2026 15:00:11 EDT news708864241 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 A few hundred million years after the Big Bang, the first stars ignited—literally the "let there be light" moment for the universe. Now known to astronomers as Population III, or Pop III, stars, these giants were very different from the stars we know today. They formed from pristine hydrogen and helium, with almost no "metal" (i.e., other elements) holding them back. They were also huge, growing to tens to hundreds of times larger than the sun. And they died young, in many cases collapsing into the universe's earliest black holes. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-gen-gravitational-detectors-black-holes.html Astronomy Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:00:11 EDT news708159902 How did a photon survive a journey of more than 2 billion light-years when, according to known physics, it should have been absorbed long before reaching Earth? This is the question at the heart of a new study by Giorgio Galanti (INAF) and Marco Roncadelli (INFN), accepted for publication in Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-photon-einstein-current-physics-earth.html General Physics Tue, 08 Sep 2026 09:40:01 EDT news708076502