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. A team of scientists from around the world has created the first system that can predict when and where extremely powerful solar storms, called superflares, are most likely to happen. These storms can disrupt power grids, communications, and satellites, and even pose dangers to astronauts in space. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-solar-eruptions-sun-side-validate.html Astronomy Tue, 24 Feb 2026 19:20:01 EST news691166641 As the U.S. government turns its attention to drug cartels in Mexico, new research from the University of California, Davis, suggests that violent competition among criminal organizations increases the risks migrants face at the northern border. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-cartel-violence-migrants-mexico-border.html Social Sciences Tue, 09 Dec 2025 05:23:14 EST news684480181 A new study found that land use (agricultural or forested) and the season (wet or dry) significantly impact groundwater quality, but in different ways. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-hidden-crisis-groundwater-quality-philippines.html Earth Sciences Mon, 16 Jun 2025 12:00:05 EDT news669294002 A new prediction method was tested with satellite remote sensing and species distribution data over 20 years in Andalusia, making possible the development of more dynamic and integrative conservation area prioritization indicators. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-tool-precisely-areas-prioritize-environmental.html Ecology Wed, 04 Jun 2025 16:29:04 EDT news668273342 "I had never worked with mushrooms before," Luis said, reflecting on his time in Chester County's mushroom industry. "But my family has always worked in agriculture, so I like it. I'm used to hard work." https://phys.org/news/2025-03-pennsylvania-mushroom-industry-urgent-labor.html Economics & Business Wed, 12 Mar 2025 12:12:05 EDT news661000322 Over the past two decades, the Gulf of Maine has become a popular landing spot for invasive species from across the world, says Geoffrey Trussell, an evolutionary biologist and professor at Northeastern University's Marine Science Center in Nahant, Massachusetts. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-shells-sea-snails-invasive-predators.html Evolution Mon, 10 Mar 2025 10:09:04 EDT news660820141 The site of what is now the Metropolitan apartment complex on Oak Street in Boston has been at the heart of community life in the city's Chinatown neighborhood for nearly a century. A hub for the city's immigrants, it was a seat of activism in the 1950s and '60s against large-scale urban renewal projects that wiped out sections of many immigrant neighborhoods across the city. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-architecture-class-students-tackle-gentrification.html Economics & Business Wed, 29 Jan 2025 09:52:01 EST news657366715 Siblings between the ages of 4 and 8 can have up to eight fights an hour, Northeastern University psychology professor Laurie Kramer says. If you don't live with children this age, that stat may seem a tad dramatic; if you do, you're probably nodding your head. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-online-siblings-bond.html Social Sciences Thu, 19 Dec 2024 09:58:11 EST news653824680 Patterns in chaos have been proven, in the incredibly tiny quantum realm, by an international team co-led by UC Santa Cruz physicist Jairo Velasco, Jr. In a new paper published on November 27 in Nature, the researchers detail an experiment that confirms a theory first put forth 40 years ago stating that electrons confined in quantum space would move along common paths rather than producing a chaotic jumble of trajectories. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-physics-patterns-chaos-peculiar-quantum.html Quantum Physics Mon, 02 Dec 2024 13:38:45 EST news652369116 Physicists have been trying to design fusion reactors, technologies that can generate energy via nuclear fusion processes, for decades. The successful realization of fusion reactors relies on the ability to effectively confine charged particles with magnetic fields, as this in turn enables the control of high-energy plasma. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-family-optimized-omnigenous-magnetic-fields.html Plasma Physics Fri, 15 Nov 2024 07:50:01 EST news650799844 It's becoming as much of a tradition as costumed trick-or-treaters and skeletons crawling across lawns studded with cardboard gravestones: candy corn and jumbo bags of Snickers start popping up on grocery store shelves a few weeks after Independence Day. We all gripe about it, bemoaning the premature send-off of summer and the ephemerality of our very existence. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-death-mortality-salience-early-halloween.html Social Sciences Mon, 02 Sep 2024 11:38:03 EDT news644495881 When Ecuador's navy seized a Chinese-flagged ship off the Galapagos Islands in 2017, its hold brimmed with tons and tons of poached fish, many of them threatened species like hammerhead and thresher sharks. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-ecuador-galapagos-shark-poaching-ship.html Ecology Tue, 23 Jul 2024 04:38:25 EDT news640928259 During a stifling heat wave in August 2021, 80 volunteers from Massachusetts communities along the Mystic River fixed sensors to their car windows and bicycles, traveling along 19 predetermined routes recording ambient temperature and humidity levels along the way. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-citizen-science.html Other Wed, 03 Jul 2024 13:00:01 EDT news639229614 On the banks of the Madre de Dios river, dredges work day and night in search of gold, part of a scourge of illegal mining that is slowly devouring the Peruvian Amazon. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-illegal-gold-peruvian-amazon.html Environment Mon, 17 Jun 2024 04:30:02 EDT news637816600 Touchscreens have long been integral to our everyday life—humans use them to work, play, talk with loved ones and snag Lightning Deals on Prime Day. In recent years, they've shown potential for the animal kingdom as well, leading to a growing body of academic research and a proliferation of consumer products promising to leverage technology to enhance our relationships with our pets. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-parrots-playing-tablet-games.html Plants & Animals Thu, 21 Mar 2024 14:37:07 EDT news630250623 Jellyfish can't do much besides swim, sting, eat, and breed. They don't even have brains. Yet, these simple creatures can easily journey to the depths of the oceans in a way that humans, despite all our sophistication, cannot. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-bionic-jellyfish-ocean-exploration.html Biotechnology Wed, 28 Feb 2024 17:12:04 EST news628362722 Once a lush oasis bursting with native and exotic plants, Chile's biggest botanical garden has been left grayed and charred after a wildfire blazed through last week, also killing a nursery manager and members of her family. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-chile-biggest-botanical-garden-smoker.html Ecology Wed, 07 Feb 2024 13:00:01 EST news626532310 Nearly five years ago, a globe-spanning team of astronomers gave the world its first-ever glimpse of a black hole. Now the team has validated both their original findings and our understanding of black holes with a new image of the supermassive black hole M87*. This supermassive black hole, 6.5 billion times the mass of our sun, resides at the center of the Messier 87 (M87) galaxy in the Virgo galaxy cluster, located 55 million light-years from Earth. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-m87.html Astronomy Sat, 27 Jan 2024 09:50:01 EST news625236085 The chemical industry has long been shadowed by unwelcome images of billowing smokestacks and pipes discharging toxic effluent. Modern manufacturing practices have done much to mitigate the industry's environmental impact, but there remains room for improvement. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-team-combines-catalysts-common-chemical.html Analytical Chemistry Fri, 05 Jan 2024 13:20:03 EST news623683201 A study has shed new light on remarkable feats of navigation from cultures across the world: from sailors in the Marshall Islands using wave patterns to navigate the vast Pacific Ocean to indigenous communities in Alaska using stars to find their way across the Yukon. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-star-explores-remarkable-ways-traditional.html Social Sciences Thu, 21 Dec 2023 16:52:41 EST news622399958 When we last checked in with Caltech's Kerry Vahala three years ago, his lab had recently reported the development of a new optical device called a turnkey frequency microcomb that has applications in digital communications, precision time keeping, spectroscopy, and even astronomy. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-conjoined-racetracks-optical-device.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 08 Dec 2023 14:57:23 EST news621269838 For about 20 years, Caltech Professor of Applied Physics Paul Bellan and his group have been creating magnetically accelerated jets of plasma, an electrically conducting gas composed of ions and electrons, in a vacuum chamber big enough to hold a person. (Neon signs and lightning are everyday examples of plasma). https://phys.org/news/2023-12-physicist-x-rays-shouldnt-cold-plasma.html Plasma Physics Tue, 05 Dec 2023 12:38:25 EST news621002302 City dwellers have long had to contend with smog—that ugly haze that hangs over urban areas—as a result of emissions-producing human activities as diverse as manufacturing, mowing the lawn, driving cars, and even cooking. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-chemists-tackle-formation-natural-aerosols.html Analytical Chemistry Thu, 16 Nov 2023 16:38:04 EST news619375081 The sex hormone commonly known as estrogen plays an important role in multiple aspects of women's health and fertility. High levels of estrogen in the body are associated with breast and ovarian cancers, while low levels of estradiol can result in osteoporosis, heart disease, and even depression. (Estrogen is a class of hormones that includes estradiol as the most potent form). Estradiol is also necessary for the development of secondary sexual characteristics in women and regulates the reproductive cycle. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-wearable-aptamer-nanobiosensor-wirelessly-estrogen.html Bio & Medicine Thu, 28 Sep 2023 15:10:09 EDT news615132601 Late last year, Caltech researchers revealed that they had developed a new fabrication technique for printing microsized metal parts containing features about as thick as three or four sheets of paper. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-technique-3d-metals-nanoscale-reveals.html Nanophysics Thu, 21 Sep 2023 09:45:20 EDT news614508317 Chemotherapy as a treatment for cancer is one of the major medical success stories of the 20th century, but it's far from perfect. Anyone who has been through chemotherapy or who has had a friend or loved one go through it will be familiar with its many side effects: hair loss, nausea, weakened immune system, and even infertility and nerve damage. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-drug-delivery-platform-leverages-air-filled.html Bio & Medicine Tue, 19 Sep 2023 15:50:04 EDT news614357402 Between 1840 and 1867, thousands of enslaved Africans who had been "liberated" from slave ships intercepted by the British Royal Navy were taken to the South Atlantic island of St Helena. But little is written in history books or otherwise known about the lives of these individuals. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-dna-analyses-st-helena-liberated.html Archaeology Thu, 07 Sep 2023 11:00:01 EDT news613295886 Across the animal kingdom there are creatures that move through their environments not by walking or running or climbing but instead by simply changing the shape of their bodies. This kind of locomotion is found in snakes as they slither, in stingrays as they swim, and even in cats as they twist themselves to land on their feet as they fall. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-jellyfish-cat-snake-astronaut-common.html Mathematics Thu, 10 Aug 2023 08:59:30 EDT news610876760 Nearly every material, whether it is solid, liquid, or gas, expands when its temperature goes up and contracts when its temperature goes down. This property, called thermal expansion, makes a hot air balloon float, and the phenomenon has been harnessed to create thermostats that automatically turn a home furnace on and off. Railroads, bridges, and buildings are designed with this property in mind, and they are given room to expand without buckling or breaking on a hot day. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-alloys-dont-size.html Condensed Matter Thu, 27 Jul 2023 14:55:59 EDT news609688553 If you take an object and set it out in the sun, it will begin to warm up. This is because it is absorbing energy from the sun's rays and converting that energy to heat. If you leave that object outside, it will continue getting warmer, but only to a point. A sunbather lying on a beach won't catch fire, after all. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-energy-harvesting-law-breaking-device.html General Physics Tue, 25 Jul 2023 16:42:33 EDT news609522149