Phys.org news

Phys.org / Fish DNA and 10,000 crystals rewrite Colorado River's Grand Canyon origin story

For more than 150 years, scientists have debated when and how the Colorado River first carved its way through the Grand Canyon. Now, a new study led by researchers at the University of New Mexico offers evidence that the ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / Wearables to track plant health: Farmers could use real-time information to manage crop conditions

A smartwatch can tell us the level of oxygen in our blood, when our sleep is restless or the number of steps we take in a day. Now imagine that kind of tracking ability for plants. By the time farmers see curling leaves or ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / Fast charging can cause irreversible lithium migration in solid-state batteries

Solid-state batteries are often viewed as a promising path toward safer and more powerful energy storage. However, one key question has remained difficult to answer: How does lithium actually move inside the solid materials ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / Hidden deep-sea turbulence could alter climate and fisheries within one lifetime

Tiny, invisible swirls and twirls—not much bigger than a coin—deep below the ocean's surface are silently shaping some of the biggest forces shaping our climate: sea level rise, fisheries collapse, extreme flooding and how ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / Krill buildup could slow fin whale filter-feeding unless baleen stays 15% clear

Usually there's safety in numbers, but it doesn't always work that way. Fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) filter-feed on immense shoals of krill, engulfing colossal mouthfuls of water containing up to 144 kg of the crustaceans. ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / New genomic method to track disease outbreaks globally

Phylo-Plex, a new computational method, has been developed by Wellcome Sanger Institute scientists and their collaborators to allow cost-effective and scalable DNA sequencing of pathogens in laboratories with limited resources. ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / Seagrass meadows could help nourish millions, new study finds

Seagrass meadows play a largely overlooked role in providing nutrition for coastal communities, a new study published in Cell Reports Sustainability has found. The research, led by scientists at Project Seagrass and Stockholm ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / Self-propelled microparticles scrub stubborn biofilms, improving wound care and instrument cleaning

Newly developed microparticles can infiltrate stubborn bacterial matrices and release tiny oxygen bubbles to clean surfaces and wounds more efficiently than hydrogen peroxide or other cleaning agents alone, researchers at ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / Sensors detect California cliff collapses hours to days before failure, report says

Following a four-year study, scientists at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography released a new report to determine whether an early warning system could detect a landslide before it happens. The "California ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / Stress protection of Amazon trees, induced by climate warming, may alter atmosphere chemistry

The Amazon rainforest is one of the largest carbon reservoirs on Earth. It is also the world's largest source of biogenic volatile organic compounds (VOCs). These carbon-based gases are naturally released by vegetation. They ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / New technique takes the heat out of 3D printing process

Researchers have developed a new 3D printing technique that allows the printing of whole objects while controlling the temperature of the chemical reaction to stabilize the process. Academics in the University of Nottingham's ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / The color of penguin poo: Satellites reveal global warming's impact on an iconic polar species

Scientists from a handful of universities across the country have made innovative use of satellite images from NASA to determine the diet of Antarctic Adélie penguins across the continent by studying their icy feces with ...

Jul 9, 2026