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. The first findings from a major survey of more than 800 young people ages 11–17 about social media were revealed to local schoolchildren today by psychology researchers at an event on the University of Kent's Canterbury campus. Dr. Lindsey Cameron and Dr. Katie Goodbun launched The Alternative Consultation following the success of another project, The Social Experiment, in which pupils in Kent secondary schools had the opportunity to swap their smartphones for a "brick" phone for a week and reflect on how they felt. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-psychologists-survey-students-social-media.html Social Sciences Mon, 29 Jun 2026 13:20:12 EDT news701950921 On a YouTube livestream, Berkeley City College students carefully study the movements of stem cells to observe what they do as they become neurons: Are they moving, growing or forming new connections with other neurons? https://phys.org/news/2026-06-stem-cell-platform-students-identity.html Education Thu, 25 Jun 2026 15:20:05 EDT news701617226 Five carmakers are involved in a case at the High Court in London over claims that they cheated on emissions tests. A decade ago, the "dieselgate" scandal broke, eventually forcing Volkswagen to pay billions of euros in fines and settlements. These carmakers (Mercedes, Ford, Peugeot/Citroën, Renault and Nissan) have all faced accusations that selling cars was more important to them than their environmental responsibilities. They all deny the allegations. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-businesses-row-ethics-tough-technology.html Environment Wed, 24 Jun 2026 18:20:01 EDT news701525870 Each year, Canada generates roughly $58 billion in avoidable food waste, much of which is from spoilage that goes undetected until it is already too late. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-smart-sensors-canada-tackle-billion.html Economics & Business Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:20:03 EDT news699528601 Interest in the manosphere has recently surged yet again, with the recent Louis Theroux documentary catapulting the term "manosphere" back to the forefront of our cultural psyche. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-tiktok-history-men-taught-manosphere.html Social Sciences Thu, 21 May 2026 19:40:01 EDT news698582836 Elon Musk founded SpaceX in 2002 with the lofty goal of ferrying humans to Mars and colonizing Earth's neighboring planet. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-spacex-sprawling-company-stars-mars.html Space Exploration Thu, 21 May 2026 07:10:01 EDT news698556075 Elon Musk announced plans Wednesday for one of the biggest stock sales ever by taking public a space company that is currently losing billions of dollars a year. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-spacex-reveals-biggest.html Space Exploration Thu, 21 May 2026 04:50:01 EDT news698556038 Elon Musk wants to take SpaceX public—and he's asking investors to believe the rocket and AI company is worth almost $1.75 trillion. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-spacex-ipo-moonshot-doubters-wall.html Space Exploration Wed, 20 May 2026 05:40:01 EDT news698472923 Why do some organizations survive across the centuries while others founder when faced with technological disruption? A new study by the University of Zurich shows that historically developed monastic forms of co-determination can be a significant advantage for dealing with digitalization. The findings are published in the journal Research Policy. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-historic-monasteries-digital-countries.html Social Sciences Tue, 19 May 2026 22:40:02 EDT news698401272 The pre-print website arXiv has announced that researchers who put their names to papers which included errors clearly generated by artificial intelligence (AI) will face a year-long ban and ongoing restrictions. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-key-science-publishing-platform-ai.html Education Tue, 19 May 2026 12:40:08 EDT news698405941 "Tradwives" say they are opting out of a culture that undervalues women at home. But a closer look at who they are and what they promote tells a different story: The mainstreaming of far-right politics through the language of "traditional values" like femininity and domesticity. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-tradwives-patriarchy-great-sociologist-theyre.html Social Sciences Mon, 18 May 2026 15:20:03 EDT news698327042 As digital nomads rethink where to live, researchers are exploring whether their choices can help close Europe's urban-rural divide. New research suggests the shift to remote working could support rural regions, but only where infrastructure and policy align. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-bali-brussels-remote-reshaping-europe.html Economics & Business Wed, 13 May 2026 15:41:00 EDT news697905242 An international team led by researchers at University of California San Diego and University of California, Riverside has developed a free, web-based platform designed to make public metabolomics data more accessible. By allowing users to search for chemical structures across billions of chemical spectra (the unique signatures of molecules) spanning thousands of studies, the tool has the potential to make "big-data" metabolomics as straightforward as a standard internet search. It can be used to discover new metabolites, track drug exposures and connect specific molecules to diseases or environmental sources. The study was published in Nature Biotechnology. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-molecules-chemistry-life.html Biochemistry Wed, 13 May 2026 15:28:19 EDT news697904356 Your goofy but lovable cousin just told you that you should stop eating eggs because he read somewhere that a study showed they are bad for you. How much should you trust your relative on such matters? More importantly, how much should you rely on one newly published bit of research when deciding what to make for breakfast? https://phys.org/news/2026-05-isnt-scientific-knowledge-incrementally-revisit.html Other Fri, 01 May 2026 11:20:01 EDT news696846722 Imagine that a government builds a five-star airport without any roads leading to it. The terminal is immaculate, the runway is regulation length—but there is simply no way to get there. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-countries-ai-laws.html Political science Wed, 29 Apr 2026 14:40:05 EDT news696680701 Until a few years ago, no one had heard of bixonimania. Then, in 2024, a group of scientists posted findings online announcing the condition, which they claimed affected the eyes after computer use. However, the scientists had made it up—not just the work, but the authors' names, affiliations, locations and funding, which was the University of Fellowship of the Ring and the Galactic Triad. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-fake-disease-internet.html Social Sciences Sun, 26 Apr 2026 17:30:03 EDT news695910909 Scientists have developed a unique way to build electronic components so small they are made from chains of individual molecules—creating a toolbox to help build materials that could power the next generation of technology. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-molecular-chains-atomically-precise-nanoribbons.html Nanomaterials Thu, 23 Apr 2026 14:30:01 EDT news696170350 For people living in some parts of the United States, their accent might not just indicate where they live, but also who they think they are. In a small study in rural northwestern Ohio, researchers found that men who had a "country" identity—for example, a love of hunting and guns, pickup trucks and country music—showed different vowel patterns in their pronunciations than did their neighbors who showed more interest in pursuits like theater, golf and rock music. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-americans-accent-isnt.html Social Sciences Mon, 20 Apr 2026 18:20:05 EDT news695906702 Differences in how often older people use the internet are less driven by a person's age and more by cognitive ability and socioeconomic factors such as education and employment status, a new study reveals. Led by computing academics at Lancaster University in collaboration with researchers from University College London, the study examined how frequently adults aged 50 and over use the internet, and why some use it less than others. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-internet-stays-high-skills-gap.html Social Sciences Wed, 15 Apr 2026 15:40:06 EDT news695476806 Social media is where teenagers spend most of their time, either scrolling and sharing, or sometimes falling into the traps of fake news, toxic content and online drama. But what if we could equip our young people to challenge harmful narratives and protect themselves from the darker side of the internet? https://phys.org/news/2026-04-critical-teens-resist-fake-news.html Social Sciences Mon, 13 Apr 2026 17:00:05 EDT news695295504 Information and communication technology (ICT) has reshaped our lives, how we live, how we work, how we entertain ourselves. That much is true, at least for the developed and developing world. ICT refers to everything from smartphones and laptops to software and cloud-based platforms and, increasingly, to the so-called Internet of Things (IoT), smart devices in the workplace, our homes and places of entertainment and recreation. ICT has enabled constant connectivity and more flexible working arrangements, fundamentally altering the structure of the modern workplace. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-stressed-digital-tools-blur-boundaries.html Social Sciences Mon, 13 Apr 2026 11:20:03 EDT news695296236 From false claims that a historic lunar fly-by was staged in a movie studio to unfounded narratives that footage of the crew was AI-generated, the Artemis II mission has been clouded by a blizzard of misinformation. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-artemis-ii-lunar-mission-conspiracy.html Space Exploration Sat, 11 Apr 2026 06:40:02 EDT news695106046 Musicians around the world agree on one thing: streaming platforms are essential for their careers. Most also agree on another: they don't pay enough. A new report from the Oxford Internet Institute and the University of Groningen captures this contradiction across five countries—Brazil, Chile, the Netherlands, Nigeria and South Korea. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-global-musicians-streaming-paradox-uk.html Economics & Business Wed, 08 Apr 2026 19:00:01 EDT news694848772 Humans are masters of seeing faces in any old thing—a handbag, TV static, toasted white bread. Scientists want to know why. A few years ago, as the category 5 Hurricane Milton bore down on the Florida coast, the internet noticed something strange. Doesn't the satellite image of the storm look a bit like an angry bald guy? Or a skull? https://phys.org/news/2026-04-clouds-pareidolia.html Social Sciences Tue, 07 Apr 2026 09:26:37 EDT news694772735 The Artemis II mission, scheduled to launch on Wednesday, will send four astronauts on a 10-day journey from Earth around the moon—the first time humans will travel that far into space since 1972. While the crew will not land on the moon, the mission marks a major step toward returning people to the lunar surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-artemis-ii-mission-big.html Space Exploration Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:00:12 EDT news694258485 An international research team has successfully synthesized oriented belt-shaped vanadium dioxide (VO2(B)) single crystals via a hydrothermal reduction method, using one-dimensional vanadium pentoxide (V2O5) nanofibers as the starting material. This work, published in the journal ACS Sensors, provides a new material platform and design guidelines for the development of next-generation low-power gas sensors capable of operating at room temperature. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-belt-vob-crystals-high-sensitivity.html Nanomaterials Tue, 24 Mar 2026 16:20:02 EDT news693581401 Researchers at Kyushu University have shown that careful engineering of materials interfaces can unlock new applications for nanoscale magnetic spins, overcoming the limits of conventional electronics. Their findings, published in APL Materials, open up a promising path for tackling a key challenge in the field and ushering in a new era of next-generation information devices. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-harnessing-nanoscale-magnetic-limits-conventional.html Nanophysics Fri, 23 Jan 2026 12:38:00 EST news688394208 Highspeed Internet, autonomous driving, the Internet of Things: data streams are proliferating at enormous speed. But classic radio technology is reaching its limits: the higher the data rate, the faster the signals need to be transmitted. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-terahertz-dirac-materials-enable-efficient.html Condensed Matter Thu, 04 Dec 2025 10:56:17 EST news684068161 Modern devices, from fitness trackers and smart garments to Internet of Things (IoT) sensors, require compact and sustainable power sources. In new research published in Scientific Reports, scientists present an energy harvester based on a horizontally mounted vial half-filled with a biodegradable ferrofluid. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-sloshing-ferrofluids-harness-vibration-energy.html Nanophysics Mon, 24 Nov 2025 14:54:02 EST news683218441 Researchers at the University of Arkansas and the University of Michigan have reported the first use of ultra-low power temperature sensors using graphene-based solar cells. The test is the first hurdle in developing autonomous sensor systems that draw power from multiple sources in the environment—solar, thermal, acoustic, kinetic, nonlinear and ambient radiation. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-graphene-based-solar-cells-power.html Nanomaterials Wed, 12 Nov 2025 14:33:04 EST news682180381