Phys.org news

Phys.org / Tapping into whale talk: Open-source bio-logger captures underwater cetacean conversations

Say you want to listen in on a group of super-intelligent aliens whose language you don't understand, and whose spaceship only flies by Earth once an hour. It's not unlike what Harvard scientists and others are doing, except ...

Dec 15, 2025 in Biology
Phys.org / Order from chaos: The emergence of photon 'swirling' in disordered nanometric systems

An international research team reports the discovery of "hidden order" in systems that are disordered in space and time. The paper is published in the journal Nature Materials.

Dec 15, 2025 in Nanotechnology
Phys.org / Scientists create stable, switchable vortex knots inside liquid crystals

The knots in your shoelaces are familiar, but can you imagine knots made from light, water, or from the structured fluids that make LCD screens shine?

Dec 15, 2025 in Physics
Phys.org / AI helps solve decades-old maze in frustrated magnet physics

By partnering with artificial intelligence (AI), a researcher at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory has solved a long-standing physics problem and uncovered the mathematical trickery that ...

Dec 15, 2025 in Physics
Phys.org / Climate whiplash by 2064: Study projects extreme swings in rainfall and drought for Asia

A climate study led by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), in collaboration with an international research team, reveals that under a high-emission scenario, the Northern Hemisphere summer monsoons ...

Dec 15, 2025 in Earth
Phys.org / Engineered material uses light to destroy PFAS and other contaminants in water

Materials scientists at Rice University and collaborators have developed a material that uses light to break down a range of pollutants in water, including per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, the "forever chemicals" ...

Dec 15, 2025 in Chemistry
Phys.org / New agentic AI platform accelerates advanced optics design

Stanford engineers debuted a new framework introducing computational tools and self-reflective AI assistants, potentially advancing fields like optical computing and astronomy.

Dec 15, 2025 in Physics
Phys.org / Molecules as switches for sustainable light-driven technologies

Metal nanostructures can concentrate light so strongly that they can trigger chemical reactions. The key players in this process are plasmons—collective oscillations of free electrons in the metal that confine energy to ...

Dec 15, 2025 in Nanotechnology
Phys.org / Recent H5N1 bird flu variants show increased ability to infect dairy cattle

The H5N1 avian influenza virus—commonly known as bird flu—has been causing outbreaks in dairy cows in the United States since March 2024. Now, scientists studying the adaptation of the avian H5N1 viruses to cows have ...

Dec 15, 2025 in Biology
Phys.org / New biomolecular technique uncovers millet in medieval Ukrainian dental calculus

A study has, for the first time, identified minute traces of broomcorn millet consumption directly from human dental calculus, offering an unprecedented window into medieval diets and expanding the toolkit available to archaeologists ...

Dec 15, 2025 in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Manta rays create mobile ecosystems, study finds

A new study from the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science and the Marine Megafauna Foundation finds that young Caribbean manta rays (Mobula yarae) often swim with groups of other ...

Dec 15, 2025 in Biology
Phys.org / Nanoscale magnetic mazes could transform data center communications

A collaborative team has developed a new way to create magnetic optical materials, one that removes a long-standing design bottleneck and could boost the speed and efficiency of data-center communications. Using an ion beam ...

Dec 15, 2025 in Nanotechnology