Phys.org news

Phys.org / Midwest flamingos and 'hurricane toads': Wildlife's strange storm stories

Hurricanes can be a devastating force—leveling trees, erasing beaches and damaging homes. But what do they do to wildlife? The answer ranges from the good to the bad to the ugly. Hurricanes sometimes help native species, ...

18 hours ago
Phys.org / If you need to anesthetize a butterfly, here's the best way to do it

Anesthesia makes life-saving procedures as painless and stress-free as possible for the animals we love and care for. But not a lot is known about the effects of anesthesia on animals that we don't typically consider pets—like ...

20 hours ago
Phys.org / Ancient DNA reveals web of marriage and migration in Peru centuries before Inca rule

Long-distance migration along Peru's Pacific coast began at least 800 years ago, centuries before the rise of the Inca Empire and much earlier than previously thought, a new international study reveals.

22 hours ago
Phys.org / Countdown glitch delays world's biggest rocket as SpaceX targets Friday retry

Elon Musk's SpaceX postponed the highly anticipated launch of its upgraded Starship megarocket, calling off Thursday's test after multiple countdown stops-and-starts.

23 hours ago
Phys.org / Gibraltar monkeys eat soil in junk food detox, study finds

A colony of macaques that gorge on snacks offered by tourists in the British territory of Gibraltar swallow soil to recover from their junk food binges, a study has found.

23 hours ago
Phys.org / Seagrass found to produce new genetic individuals rather than clone itself, offering hope for 'underwater meadows'

In many underwater ecosystems, seagrass meadows act as a food source, a safe haven, and an ecological lynchpin. But until now, very little was known about how these plants reproduce—critical information for conserving the ...

May 22, 2026
Phys.org / Black holes may avoid singularities when charge and Hawking radiation combine, theoretical physicist argues

Black holes are regions in space where gravity is so strong that nothing, even light, can escape. Einstein's theory of general relativity breaks down inside black holes, either by the presence of a so-called "curvature singularity" ...

May 21, 2026
Phys.org / Quantum supremacy just ran into an unexpected rival: An ordinary laptop armed with new math

Using a conventional computer and cutting-edge mathematical tools and code, physicists at the Center for Computational Quantum Physics (CCQ) at the Simons Foundation's Flatiron Institute and collaborators at Boston University ...

May 21, 2026
Phys.org / Astronomers may have discovered the tiniest odd radio circle

Astronomers have identified a possible new member of one of astronomy's strangest classes of objects: Odd radio circles (ORCs), enormous ring-like structures visible only at radio wavelengths. The newly discovered source, ...

May 21, 2026
Phys.org / Crystals of space and time: A structural phenomenon that may collapse into tiny black holes

A team from Vienna and Frankfurt has found a formula describing a strange phenomenon: Space and time can form a kind of "crystal" that may turn into a black hole. The results are described in Physical Review Letters.

May 21, 2026
Phys.org / Ancient seas get a new T. rex as massive mosasaur emerges from Texas fossils

There's a new T. rex in the fossil record, only this one terrorized the ancient seas. New research led by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History, the Perot Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas, and Southern ...

May 21, 2026
Phys.org / Molecule-in-a-crystal system could boost quantum computing via chemically engineered qubits

Within a crystal's atomic structure, tiny atomic-scale flaws will naturally occur where electrons can become trapped. These defects have emerged as one of the leading platforms for quantum information processing. Through ...

May 21, 2026