Phys.org news

Phys.org / Widespread loss of marine sponges possible if heat waves intensify by just 1°C

New research shows the effects of marine heat waves on sponges could be much more severe as temperatures rise. More intense marine heat waves as a result of climate change could lead to the mass loss of a sponge species found ...

Feb 11, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / Root microbes could help oak trees adapt to drought

Microbes could help oak trees cope with environmental change. Publishing in Cell Host & Microbe, a study observing oaks growing in a natural woodland found that the trees' above- and below-ground microbiomes were resilient ...

Feb 11, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / Keeping an eagle eye on carbon stored in the ocean

Geologic reservoirs that trapped petroleum for millions of years are now being repurposed to store the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. New research is improving how we monitor this storage and verify how much CO2 these reservoirs ...

Feb 11, 2026 in Earth
Phys.org / Flipping and reversing mini-proteins could improve tuberculosis treatment

Antibiotic treatments are losing effectiveness against a range of common bacterial pathogens, including E. coli, K. pneumoniae, Salmonella and Acinetobacter, according to a warning issued by the World Health Organization ...

Feb 11, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / China's emissions policies are helping climate change but also creating a new problem

China's sweeping efforts to clean up its air have delivered one of the biggest public health success stories of recent decades. Since the Air Pollution Prevention and Control Action Plan was launched in 2013, coal-fired power ...

Feb 10, 2026 in Earth
Phys.org / Football-sized fossil creature may have been one of the first land animals to eat plants

Life on Earth started in the oceans. Sometime around 475 million years ago, plants began making their way from the water onto the land, and it took another 100 million years for the first animals with backbones to join them. ...

Feb 10, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / Current flows without heat loss in newly engineered fractional quantum material

A team of US researchers has unveiled a device that can conduct electricity along its fractionally charged edges without losing energy to heat. Described in Nature Physics, the work, led by Xiaodong Xu at the University of ...

Feb 10, 2026 in Physics
Phys.org / Oldest known sewn hide and other artifacts from Oregon caves shed light on early clothing in harsh climates

In 1958, an amateur archaeologist named John Cowles excavated the Cougar Mountain Cave in Oregon and retained many of the artifacts found there. Upon his death in the 1980s, these items were transferred to the Favell Museum ...

Feb 10, 2026 in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Machine learning reveals hidden landscape of robust information storage

In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, researchers used machine learning to discover multiple new classes of two-dimensional memories, systems that can reliably store information despite constant environmental ...

Feb 10, 2026 in Physics
Phys.org / Fossil discovery suggests giant pythons once roamed Taiwan

Pythons are a common sight across much of Asia, especially in the tropical jungles and wetlands of countries like Vietnam, Thailand and Indonesia. But one curious exception has been the main island of Taiwan, where there ...

Feb 10, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / Experiment relies on pulsars to probe dark matter waves

Dark matter is a type of matter that is predicted to make up most of the matter in the universe, yet it is very difficult to detect using conventional experimental techniques, as it does not emit, absorb, or reflect light. ...

Feb 10, 2026 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Female scientists wait longer to have papers published in life and biomedical sciences

If you are a woman working in biomedical and life sciences, you may have longer to wait for your academic paper to appear in print than a comparable paper authored by a man. According to research published in the journal ...

Feb 10, 2026 in Other Sciences