Phys.org news

Phys.org / Queasy plesiosaurs swam to shore to vomit, Jurassic fossils reveal

Plesiosaurs swam into river deltas to vomit up shells and other indigestible elements of their marine meals, suggests new research published by Cambridge University Press. The behavior resembles that of today's fur seals ...

Sep 22, 2026
Phys.org / Largest dataset of its kind could clarify how massive stars shaped early galaxies

The more astronomers learn about the universe's earliest galaxies, the stranger they seem. Many of their surprising properties may be explained by differences between their massive stars and those in galaxies like our own ...

Sep 22, 2026
Phys.org / A 42-light-year X-ray tail links a pulsar to previously 'orphan' gamma rays

Understanding the origin, acceleration and propagation of high-energy cosmic rays has been a century-old mystery in astrophysics. Recently, joint observations from China's Einstein Probe (EP) satellite and the Large High ...

Sep 22, 2026
Phys.org / From swarming bacteria to tissue cells, living matter defies classic physical models of motion

A new study led by researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) reveals that living matter violates previously known physical principles of symmetry when cellular flows form and break down collective patterns. ...

Sep 22, 2026
Phys.org / Tiny quantum nanostructures could make AI less of an energy hog

Engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have designed a new type of quantum nanostructure that could enable optical neural networks. This emerging technology has the potential to make artificial intelligence systems, ...

Sep 22, 2026
Phys.org / A single temporary stimulus may redirect cell fate without permanently altering genes

Which genes need to be controlled to guide a stem cell toward a desired cell type or modulate an immune cell's inflammatory response? A Korean research team has developed a general-purpose computational framework that identifies ...

Sep 22, 2026
Phys.org / Bacteria-killing polymers—a new class of antibiotic?

Swimming in the blood, sweat, cells and tears of every human are small proteins known as peptides. Many peptides can kill bacteria on contact, yet the bacteria never seem to evolve resistance to them. Mass-produced peptides ...

Sep 22, 2026
Phys.org / A tiny chariot fitting reveals Egyptian glass reached Iron Age Britain

At the end of last year, curators from the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford came to Diamond to learn more about a 2,000-year-old prehistoric artifact. Using the microfocus beamline at I18, researchers unlocked new insights into ...

Sep 22, 2026
Phys.org / The mosquito's transition from vegan to bloodsucker explained

Scents govern most key events in the lives of mosquitoes, and there is extensive research on their sense of smell. A new study reveals how a young female mosquito shifts from focusing entirely on nectar to seeking only blood. ...

Sep 22, 2026
Phys.org / Earth's chorus waves show limited link to rapid electron loss from radiation belts

The Van Allen radiation belts are huge, doughnut-shaped regions of highly energetic charged particles trapped by Earth's magnetosphere. These charged particles play a major role in space weather, so studying them is important ...

Sep 22, 2026
Phys.org / The secret to a perfect crystal may be a precisely calibrated extra turn

Creating a perfect crystal sounds straightforward: Arrange identical building blocks into a repeating, orderly structure. At the microscopic scale, though, even subtle biases in how particles interact can push them in preferred ...

Sep 22, 2026
Phys.org / RHIC data reveal intriguing dip in momentum fluctuations in high-density nuclear matter

Scientists using the STAR detector to study particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) have found an intriguing dip in their data in a relatively unexplored region of the nuclear phase diagram—a map ...

Sep 22, 2026