Phys.org news

Phys.org / Can our pets really say 'I love you'? Science is finding out

Purrs of contentment. Soulful eyes locked on yours over dinner. Valentine's Day? Not for pet owners. For those of us who share our lives with animals, this is a daily—if not exactly romantic—experience. So are the various ...

4 hours ago in Biology
Phys.org / Failed supernova provides clearest view yet of a star collapsing into a black hole

Astronomers have watched a dying star fail to explode as a supernova, instead collapsing into a black hole. The remarkable sighting is the most complete observational record ever made of a star's transformation into a black ...

23 hours ago in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Unique 'inside out' planetary system reveals rocky outer world

A global team of astronomers, led by the University of Warwick, have used a European Space Agency (ESA) telescope to discover a planetary system that turns our understanding of planet formation upside down, with a distant ...

23 hours ago in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Elephant trunk whiskers exhibit material intelligence, revealing the secret behind an amazing sense of touch

A new study from an interdisciplinary German research collaboration, led by the Haptic Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems (MPI-IS), reveals the secret to the gentle dexterity of the ...

23 hours ago in Biology
Phys.org / Jupiter-family comet 41P/TGK slows down and reverses spin after perihelion

New analysis on 2017 Hubble images of the Jupiter-family comet, 41P/Tuttle–Giacobini–Kresak (41P/TGK), indicates that the comet underwent a spin reversal between April and December 2017. While this behavior is not unheard ...

23 hours ago in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Basic research on Listeria bacteria leads to unique cancer therapy

After nearly 40 years of research on how Listeria bacteria manipulate our cells and battle our immune system to cause listeriosis, Daniel Portnoy and his colleagues have discovered a way to turn the bacteria into a potent ...

18 hours ago in Biology
Phys.org / 100 beavers set to be reintroduced to the UK this year, with more to come

Centuries after they were wiped out, the reintroduction of beavers to the UK is gathering pace. Following a government announcement allowing beavers to be released in the wild, a flurry of reintroductions are planned for ...

19 hours ago in Biology
Phys.org / 'Virgin' frescoes emerge from Pompeii suburb

Amid the remains of a sumptuous villa near Pompeii, the hard-hatted conservationist scraped away centuries-old ash to reveal a vibrant red fresco.

22 hours ago in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Gravitational lensing technique unveils supermassive black hole pairs

Supermassive black hole binaries form naturally when galaxies merge, but scientists have only confidently observed a very few of these systems that are widely separated. Black hole binaries that closely orbit each other have ...

21 hours ago in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / New study maps where wheat, barley and rye grew before the first farmers found them

Using advanced machine learning and climate models, researchers have shown that the ancestors of crops like wheat, barley, and rye probably were much less widespread in the Middle East 12,000 years ago than previously believed. ...

23 hours ago in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Cutting down on quantum-dot crosstalk: Precise measurements expose a new challenge

Devices that can confine individual electrons are potential building blocks for quantum information systems. But the electrons must be protected from external disturbances. RIKEN researchers have now shown how quantum information ...

19 hours ago in Physics
Phys.org / Photonic integrated circuits enable programmable non-Abelian 'braiding' of light states

A research team has successfully implemented a programmable spinor lattice on a photonic integrated circuit (PIC). This platform enables the realization of non-Abelian physics, in which the outcome of operations depends on ...

21 hours ago in Physics