Phys.org news

Phys.org / New economics study finds that ICE activity has upended the US childcare workforce

When U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations come to town, it can create a landscape of fear, chilling commerce and school attendance, and now, new research shows that it affects childcare workers.

May 18, 2026
Phys.org / This single mother must learn quickly—or her colony won't survive

Being a single mother of 20 is no joke, especially if the survival of a whole species depends on it. A queen bumblebee faces this very challenge when she lays her first eggs in the spring: She is utterly alone, with no worker ...

May 18, 2026
Phys.org / A smelly dog breath breakthrough: Plant-based spray tackles odor and harmful oral microbes

Pet owners love their dogs but may not always love the smell of their breath. Because this bad odor can signal oral disease, veterinary clinics will prescribe daily toothbrushing, antibiotics, or chemical rinses as treatment. ...

May 18, 2026
Phys.org / Microneedle patch vaccine could solving one of farming's most stubborn problems

Sticking needles into arms—or rather, haunches—is often the hardest part of distributing an effective agricultural vaccine. Now, University of Connecticut researchers show in the April 15 issue of Advanced Healthcare Materials ...

May 18, 2026
Phys.org / Southern Ocean intermediate waters may hold key to Earth's carbon dioxide history

Researchers at National Taiwan University and partner institutions have uncovered new evidence that Antarctic Intermediate Water (AAIW)—a distinct layer sitting 500–1,500 meters below the ocean surface—played a pivotal role ...

May 18, 2026
Phys.org / Dark lunar craters could host ultrastable lasers for moon navigation

They rank among the darkest and coldest places in the solar system: Hundreds of lunar craters, many of them at the moon's south pole, never receive direct sunlight and lie in permanent shadow. That's exactly why physicist ...

May 18, 2026
Phys.org / Indian and Tibetan wolves reveal ancient lineages with unexpected genomic diversity

Wolves in India, like the pack that raised Mowgli in "The Jungle Book," can often feel disconnected from both the research and storytelling of wolves. Rice University professor Lauren Hennelly is working to change that. Her ...

May 18, 2026
Phys.org / Overfishing hits 11 of 12 Bahamian seafood staples, 73 years of catch data show

Most of the Bahamas' signature seafood stocks are being fished harder than the sea can replace them, according to a new paper led by Sea Around Us researchers and published in Frontiers in Marine Science.

May 18, 2026
Phys.org / How hidden viruses wake up inside seaweed and pass on to future generations

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen have shown that giant viruses long thought to exist only as fleeting, free-living particles that can embed themselves permanently in the genome of a multicellular ...

May 18, 2026
Phys.org / Bilayer antiferromagnet reveals photocurrent that flips with magnetic state

In recent years, atomically thin materials—crystals only a few atoms thick—have attracted growing attention because they can exhibit physical properties that do not appear in conventional bulk materials. Among them, atomically ...

May 18, 2026
Phys.org / New evidence reveals a millennium-old dingo was ritually buried, and cared for, in Australia

A millennium-old dingo deliberately buried by Barkindji ancestors along the Baaka, or Darling River, is offering rare insight into the depth of relationships between First Nations people and dingoes in western New South Wales, ...

May 18, 2026
Phys.org / Chemical pathway unlocks next-generation infrared III–V nanocrystals

A research team led by Professor Sohee Jeong at Sungkyunkwan University has uncovered a key chemical pathway for the controlled synthesis of III–V semiconductor quantum dots, a class of next-generation infrared materials ...

May 18, 2026