Phys.org news

Phys.org / Wheat gene behind Hessian fly resistance cloned after 50-year search

Researchers at the University of Maryland and their collaborators have cloned a gene that makes wheat resistant to feeding by Hessian fly larvae and demonstrated its direct interaction with a protein produced by the insect. ...

23 hours ago
Phys.org / Mysterious Cygnus Bubble may trace back to microquasar, astronomers suggest

Astronomers have proposed a new explanation for the mysterious Cygnus Bubble, a vast cloud of ultra-high-energy gamma rays stretching thousands of light-years across the sky. While the bubble has generally been linked to ...

Aug 14, 2026
Phys.org / Guangzhou crucibles provide earliest direct evidence of brass-making in East Asia

For centuries, scholars have read ancient documents describing the production of brass in 10th-century A.D. China. The problem was that the earliest physical evidence of brass production would be found nearly 600 years later, ...

Aug 14, 2026
Phys.org / Quantum Latin squares cannot solve Euler's 36 officers problem without entanglement

Latin squares are arrangements of symbols in a grid in which every symbol appears exactly once in each row and column. These symbol arrangements, which were first studied more than three centuries ago, are now widely used ...

Aug 14, 2026
Phys.org / Rings forged from meteorites may have been fashionable among ancient Greek elites

Meteorites provided a rare but ready source of iron for ancient Bronze Age cultures before smelting became common. A new study, published in the Journal of Archaeological Science, sheds light on how the ancient Minoan and ...

Aug 14, 2026
Phys.org / Human blood may have helped preserve ancient Chinese rock art for 2,000 years

The Huashan rock art landscape in southern China, close to the border with Vietnam, is a remarkable UNESCO World Heritage site. Thousands of images are painted on river cliffs across more than 80 locations stretching 260 ...

Aug 14, 2026
Phys.org / Quality vs. quantity: Why 'super-shedders' may not be the superspreaders of disease outbreaks

A host that sheds an abundance of parasites might seem like an obvious disease-spreading threat. But new research suggests that shedding large volumes of parasites does not dictate transmission efficiency—and "super-shedders" ...

Aug 14, 2026
Phys.org / New findings overturn 100-year-old assumption about common bacteria in the lungs

The human body is teeming with more than 35 trillion bacteria, coexisting in microbiomes inside the gut, mouth, lungs, skin and urogenital tract. While it's now clear these microbes are associated with health and disease, ...

Aug 14, 2026
Phys.org / Early settlement dynamics in the Pacific revealed through ancient DNA

New genetic analyses of ancient human skeletons from western Remote Oceania are shedding light on the complex history of settlement in this vast Pacific region over the past 3,000 years. With island nations such as Vanuatu, ...

Aug 14, 2026
Dialog / Bound gravitational waves inspired by photonic systems

When one mentions "waves," we immediately think of a perturbation that propagates. This applies to waves on the shore, sound waves in the air or electromagnetic waves that we use to transmit information via optical fibers. ...

Aug 14, 2026
Phys.org / Engineered microbe speeds CO₂ capture and recovers critical metals

A genetically engineered bacterium can rapidly break down one of Earth's most abundant minerals, opening a promising new pathway for simultaneously removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and recovering critical elements ...

Aug 14, 2026
Phys.org / Cell biochemistry beyond membranes: Condensate physics reveals general rules for chemical responses

Basic biology courses teach that cells contain organelles—such as the nucleus, mitochondria and Golgi apparatus—set apart by lipid membranes to get things done. Recent cell biology research has revealed another organizational ...

Aug 14, 2026