Phys.org news
Phys.org / Ancient Austronesian seafarers carried symbolic art 4,000 years ago
A 4,000-year-old painted stone plaque discovered on a remote Indonesian island is the first known example of portable art belonging to the Austronesian Painting Tradition (APT), providing a rare glimpse into the symbolic ...
Phys.org / AI agents coordinate behavior based on majority opinion—even when said opinions are meaningless
A new study published in Science Advances takes a closer look at how AI agents' choices are influenced by their peers. The team found that more advanced models tend to follow the majority when shown other agents' choices, ...
Phys.org / 35-year monitoring study clarifies ecological forces behind Lyme disease risk
Tick-borne diseases are on the rise in the United States. Lyme disease is the most commonly reported, with nearly half a million people diagnosed each year. Caused by the bacterium Borrelia burgdorferi, it is most often spread ...
Phys.org / Gluons may play a central role in baryon number conservation—and matter's stability
New results from the STAR detector at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) suggest that gluons, the glue-like particles that hold quarks together inside protons, play a central role in the conservation of baryon number—an ...
Phys.org / Physicists predict a new form of quantum matter that holds itself together
Researchers at Monash University have predicted a new type of quantum matter that challenges decades of thinking about how ultracold particles behave. The paper, "Quantum droplets in a resonant Bose-Fermi mixture," is published ...
Phys.org / How ancient trees are warning us about the next enormous solar storm
Our sun is capable of storms far bigger than we've ever recorded. Studying the world's oldest trees suggests we could soon be due one of these gargantuan events.
Phys.org / First pair of feeding supermassive black holes found in a Green Pea galaxy
Astronomers have discovered the first confirmed dual active galactic nucleus in a Green Pea galaxy, revealing two supermassive black holes growing at the same time inside a compact, intensely star-forming system. X-ray observations ...
Phys.org / Graphene device measures fractional electric charges carried by some of quantum physics' strangest objects
An electron is supposed to be indivisible. It carries one fundamental unit of electric charge, and every electron is exactly the same. But under extreme conditions, large numbers of electrons act together and give rise to ...
Phys.org / Study finds some microbes drastically change behavior outside the lab
A new study underscores the importance of studying microbes in their natural setting rather than relying solely on laboratory research. Researchers found that a set of corn root bacteria behaved completely differently when ...
Phys.org / It's not just flowers that help the pollinators. Grass can too.
Bees may be relying on your lawn for their next meal, according to a new study from the University of Georgia.
Phys.org / Dark matter may be gravitationally lensing a likely source of cosmic neutrinos
Astronomers have discovered that the jet of a distant blazar has been gravitationally lensed by an unseen source of dark matter. Led by Silke Britzen at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany, the team's ...
Phys.org / Stellar explosions come into focus with new nuclear reaction measurements
In two separate papers published in Physical Review Letters, researchers investigated the nuclear reactions that take place inside supernovae and X-ray bursts—two of the universe's most powerful explosions. Together, the ...