Phys.org news

Phys.org / Blue Origin's New Glenn explosion shows infrasound can detect rocket accidents from up to 1,700 kilometers away

When Blue Origin's New Glenn launch vehicle accidentally exploded during a static test fire in May 2026, the explosion generated low frequency soundwaves below the range of human hearing.

3 hours ago
Phys.org / A summer odyssey: Female dotterels seek multiple mates across Northern Europe

On a high Norwegian plateau in late May, patches of bare ground begin to appear through the snow, and with them arrive some of Europe's most approachable birds. Eurasian dotterels breed on exposed mountain ridges and Arctic ...

2 hours ago
Phys.org / Eight-letter DNA alphabet is accurately transcribed by a natural enzyme

All known life on Earth uses the same genetic alphabet, consisting of four letters. Now, researchers at the University of California San Diego have demonstrated that one of biology's most essential enzymes can accurately ...

6 hours ago
Phys.org / Bovine stem cells offer new approach to future cultivated steak research

Cultivated meat aims to produce meat from animal cells in the laboratory without needing to raise a living animal for meat production. It has been proposed as a potentially more sustainable alternative to conventional meat ...

6 hours ago
Phys.org / Scientists discover the key ingredients that make birdsong pretty

What makes birdsong beautiful? Answering this question could help us understand how soundscapes make the natural world relaxing for humans, opening the door to improving parks, upgrading the design of stressful places like ...

11 hours ago
Phys.org / Giant impact could have formed an intact moon within five hours, simulations suggest

New Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) modeling, conducted in collaboration with scientists at the University of Arizona, shows fundamental differences in how the moon may have formed from the giant impact that created the ...

17 hours ago
Phys.org / Geomagnetic superstorm shook GPS accuracy across the US—its timing may have averted agricultural losses

On Nov. 11, 2025, Earth experienced a severe geomagnetic storm triggered by solar flares and coronal mass ejections from an active sunspot region. While this kind of storm brings beautiful auroras admired in many areas around ...

22 hours ago
Phys.org / Experiment sees surprising result in search for dark matter

For the better part of a century, people have been trying to understand dark matter. This invisible substance makes up roughly 85% of the mass in the universe but has never been directly detected. Determining exactly what ...

23 hours ago
Phys.org / Switching gravity on and off leaves particles behind, mathematical model finds

Hawking radiation causes black holes to eventually evaporate. This is because particle pairs are spontaneously created near the event horizon (the position of the last ray of light that can escape the black hole's gravitational ...

20 hours ago
Phys.org / LEDs let archaeologists see the past in a new light

An archaeological excavation is a little like eating a layered cake: Once you have removed a layer, you cannot put it back. The problem becomes even trickier if two layers look almost exactly the same. Researchers from Aarhus ...

16 hours ago
Phys.org / Saturn encounter may have set distant centaur on path to becoming a comet

More than 3 billion miles (4.8 billion kilometers) from Earth, an ancient icy object is slowly awakening. As it drifts inward through the solar system, the frozen body known as Centaur 450P/LONEOS has begun releasing gas ...

17 hours ago
Phys.org / Firelight may have sparked human storytelling by extending social hours

New research from the University of St Andrews has developed a novel hypothesis of how firelight was critical to the evolution of sophisticated storytelling.

16 hours ago