Phys.org news

Phys.org / Bare supercontinent may have tipped ancient Earth into 'Snowball' phase

About a billion years ago, Earth started to come into its own. It was past the awkwardness of its younger years full of growing pains and turmoil: comet strikes and slimy water, including the Great Oxidation Event that flipped ...

May 28, 2026
Phys.org / Electrical pulses reverse aging in sea squirts, offering clues for extending human longevity

A tiny sea creature might hold the secret to reversing the aging process. When treated with a brief series of electrical pulses, sea squirts experience dramatic and long-lasting health improvements that can significantly ...

May 28, 2026
Phys.org / The generation of massive Schrödinger cat states using ultracold atoms

Quantum mechanics is a physics framework that describes how matter and energy behave at an extremely small scale, specifically at the scale of atoms and subatomic particles. An effect predicted by the laws of quantum mechanics ...

May 28, 2026
Phys.org / Heron-like, fish-eating dinosaur from 70 million years ago discovered in Argentina

A new raptor-like dinosaur from some 70 million years ago that ate fish and behaved like modern herons has been unearthed from southern Patagonia. The new species, which has been named Kank australis, was identified based ...

May 28, 2026
Phys.org / Hailstorms could grow more dangerous and damaging with climate change

Hailstorms can be incredibly dangerous, posing risks to life and property. Then there's the economic damage to cars, crops, and infrastructure caused by large balls of ice falling at high speed from the sky. And the problems ...

May 28, 2026
Phys.org / Ripples in fire-ant collectives suggest motions are driven by neighbor alignments

Researchers in Spain have discovered that in collectives of moving fire ants, rippling "waves" of density and activity are likely triggered by local regions where ants collectively travel in the same direction as their neighbors.

May 28, 2026
Phys.org / Nitrogen-fixing genes moved into new bacterial strains, opening path beyond fertilizer

Most major crops, such as wheat and corn, require expensive nitrogen fertilizer to flourish. But what if bacteria could help those plants draw nitrogen from the atmosphere, as peas and beans do?

May 28, 2026
Phys.org / Arctic Ocean food chain is disrupted as a key tipping point has now been passed

An irreversible shift in the chemical makeup of the Arctic Ocean driven by climate change is disrupting the region's food chain, a study suggests. Widespread loss of Arctic sea ice has led to a sharp fall in levels of a key ...

May 28, 2026
Phys.org / New MRI sensors detect target molecules in the brain and body with high sensitivity

When doctors and scientists want to see inside a body, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a powerful tool. MRI can noninvasively capture detailed images of the body's muscles, organs, and bones. It can monitor blood flow ...

May 28, 2026
Phys.org / Peering into the Milky Way's far side, Roman could unveil 100,000 worlds

NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is poised to make a major leap in the hunt for worlds outside our solar system, known as exoplanets. Scientists expect the mission to reveal around 100,000 worlds—a staggering leap ...

May 28, 2026
Phys.org / Introduced wild pigs linked to fewer invasive plants, while native deer show the opposite pattern

Wild pigs are generally considered among the world's most problematic invasive mammals. But a major new study from Aarhus Universitet shows that the introduced animals may actually have beneficial effects in North American ...

May 28, 2026
Phys.org / Neanderthal ancestry may lower defenses against common DNA viruses in people today

Researchers have found surprising links that show that Neanderthal ancestry influences our immune system today in ways more nuanced than previously recognized. Their work is published in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution.

May 28, 2026