Phys.org news

Phys.org / Physicists trace solar outbursts that led to historic Mother's Day storms

On Mother's Day weekend in May 2024, Earth experienced its most powerful geomagnetic storm in two decades, spawning auroras—the ribbony bands of light in the nighttime skies in the Northern and Southern hemispheres—that may ...

Aug 7, 2026
Phys.org / JWST study suggests a handful of 'leaky' galaxies reionized the early universe

A new study analyzing the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) spectra of more than 1,400 galaxies suggests a surprisingly small group of "leaky" galaxies was responsible for cosmic reionization. The paper outlining this work ...

Aug 6, 2026
Phys.org / Sunlight-powered setup generates quantum entanglement

Today's quantum technologies rely on energy-intensive lasers, raising concerns that scaling them up could further increase energy demands. In new work, researchers have demonstrated that quantum entanglement between photons ...

Aug 6, 2026
Phys.org / Two-qubit entangling gate flags its own errors as detectable photon losses

Quantum errors are a normal part of quantum computing because fragile physical qubits (the tiny components storing data) can easily break down because of environmental noise, like heat, stray signals or microscopic vibrations. ...

Aug 6, 2026
Phys.org / Songbirds may have developed sharper senses to de-husk seeds

Songbirds, birds belonging to the Passeriformes order, are best known for their ability to produce complex musical sounds. Yet some songbird species also have another remarkable skill: They can easily remove the tough layer ...

Aug 6, 2026
Phys.org / Zoo-housed lions show wild-style behaviors when fed whole carcasses

A new Australian study has found that feeding zoo-housed lions whole-animal carcasses on a feast-and-fast schedule encourages behaviors more closely aligned with those seen in the wild.

Aug 6, 2026
Phys.org / Fossil study finds vision—not the 'thinking' frontal lobe—drove varied brain development in primates

A new study led by a Duke University scientist overturns a long-held idea about how primates, including humans, came to have such large and sophisticated brains. The research finds that the dramatic expansion of the primate ...

Aug 6, 2026
Phys.org / Coupled AI and physics model improves typhoon-wave height forecasting

Typhoons pose significant threats, with sudden, dangerous waves that endanger ships, offshore platforms and coastal infrastructure in the northwest Pacific Ocean. Current typhoon forecasting methods sometimes underestimate ...

Aug 6, 2026
Phys.org / Spacecraft observations may conceal how particles really move through near-Earth space

High-energy particles in Earth's radiation belt can appear to spread out randomly, even when they are moving in a "predictable" way. This is because spacecraft observations naturally blur the fine-scale structure of the particle ...

Aug 6, 2026
Phys.org / X(2370) emerges as glueball-dominated particle in collider experiments

At the International Conference on High Energy Physics in Brazil, the BESIII Collaboration report that, after 15 years of sustained research, it identified the dominant constituent of the X(2370) as a pseudoscalar glueball ...

Aug 6, 2026
Phys.org / New quantum microscopy trick quadruples microscope resolution

Three years after a team of Caltech scientists showed that pairs of entangled photons could double the resolution of a light microscope, the same lab has figured out a way to double down on that improvement. They have now ...

Aug 6, 2026
Phys.org / Charting the galaxy: Milky Way Mapper survey releases latest all-sky spectra

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey V (SDSS-V) has announced its 20th public data release (DR20), delivering a dramatic expansion of the Milky Way Mapper (MWM) scientific survey—the most detailed spectroscopic map yet assembled ...

Aug 6, 2026