Phys.org news

Phys.org / A sharper picture of a pandemic: Uncovering the complex history of the plague after the Black Death

The Black Death is often remembered as a single catastrophic event that swept across Europe between 1347 and 1353, killing millions. Yet the disease did not disappear after that first devastating outbreak. For more than four ...

Sep 16, 2026
Phys.org / Nearly 50 'ghost galaxies' emerge around three hosts, challenging dwarf galaxy counts

Dwarf galaxies—with a mass equal to about a billion suns, but often considerably less—are the most abundant in the universe. However, because of their low luminosity, they are very difficult to detect. They have mostly been ...

Sep 16, 2026
Phys.org / Half-billion-year-old fossils rewrite the origin story of starfish

Scientists have discovered several 518-million-year-old fossils that reshape understanding of the origins of the animal group containing starfish. The fossils show that these animals ate using tentacles rather than passively ...

Sep 16, 2026
Phys.org / SpaceX prepares for first orbital flight of Starship rocket

SpaceX announced Tuesday that it was planning to send its flagship rocket, Starship, into orbit, a key step in its project to one day reach the moon or Mars.

Sep 16, 2026
Phys.org / Long-term oyster reef restoration shows clear success in murky waters

Large-scale oyster reef restoration in the Chesapeake Bay is successfully creating three-dimensional habitats that support larger, more diverse fish communities, according to new research from scientists at the University ...

Sep 16, 2026
Phys.org / Chimpanzees give youngsters the tools to learn tricky techniques

Two-thirds of a century after Jane Goodall observed "David Greybeard" break off a twig to fashion a fishing rod for termites, researchers following in her footsteps have found that adult chimpanzees in Senegal literally hand ...

Sep 16, 2026
Phys.org / Henry VIII's dissolution enforcer stashed Catholic manuscript—its lost pages have just been rediscovered

Sir John Gage, a key figure in Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, saved a dangerous Catholic book from likely destruction, a new study suggests. The identification of six lost pages of a medieval bestseller—illicitly ...

Sep 16, 2026
Phys.org / Without bacteria or chemicals: How methanol and formaldehyde form abiotically in nature

The biopolymer lignin—one of the most important carbon reservoirs in plants and soils—not only decays through fungi or bacteria but can also be chemically attacked by iron linked to reactive oxygen species, without the involvement ...

Sep 16, 2026
Phys.org / A world 20 light-years away reveals surprisingly organized, Jupiter-like weather

Scientists from Trinity College Dublin have developed a way to unravel changing weather patterns on distant worlds. Using this approach, they discovered that the weather on a well-studied brown dwarf, SIMP 0136, previously ...

Sep 16, 2026
Phys.org / Thinking outside the binding site: Drug molecule makes a square peg fit a round hole

A square peg doesn't fit a round hole. But what if the peg could change the shape of the hole? A newly developed drug molecule can do something surprisingly similar when binding to its target protein, according to a University ...

Sep 16, 2026
Phys.org / First-of-its-kind preventive phage therapy provides promising results against Salmonella

The mammalian gut microbiome teems with a delicate balance of bacteria and the viruses that keep them in check, called bacteriophages, or phages. Each bacterial species usually has its own set of phage partners.

Sep 16, 2026
Phys.org / New method reveals how virus particles can build themselves, molecule by molecule

Oxford University researchers have captured the step-by-step assembly of individual virus-like particles, revealing how simple molecular interactions can reliably build these complex biological structures. The results were ...

Sep 16, 2026