Phys.org news

Phys.org / Corpses leave clues behind in the soil long after they're gone

It is not uncommon for a body to be moved after a murder, usually to hide or eliminate evidence. And while the Arizona desert may seem like the perfect place to commit such a crime, a new study shows that a cadaver can still ...

Mar 11, 2026
Phys.org / New research shows path to affordable water in fast-growing cities

By 2050, up to half the world's urban population will face water scarcity. A new model of water supply, demand, and policies in a drought-prone city of 7 million in India shows how policies could prevent the poor from bearing ...

Mar 11, 2026
Phys.org / Plants pause, play and fast-forward their growth depending on types of climate stress

Plants pause their growth during stress, then press play when conditions improve, helping them recover and live on to produce food, according to a new study published in New Phytologist. UBC researchers have pinpointed the ...

Mar 11, 2026
Phys.org / Acoustic driving enables controlled condensation of light and matter on chip

An international research team led by Alexander Kuznetsov at the Paul Drude Institute for Solid State Electronics (PDI) in Berlin has demonstrated a fundamentally new way to control the condensation of hybrid light-matter ...

Mar 11, 2026
Phys.org / Still standing but mostly dead: Recovery of dying coral reef in Moorea stalls

In April 2019, a marine heat wave struck a coral reef on the island of Moorea in French Polynesia, killing much of the coral and the beneficial algae that colonized it. This "bleaching" event reduced live coral populations ...

Mar 11, 2026
Phys.org / Climate extremes hinder early development in young birds, research shows

New research from the University of Oxford shows that cold snaps and heavy rain can stunt growth and reduce survival prospects in UK great tit nestlings. However, breeding earlier within a season appears to buffer against ...

Mar 11, 2026
Phys.org / Heavy water expands energy potential of carbon nanotube yarns

Researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas have developed a new electrolyte system that significantly boosts the energy-harvesting performance of twistrons, which are carbon nanotube yarns that generate electricity ...

Mar 11, 2026
Phys.org / North Sea 'lost world' had habitable forests during the last Ice Age, study shows

Forests were growing on the now-submerged landmass of Doggerland thousands of years earlier than previously believed, according to a major new sedimentary ancient DNA (sedaDNA) study led by the University of Warwick. The ...

Mar 11, 2026
Phys.org / AI weather models show promise for hurricane forecasts, but new study finds key physical limitations

Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming weather prediction, enabling forecasts that once required hours of supercomputing time to run in just minutes. But as AI tools play an expanding role in high-stakes hazard modeling, ...

Mar 11, 2026
Phys.org / Fish study shows that sexual harassment behavior might matter for ecosystems

For decades, ecologists have known that how a species looks or eats affects its environment. But a new study by researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, shows that social behavior related to mating can be ...

Mar 11, 2026
Phys.org / Fluid simulation at unprecedented scale provides toolkit for fundamental physics and applied fluid engineering

What governs the speed at which raindrops fall, sediment settles in river estuaries, and matter is ejected during a supernova? These questions circle around one, deceitfully simple factor: the rate at which a fluid filled ...

Mar 11, 2026
Phys.org / Study finds nanocube cation exchange can begin on one face, not six

In a paper published today in Nature Synthesis, a team from the lab of University of Chicago Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering (UChicago PME) and Chemistry Department Prof. Paul Alivisatos explores the role of cation ...

Mar 11, 2026