Phys.org news

Phys.org / 'Now boarding' … 240,000 miles from Earth, at the moon's first airport

The moon's getting its first airport, and it's about to get busy. Within the next two decades, NASA's planned Gateway—humanity's first lunar spaceport—may become a bustling hub for Orion crew capsules, lunar landers, cargo ...

Aug 25, 2026
Phys.org / Porpoise entanglement recorded in real time, revealing calls and escape attempts

Researchers at the University of St Andrews have gained unprecedented insight into marine mammal behavior when they become tangled in fishing nets. In a paper published Aug. 26 in Royal Society Open Science, researchers from ...

Aug 25, 2026
Phys.org / Expert pieces together puzzle from fragments of 1,600-year-old Roman text

A Roman law expert at the University of Cincinnati edited and translated a Latin legal text he pieced together from fragments that surprisingly survived in the Egyptian sands for more than 1,600 years. What's less surprising? ...

Aug 25, 2026
Phys.org / Adaptation and a 'Noah's Ark for trees' offer hope for endangered black ash

With the invasive emerald ash borer beetle decimating black ash across North America, according to the U.S. Forest Service, a team led by researchers at Penn State conducted an expansive study of genetic diversity in black ...

Aug 25, 2026
Phys.org / 3D atomic imaging reveals a new pathway to crystal formation

The most common scientific approach for thinking about how condensation, freezing and other phase transitions begin is based in classical nucleation theory, which was developed about a century ago. Thousands of experiments ...

Aug 25, 2026
Phys.org / Naked photobombing comet found in public image

Sometimes images are released before anyone realizes they have been photobombed, meaning something unexpected showed up in the background. A team of researchers found a naked photobombing comet in publicly available archival ...

Aug 25, 2026
Phys.org / Scientists resurrect ancient proteins, offering new antibiotic leads

University of Oregon biologists have resurrected prehistoric proteins up to 160 million years old that carry natural antimicrobial properties. The revived molecules could inspire the design of new treatments for antibiotic-resistant ...

Aug 25, 2026
Phys.org / Simulations reveal asymmetric diffusion of magnetic skyrmions through an off-center gate

Diffusion is a fundamental natural phenomenon that can be observed across a wide range of length and time scales. It plays a key role in many fields, including physics, biology and economics. In particular, asymmetric or ...

Aug 25, 2026
Phys.org / Developing a genetic toolkit for manipulating abundant intestinal microbes

Weill Cornell Medicine investigators have developed a set of molecular tools to regulate the activity of specific genes in one of the most common classes of intestinal bacteria. The ability to genetically manipulate these ...

Aug 25, 2026
Phys.org / Microcline reveals how a common mineral surface triggers ice formation in clouds

Pure water freezes only at around -38°C (-36°F). Tiny mineral dust particles act as so-called ice nucleators—crystallization seeds on which ice crystals form. A research team at Bielefeld University and the University of ...

Aug 25, 2026
Phys.org / Could 12 inches of rain hit New York City? AI maps plausible rare storms

Can a city's seawall stand up to a blockbuster storm? Will a region's power grid hold against record-breaking heat? And can a town's firefighting resources contain a major wildfire?

Aug 25, 2026
Phys.org / Lunar soil reads as a cosmic time capsule for exploding stars

When a star reaches its final stages of life, it ends in a bright, powerful explosion called a supernova and scatters material across the universe. A new study led by a University of Hawai'i at Mānoa researcher has discovered ...

Aug 25, 2026