Phys.org news

Phys.org / First observation of optical Magnus effect could sharpen quantum computer control

Table tennis professionals are true masters at redirecting fast-moving projectiles. Putting a targeted spin on a serve can make the little white ball fly straight toward the edge of the table but then, at the last moment, ...

Aug 27, 2026
Phys.org / Fast but error-prone AI assists in solving a decades-old fluid mechanics problem in five weeks

An AI assistant helped University of Colorado Boulder researchers solve a mathematical problem that had challenged their lab for a year and a half, though it made subtle errors along the way. The breakthrough could improve ...

Aug 27, 2026
Phys.org / Tsunami of dirt: What caused Nepal's deadly glacial flood?

More than 150 people are dead and hundreds more are missing after an enormous wave of water, ice, mud and rock cascaded more than 170 kilometers (106 miles) down the Bhote Koshi River valley in Nepal. The valley is the main ...

Aug 27, 2026
Phys.org / Candida fungi can burst immune cells and shape-shift to evade immunity

Candida auris and Candida albicans are microscopic fungi that cause life-threatening human infections, killing almost a million people globally every year. The World Health Organization lists both species among the top four ...

Aug 27, 2026
Phys.org / AI model designs potentially stable protein sequences beyond those found in nature

A protein's function is determined by its structure, and structure—the way a protein folds—is determined by its sequence of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.

Aug 27, 2026
Phys.org / Hitting bacteria hard and early with diverse phage cocktails may curb resistance

As multidrug antibiotic resistance emerges as a potent public health challenge, medical science has renewed attention on the potential for bacteriophage therapy. Bacteriophages, or phages, are viruses that target, infect ...

Aug 27, 2026
Phys.org / ASTRID traces 13.5 billion years of black hole and galaxy evolution

In dark skies at night, distant starlight twinkles and speaks to vast cosmic histories almost as old as time itself. New data from instruments such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope are helping astrophysicists probe deep ...

Aug 27, 2026
Phys.org / Mirror-image molecules steer electron spins and lift perovskite solar cell efficiency

Some molecules come in two "handed" forms. This property, called chirality, can influence not only how molecules interact with light but also which electron spins they allow to pass. Researchers at the University of Osaka ...

Aug 27, 2026
Phys.org / Discovery reveals rapid pathways to complex aromatic molecules in space

A team of researchers led by the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Chemistry has uncovered a faster way large carbon-based molecules may form in space, helping solve a long-standing mystery about how some of the ...

Aug 27, 2026
Phys.org / Venus's mysterious clouds may hide an exceptionally strong light absorber

Venus appears pale yellow in visible light, but ultraviolet images reveal dramatic dark and bright patterns moving with the planet's upper sulfuric acid clouds. Scientists have known about these markings for roughly a century, ...

Aug 27, 2026
Phys.org / Some Galápagos 'yellow' sea turtles remain homebodies, surprising scientists

Sea turtles are famous for being prodigious wanderers. Guided by Earth's magnetic field, ocean currents and the sun, they tend to crisscross the seas in search of food, returning to the region of their birth every few years ...

Aug 27, 2026
Phys.org / Oxygen collisions reveal how quark–gluon matter approaches equilibrium

High-energy nuclear collisions recreate extreme conditions similar to those in the early universe, producing quark–gluon plasma (QGP), a hot state of matter in which quarks and gluons are no longer confined inside protons ...

Aug 27, 2026