Phys.org news
Phys.org / El Niños have been more intense over the last 40 years than in the previous 1,000 years, coral records reveal
As an El Niño of historic proportions is taking shape in the tropical Pacific, a University of Michigan study has found that El Niño events have become nearly 40% stronger in the last 40 years than they were in the preindustrial ...
Phys.org / Major polluters are worsening the Western US water crisis: A new way to measure who's responsible
Climate change was once something scientists warned us about, and now it's a reality we are living in. In California's Central Valley, about one-third of climate-related groundwater loss between 2003 and 2024 can be attributed ...
Phys.org / The physics of kiiking, Estonia's extreme sport of swinging
When an athlete swings upside down atop a 7-meter (23-foot) pendulum, it may seem like a feat of strength, courage or technique. A new study suggests it is something more fundamental: a striking demonstration of how intelligence ...
Phys.org / Texas fossil reveals early insects kept aquatic limbs during move onto land
The formation of complex terrestrial ecosystems was a significant innovation in the evolutionary history of life on Earth. This event signified the expansion of life beyond marine environments and marked the beginning of ...
Phys.org / Fast but error-prone AI assists in solving a decades-old fluid mechanics problem in five weeks
An AI assistant helped University of Colorado Boulder researchers solve a mathematical problem that had challenged their lab for a year and a half, though it made subtle errors along the way. The breakthrough could improve ...
Phys.org / First observation of optical Magnus effect could sharpen quantum computer control
Table tennis professionals are true masters at redirecting fast-moving projectiles. Putting a targeted spin on a serve can make the little white ball fly straight toward the edge of the table but then, at the last moment, ...
Phys.org / Tsunami of dirt: What caused Nepal's deadly glacial flood?
More than 150 people are dead and hundreds more are missing after an enormous wave of water, ice, mud and rock cascaded more than 170 kilometers (106 miles) down the Bhote Koshi River valley in Nepal. The valley is the main ...
Phys.org / Hitting bacteria hard and early with diverse phage cocktails may curb resistance
As multidrug antibiotic resistance emerges as a potent public health challenge, medical science has renewed attention on the potential for bacteriophage therapy. Bacteriophages, or phages, are viruses that target, infect ...
Phys.org / AI model designs potentially stable protein sequences beyond those found in nature
A protein's function is determined by its structure, and structure—the way a protein folds—is determined by its sequence of amino acids, the building blocks of proteins.
Phys.org / Candida fungi can burst immune cells and shape-shift to evade immunity
Candida auris and Candida albicans are microscopic fungi that cause life-threatening human infections, killing almost a million people globally every year. The World Health Organization lists both species among the top four ...
Phys.org / Deep underground, SuperCDMS begins hunting light dark matter with 24 cryogenic crystals
In the hunt for one of nature's most elusive substances—dark matter, which makes up 85% of all matter in the universe—scientists are going to extremes. Deep underground and chilled to near absolute zero, the Super Cryogenic ...
Phys.org / ASTRID traces 13.5 billion years of black hole and galaxy evolution
In dark skies at night, distant starlight twinkles and speaks to vast cosmic histories almost as old as time itself. New data from instruments such as NASA's James Webb Space Telescope are helping astrophysicists probe deep ...
