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Phys.org / Dormant black hole revives in under three years, brightening 10-fold in nearby galaxy

Astronomers monitoring a nearby active galaxy for six years have watched its supermassive black hole dramatically wake up, brightening by a factor of 10 across ultraviolet and X-ray wavelengths. The paper outlining the study ...

Jun 2, 2026
Phys.org / Wildfires reverse decade of ozone cleanup in the United States, study reveals

Ozone pollution has worsened in much of the continental United States over the past decade, fueled by wildfires and the long-distance transport of unhealthy air, according to a new study titled "Fires reverse progress toward ...

Jun 4, 2026
Phys.org / Global mangrove forests rebound, offering hopeful sign for climate and coastal resilience

Mangrove forests, once considered one of the world's most threatened coastal ecosystems, are showing signs of recovery worldwide, according to new research from Tulane University that finds decades of losses largely offset ...

Jun 4, 2026
Tech Xplore / AI model predicts building fire spread, redirecting evacuees to safer exits in real time

A fire alarm jolts you from your office desk, and you head for the nearest exit. But what if the closest exit has already been blocked by the fire? Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) ...

Jun 4, 2026
Phys.org / First deliberately injured Langobard woman in skeletal record reshapes view of male-only violence

The Langobards are frequently depicted as fierce warrior-like people, with all known archaeological evidence of violence restricted to men. However, nearly 1,400 years ago, a Langobard woman took two severe injuries to the ...

Jun 1, 2026
Medical Xpress / Brain circuit that times a state of low metabolism could have implications for space travel

You have gone without food for days, and the temperature drops to near freezing. What do you do? For some animals, the answer is influenced by the brain's circadian clock. Hummingbirds, bats, and mice are among the animals ...

Jun 4, 2026
Phys.org / Teaching AI to design optical surfaces using real-world imperfections

Designing surfaces that precisely control how light behaves at the nanoscale is tricky. Optical Fourier surfaces, which are nanostructured gratings that redistribute light into specific directions and wavelengths, hold enormous ...

Jun 4, 2026
Phys.org / Could it be aliens? From Cheyava Falls on Mars to exoplanet K2‑18b—here's what scientists really think

It may seem like we are on the verge of discovering alien life. In 2025, a press release stated that we have the "strongest hints yet" of extraterrestrial life on the exoplanet K2-18b. And when talking about a collected sample ...

Jun 5, 2026
Phys.org / Why jellyfish can't rise to the surface

Using box jellyfish as an example, researchers from Kiel University show how the physics of density, not behavior or physiology, can prevent animals from reaching the surface even as they actively swim upward.

Jun 4, 2026
Tech Xplore / Curbside parking is great for drivers—but terrible for everyone else: Could we get rid of it?

It may seem like it's impossible to find a car park on the street. As a recent Grattan Institute report makes clear, Australia actually has an oversupply of parking, both on streets and in parking lots. Across five of the ...

Jun 5, 2026
Phys.org / Transnational history explores the Japanese migration to Canada 1877–1988

"Japanese Migration to Canada, 1877–1988," a new reference essay by Masumi Izumi, was published in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Migration Studies. The article offers a sweeping, deeply researched account of Japanese ...

Jun 5, 2026
Phys.org / Tiny-armed alvarezsauroid dinosaurs might have been insect eaters, fossil scans suggest

Dinosaurs are estimated to have roamed Earth for over 165 million years, gradually evolving over time to survive in changing environments. Among the many fascinating groups of dinosaurs known to have lived on our planet are ...

Jun 1, 2026