Phys.org news

Phys.org / Unique 'inside out' planetary system reveals rocky outer world

A global team of astronomers, led by the University of Warwick, have used a European Space Agency (ESA) telescope to discover a planetary system that turns our understanding of planet formation upside down, with a distant ...

Feb 12, 2026 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Jupiter-family comet 41P/TGK slows down and reverses spin after perihelion

New analysis on 2017 Hubble images of the Jupiter-family comet, 41P/Tuttle–Giacobini–Kresak (41P/TGK), indicates that the comet underwent a spin reversal between April and December 2017. While this behavior is not unheard ...

Feb 12, 2026 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Major earthquakes are just as random as smaller ones

For obvious reasons, it would be useful to predict when an earthquake is going to occur. It has long been suspected that large quakes in the Himalayas follow a fairly predictable cycle, but nature, as it turns out, is not ...

Feb 12, 2026 in Earth
Phys.org / New study maps where wheat, barley and rye grew before the first farmers found them

Using advanced machine learning and climate models, researchers have shown that the ancestors of crops like wheat, barley, and rye probably were much less widespread in the Middle East 12,000 years ago than previously believed. ...

Feb 12, 2026 in Other Sciences
Phys.org / 100 beavers set to be reintroduced to the UK this year, with more to come

Centuries after they were wiped out, the reintroduction of beavers to the UK is gathering pace. Following a government announcement allowing beavers to be released in the wild, a flurry of reintroductions are planned for ...

Feb 12, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / Basic research on Listeria bacteria leads to unique cancer therapy

After nearly 40 years of research on how Listeria bacteria manipulate our cells and battle our immune system to cause listeriosis, Daniel Portnoy and his colleagues have discovered a way to turn the bacteria into a potent ...

Feb 12, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / 'Virgin' frescoes emerge from Pompeii suburb

Amid the remains of a sumptuous villa near Pompeii, the hard-hatted conservationist scraped away centuries-old ash to reveal a vibrant red fresco.

Feb 12, 2026 in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Gravitational lensing technique unveils supermassive black hole pairs

Supermassive black hole binaries form naturally when galaxies merge, but scientists have only confidently observed a very few of these systems that are widely separated. Black hole binaries that closely orbit each other have ...

Feb 12, 2026 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Cutting down on quantum-dot crosstalk: Precise measurements expose a new challenge

Devices that can confine individual electrons are potential building blocks for quantum information systems. But the electrons must be protected from external disturbances. RIKEN researchers have now shown how quantum information ...

Feb 12, 2026 in Physics
Phys.org / Photonic integrated circuits enable programmable non-Abelian 'braiding' of light states

A research team has successfully implemented a programmable spinor lattice on a photonic integrated circuit (PIC). This platform enables the realization of non-Abelian physics, in which the outcome of operations depends on ...

Feb 12, 2026 in Physics
Phys.org / A new microscope for the quantum age: Single nanoscale scan measures four key material properties

Physicists in Leiden have built a microscope that can measure no fewer than four key properties of a material in a single scan, all with nanoscale precision. The instrument can even examine complete quantum chips, accelerating ...

Feb 12, 2026 in Nanotechnology
Phys.org / Silicon metasurfaces boost optical image processing with passive intensity-based filtering

Of the many feats achieved by artificial intelligence (AI), the ability to process images quickly and accurately has had an especially impressive impact on science and technology. Now, researchers in the McKelvey School of ...

Feb 12, 2026 in Physics