Phys.org news
Phys.org / Why are Tatooine planets rare? General relativity explains why binary star systems rarely host planets
Astronomers have found thousands of exoplanets around single stars, but few around binary stars—even though both types of stars are equally common. Physicists can now explain the dearth.
Phys.org / Lab study suggests longer waves fracture floating ice sheets at lower stress
When waves are moving across ice-covered seas, they can cause sheets of ice to bend and ultimately break. Understanding the processes underlying these wave-induced ice fractures and predicting when they will occur could help ...
Phys.org / Spider spinneret evolution: How a genome duplication event 438 million years ago set the stage
Scientists have uncovered a 400-million-year-old genetic secret that gave spiders the ability to produce silk and weave their webs. Spiders didn't begin their journey on Earth in the same way as they are known today. Arthropods ...
Phys.org / How a broken DNA repair tool accelerates aging
Although DNA is tightly packed and protected within the cell nucleus, it is constantly threatened by damage from normal metabolic processes or external stressors such as radiation or chemical substances. To counteract this, ...
Phys.org / Quantum mechanical effects help overcome a fundamental limitation of optical microscopy
Researchers from Regensburg and Birmingham have overcome a fundamental limitation of optical microscopy. With the help of quantum mechanical effects, they succeeded for the first time in performing optical measurements with ...
Phys.org / Record-breaking photons at telecom wavelengths—on demand
A team of researchers from the University of Stuttgart and the Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg led by Prof. Stefanie Barz (University of Stuttgart) has demonstrated a source of single photons that combines on-demand ...
Phys.org / Baby dinosaurs were common prey for Late Jurassic predators, reconstructed food web suggests
Babies and very young sauropods—the long-necked, long-tailed plant-eaters that in adulthood were the largest animals to have ever walked on land—were a key food sustaining predators in the Late Jurassic, according to ...
Phys.org / Puzzling slow radio pulses are coming from space. A new study could finally explain them
Cosmic radio pulses repeating every few minutes or hours, known as long-period transients, have puzzled astronomers since their discovery in 2022. Our new study, published in Nature Astronomy today, might finally add some ...
Phys.org / Beyond the eye of the beholder: Mathematically defining attributes essential to color perception
Research on the perception of color differences is helping resolve a century-old understanding of color developed by Erwin Schrödinger. Los Alamos scientist Roxana Bujack led a team that used geometry to mathematically define ...
Phys.org / Liquid-repellent particle coating enables near-frictionless motion of pico- to nanoliter droplets
The precise control of tiny droplets on surfaces is essential for advanced manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, and next‐generation lab‐on‐a‐chip diagnostics. However, once droplet volume reaches pico- and nanoliter scales, ...
Phys.org / Webb reveals five-galaxy merger just 800 million years after the Big Bang
Astronomers at Texas A&M University have discovered a rare, tightly packed collision of galaxies in the early universe, suggesting that galaxies were interacting and shaping their surroundings far earlier than scientists ...
Phys.org / One of Earth's most abundant organisms is surprisingly fragile
A group of ocean bacteria long considered perfectly adapted to life in nutrient-poor waters may be more vulnerable to environmental change than scientists realized. The bacteria, known as SAR11, dominate surface seawater ...