Phys.org news

Phys.org / Ice Age artists carved thumbnail-size bird figurines from mammoth ivory 40,000 years ago

Excavations at Hohle Fels Cave in the UNESCO World Heritage area of the Swabian Jura in southwestern Germany have again yielded two spectacular 40,000-year-old depictions of birds carved from mammoth ivory. The two figurines ...

Jul 29, 2026
Phys.org / In biology of cells, octopus has another trick up its sleeve

The octopus is a biological oddity. It can use tools, open jars, and its complex nervous system supports as many neurons as a small primate. Now Harvard biologists have discovered a mysterious distinction in octopuses' core ...

Jul 29, 2026
Phys.org / Little red dots may mark temporary black hole phase

Since their discovery by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope in 2022, little red dots (LRDs) have been the subject of great interest to astronomers. Understanding the nature of these extremely distant, compact red sources has ...

Jul 29, 2026
Phys.org / Most complete skeleton of 30 million-year-old dog discovered

For decades, a 30 million-year-old fossil sat entombed in rock in an Oregon museum collection. When it was first found, paleontologists thought it might be an early relative of sheep, camels and pigs, whose fossilized skeletons ...

Jul 29, 2026
Phys.org / Five-year study finds rewilded elephants develop successful coping mechanisms, with individual differences

Ex-captive elephants released into the wild adapt well to wild environments, according to a study published July 29, 2026, in the journal PLOS One by Tenisha Roos and Tamara Eggeling of the Elephant Reintegration Trust of ...

Jul 29, 2026
Phys.org / Unique fossil reveals the internal organs of a 245-million-year-old marine reptile

Scientists from China, Europe and the U.S., including Dr. Stephan Spiekman, a paleontologist at the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart and the University of Hohenheim, have described a fossil of the long-necked marine ...

Jul 29, 2026
Phys.org / A step closer to artificial organs: UV light shapes arteriole-scale hydrogel vessels

The creation of fully artificial organs is a sci-fi dream, and researchers in Japan may have brought it one step closer to reality by developing a new photofabrication technique (i.e., a light-controlled synthetic method) ...

Jul 29, 2026
Phys.org / First electrically pumped perovskite polariton laser diode solves a decades-long challenge

Resolving a long-standing problem in semiconductor physics and optoelectronics, a team of researchers from Skoltech—a VEB.RF group institution—and their colleagues from ITMO University and HSE University have for the first ...

Jul 29, 2026
Phys.org / Private mission to rescue NASA's aging telescope runs into its own trouble

The spacecraft rushing to the rescue of an aging and sinking NASA telescope has run into its own problem.

Jul 29, 2026
Phys.org / Antarctic storms are becoming more frequent and intense, affecting sea ice

Winters in Antarctica's Ross Sea have become stormier in recent decades, affecting sea-ice conditions and field operations, new University of Otago—Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka research shows.

Jul 29, 2026
Phys.org / Gonorrhea's own enzyme triggers therapy against multidrug-resistant strains in lab tests

Scientists at the Universities of Liverpool and Oxford have developed a promising new way to kill antibiotic-resistant strains of Neisseria gonorrhoeae, the bacterium that causes gonorrhea, using a targeted therapy that is ...

Jul 29, 2026
Phys.org / A successful, sustainable catalyst for ethanol dehydrogenation

Ethanol is an alcohol used in a vast number of industrial and household applications. When dehydrogenated—in this case, stripped of some of its hydrogen atoms—it yields another important compound: acetaldehyde, which is used ...

Jul 29, 2026