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. In a new open-access study that I published with my late colleague Kostya Trachenko from Queen Mary University of London, I propose a surprisingly simple nonlinear mathematical equation that unifies 12,000 years of human population growth and points to stark possible futures if global environmental crises intensify. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mathematical-global-population.html Mathematics Mon, 25 May 2026 10:00:02 EDT news698921136 Gene expression is controlled, in part, by the interactions between genes and regulatory elements located along the genome. Those interactions depend on the ability of chromatin—a mix of DNA and proteins—to move around within a crowded space. In a new study, MIT researchers have measured chromatin movement at timescales ranging from hundreds of microseconds to hours, allowing them to rigorously quantify those dynamics for the first time. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-chromatin-tracking-reveals-motion-modes.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 04 May 2026 09:00:01 EDT news697101841 The electrons that power our society flow left and right through the circuitry in our electronics, back and forth along the transmission lines that make up our power grid, and up and down to light up every floor of every building. But the electrons in newly discovered "moiré crystals" move in much stranger ways. They can move left and right, back and forth, or up and down in our three-dimensional world, but these electrons also act as if they can teleport in and out of a mysterious fourth dimension of space that is perpendicular to our perceivable reality. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-electrons-moir-crystals-explore-higher.html Condensed Matter Mon, 06 Apr 2026 10:00:03 EDT news694685941 Researchers studying the soft-bodied Ediacaran biotas of the world generally accept that there are three distinct assemblages. The 575–560-million-year-old (Ma) Avalon Assemblage is best known from the Ediacaran of Newfoundland, Canada, characterized by the weird and wonderful fractal Rangeomorpha like Charnia that thrived in the deep, dark waters around the ancient continent of Avalonia. The 560–550-Ma White Sea Assemblage is best known from shallow marine rocks of Australia, Russia, and China, marking the acme of Ediacaran biodiversity and including some famous animal ancestors such as Dickinsonia and Kimberella. And the 550–538-Ma Nama Assemblage is a low-diversity biota that persisted until the extinction event preceding the Cambrian Radiation event at 538 Ma. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-exceptionally-million-year-site-avalon.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 26 Feb 2026 18:00:02 EST news691330727 In a recent paper, SFI Professor David Wolpert, SFI Fractal Faculty member Carlo Rovelli, and physicist Jordan Scharnhorst examine a longstanding, paradoxical thought experiment in statistical physics and cosmology known as the "Boltzmann brain" hypothesis—the possibility that our memories, perceptions, and observations could arise from random fluctuations in entropy rather than reflecting the universe's actual past. The work is published in the journal Entropy. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-memories-illusions-disentangles-boltzmann-brain.html General Physics Wed, 21 Jan 2026 15:10:01 EST news688230162 In Earth's fossil record, soft-bodied organisms like jellyfish rarely stand the test of time. What's more, it's hard for any animal to get preserved with exceptional detail in sandstones, which are made of large grains, are porous, and commonly form in environments swept by rough storms and waves. But about 570 million years ago, in a geologic time interval called the Ediacaran period, strange-looking, soft-bodied organisms died on the seafloor, were buried in sand, and fossilized in incredible detail. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-strange-ancient-remarkable-fossils.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 08 Jan 2026 13:35:40 EST news687101701 Oxygen tank strapped to his back, Michael del Rosario moves his fins delicately as he glides along an underwater nursery just off the Dominican Republic coast, proudly showing off the "coral babies" growing on metal structures that look like large spiders. The conservationist enthusiastically points a finger to trace around the largest corals, just starting to reveal their vibrant colors. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-reefs-coral-fertilization-dominican-republic.html Ecology Tue, 16 Dec 2025 10:37:13 EST news685103704 Young women in postrevolutionary Iran used audacious acts of public dance, particularly during the past decade, to resist unjust gender-based laws and cultural norms that disenfranchise women, a University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign sociology scholar says in a digital ethnographic study. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-protest-iran.html Social Sciences Wed, 10 Dec 2025 18:40:04 EST news684592847 Researchers at University of Tsukuba have demonstrated, through multi-agent simulations in a two-dimensional space, that the combination of environmental variability and human migration may foster the evolution of human cooperative behavior because their joint effect disrupts non-cooperative groups while facilitating the emergence of cooperative groups. The research is published in the journal Chaos, Solitons & Fractals. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-environmental-shifts-migration-foster-human.html Mathematics Tue, 09 Dec 2025 17:30:01 EST news684502087 When a gas is highly energized, its electrons get torn from the parent atoms, resulting in a plasma—the oft-forgotten fourth state of matter (along with solid, liquid, and gas). When we think of plasmas, we normally think of extremely hot phenomena such as the sun, lightning, or maybe arc welding, but there are situations in which icy cold particles are associated with plasmas. Images of distant molecular clouds from the James Webb Space Telescope feature such hot–cold interactions, with frozen dust illuminated by pockets of shocked gas and newborn stars. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-icy-hot-plasmas-fluffy-electrically.html Plasma Physics Mon, 08 Dec 2025 10:02:59 EST news684410561 Most of us first hear about the irrational number π (pi)—rounded off as 3.14, with an infinite number of decimal digits—in school, where we learn about its use in the context of a circle. More recently, scientists have developed supercomputers that can estimate up to trillions of its digits. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-ramanujan-formulae-pi-modern-high.html General Physics Wed, 03 Dec 2025 08:07:20 EST news683971621 While atmospheric turbulence is a familiar culprit of rough flights, the chaotic movement of turbulent flows remains an unsolved problem in physics. To gain insight into the system, a team of researchers used explainable AI to pinpoint the most important regions in a turbulent flow, according to a Nature Communications study led by the University of Michigan and the Universitat Politècnica de València. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-ai-turbulence-fresh-unsolved-physics.html General Physics Thu, 20 Nov 2025 09:46:04 EST news682854361 What makes art art? Is it the method or the creator? Does it need a color palette and oil paints, or a canvas laid flat on the floor and paint splattered across it? Does it require a critically acclaimed painter, or a toddler with crayons? And when it comes to the artist, can we even reliably tell if an artwork has been created by children or adults? https://phys.org/news/2025-11-kid-jackson-pollock-famous-child.html General Physics Thu, 20 Nov 2025 00:00:02 EST news682704661 Researchers from Skoltech, the University of Potsdam, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have discovered a fundamental physical law that governs the seemingly chaotic motion of chromosomes inside a living cell. This discovery helps solve a long-standing biological mystery of how two-meter-long DNA molecules, packed into dense chromosomes, remain mobile enough for vital processes such as turning genes on and off. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-universal-law-chaotic-motion-chromosomes.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 10 Nov 2025 20:10:01 EST news681998699 Space dust provides more than just awe-inspiring pictures like the Pillars of Creation. It can provide the necessary materials to build everything from planets to asteroids. But what it actually looks like, especially in terms of its "porosity" (i.e., how many holes it has) has been an area of debate for astrochemists for decades. A new paper from Alexey Potapov of Friedrich Schiller University Jena and his co-authors published in The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review suggests that the dust that makes up so much of the universe might be "spongier" than originally thought. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-cosmic-bunnies-universe-fluffier-thought.html Astronomy Mon, 10 Nov 2025 16:02:03 EST news682012921 Now that we have tools to find vast numbers of voids in the universe, we can finally ask…well, if we crack 'em open, what do we find inside? https://phys.org/news/2025-11-cosmic-voids.html Astronomy Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:08:03 EST news681390482 Researchers have for the first time created a reconfigurable polariton 2D quasicrystal. The team from the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Skoltech), in collaboration with colleagues from the University of Iceland, the University of Warsaw, and the Institute of Spectroscopy of the Russian Academy of Sciences, demonstrated that this unique state of matter exhibits long-range order and a novel type of phase synchronization, opening new pathways for research into exotic phenomena such as supersolids and superfluidity in aperiodic settings. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-scientists-quasicrystal.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 23 Oct 2025 09:03:03 EDT news680428981 Many people look at trees to relax, taking in the soothing fractal patterns to adjust their eyes from too many hours spent at a computer. Dominick "Dom" Ciruzzi, assistant professor of geology at William & Mary, takes tree watching to a whole new level. An ecohydrologist, Ciruzzi is fascinated by how ecosystems and water interact, and he's taken a special interest in arboreal life. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-nature-language-video-analysis-tree.html Ecology Tue, 30 Sep 2025 14:22:04 EDT news678460921 Salt intrusion is a growing concern worldwide. Eleonora Saccon, who completed a master's degree in climate change ecology in her native Italy, studied the effects of salty surface water at the NIOZ branch in Zeeland. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-salt-tolerant-floodplain-forests-salinity.html Earth Sciences Thu, 25 Sep 2025 15:41:03 EDT news678033661 Magic-angle twisted bilayer graphene (MATBG) is a material created by stacking two sheets of graphene onto each other, with a small twist angle of about 1.1°. At this "magic angle," electrons move very slowly, which can lead to the emergence of highly correlated electron states. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-hofstadter-butterfly-bilayer-graphene-reveals.html Condensed Matter Mon, 08 Sep 2025 11:20:07 EDT news676548681 New research published in the journal Science reveals the red planet's mantle preserves a record of its violent beginnings. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-mars-mantle-chaotic-features-colossal.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 28 Aug 2025 14:00:08 EDT news675514621 A team of researchers from the Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a new method to quantify the three-dimensional complexity of mountainous terrain. The novel tool, called the terrain complexity index (TCI), offers a more accurate way to understand and predict key ecological factors like soil erosion and plant biodiversity in difficult-to-study landscapes. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-terrain-complexity-index-scientists-soil.html Ecology Thu, 21 Aug 2025 11:15:03 EDT news674993701 Graphite is a key structural component in some of the world's oldest nuclear reactors and many of the next-generation designs being built today. But it also condenses and swells in response to radiation—and the mechanism behind those changes has proven difficult to study. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-graphite-pore-size-clues-nuclear.html Analytical Chemistry Fri, 15 Aug 2025 10:07:05 EDT news674471221 Yellowstone, a popular tourist destination and namesake of an equally popular TV show, was the first-ever national park in the United States. And bubbling beneath it—to this day—is one of Earth's most seismically active networks of volcanic activity. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-machine-uncovers-earthquakes-yellowstone-caldera.html Earth Sciences Sat, 19 Jul 2025 07:31:54 EDT news672129103 Do you think you know which species are most vulnerable in an ecosystem? A novel analytical method developed by Italian physicists at the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) suggests there's more to discover. In their recent study, they found out how species like lizards and rabbits in South Florida's cypress wetlands are among their ecosystem's most at-risk species, pointing to vulnerabilities that aren't always obvious. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-tool-hidden-roles-ecosystems.html Ecology Thu, 10 Jul 2025 11:50:01 EDT news671365335 People in the UK and US are more likely to feel nostalgic towards places by the sea, lakes or rivers than they are towards fields, forests and mountains, according to new research. The study suggests that coastlines may have the optimal visual properties to make us feel positive emotions, and argues that "place nostalgia" offers significant psychological benefits. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-seaside-nostalgic-green.html Social Sciences Thu, 10 Jul 2025 04:23:11 EDT news671340182 Imagine being tasked with baking a soufflé, except the only instruction provided is an ingredient list without any measurements or temperatures. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-chemical-storm-fronts-framework-enables.html Polymers Wed, 11 Jun 2025 17:14:04 EDT news668880841 About 66 million years ago—perhaps on a downright unlucky day in May—an asteroid smashed into our planet. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-ancient-fossils-mass-extinction-scrambled.html Evolution Tue, 10 Jun 2025 13:00:01 EDT news668778767 In a new Nature Physics study, researchers have provided evidence of universal conformal invariance in living biological cells. They show that a universal feature in the collective behavior emerges in groups of living cells. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-scientists-evidence-universal-conformal-invariance.html General Physics Fri, 11 Apr 2025 06:30:03 EDT news663499272 We have developed a breakthrough method to convert carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) from vehicular emissions into high-performance electrocatalysts. This innovation provides a sustainable approach to pollution management and energy production by repurposing harmful particulate matter into valuable materials for renewable energy applications. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-pollution-power-method-carbon-nanoparticles.html Nanomaterials Mon, 03 Mar 2025 10:18:49 EST news660219521