Phys.org news

Phys.org / Suburban street design has driven emissions since WWII, study suggests

Half of all Americans live in the suburbs. For decades, planners and policymakers have blamed suburban sprawl's environmental and social costs on one thing: distance. The farther people live from city centers, the more they ...

5 hours ago
Phys.org / Rice gene switch helps plants rebound from cold and use nitrogen more efficiently

Global climate change has increased the frequency of regional cold spells, causing substantial yield losses and even crop failure. Meanwhile, excessive nitrogen fertilizer use in agriculture has increased non-point-source ...

6 hours ago
Phys.org / Orangutans eat medicinal plants in patterns that suggest self-medication

Orangutans seek out plants with antimicrobial, anti-inflammatory and wound-healing properties, new research shows. Based on 20 years of observations of orangutans in Indonesian Borneo, scientists assessed how often the animals ...

12 hours ago
Phys.org / Real-time microscopy reveals how semiconductor nanowires grow, and how bismuth seeds can speed their formation

Scientists from the National Graphene Institute at the University of Manchester and Sun Yat-sen University have captured the growth of semiconducting tellurium nanostructures in liquid in real time, revealing how tiny seed ...

12 hours ago
Phys.org / Asteroid Donaldjohanson wobbles as it rotates, Lucy flyby reveals

Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists studying the inner main-belt asteroid Donaldjohanson have found that its rotation wobbles. Rather than rolling through space in a steady pattern, Donaldjohanson turns on two ...

6 hours ago
Phys.org / Laser pulses set layered metals vibrating 1 trillion times per second, revealing electron-driven motion

How does light turn into motion within a metal? A team of researchers from European XFEL, the University of Potsdam and other participating institutions has shown that ultrashort optical laser pulses can trigger extremely ...

6 hours ago
Phys.org / Beyond bread and beer, alluring yeast species could yield new mosquito traps to combat malaria

An orange-colored yeast species isolated from a Baltimore sidewalk several years ago could be the basis of eco-friendly mosquito traps that reduce malaria transmission, according to a new study from researchers at the Johns ...

14 hours ago
Phys.org / AI-driven optical tweezers sort hundreds of particles per hour without humans

By teaching an AI to use optical tweezers, researchers from the University of Gothenburg and Chalmers University of Technology have sped up the analysis of life's smallest components. The AI platform captures particles, takes ...

18 hours ago
Phys.org / How sea-ice microbes survive the Southern Ocean's harsh winter has implications for climate change

A study led by South African scientists reveals that during winter, the sea ice around Antarctica harbors a reservoir of microbes, most of which have one thing in common—the ability to produce and break down a compound known ...

18 hours ago
Phys.org / Cockroach genomes are packed with DNA transferred by their endosymbiont bacterial partners

Genes aren't just transferred from parents to their offspring. Nature has found other ways to pass on genetic information, even between different species. And a new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National ...

Jun 17, 2026
Phys.org / Why just sharing a stick while walking can significantly improve balance

Could the secret to preventing dangerous falls be surprisingly simple? For older adults, these unexpected tumbles are a leading cause of injury, affecting roughly 1 in 4 people 65 and older each year. What if the key isn't ...

Jun 17, 2026
Phys.org / AI could be trapped in a 'Carbon Valley' unless action is taken soon

AI is growing fast, and keeping up means building more data centers, manufacturing advanced chips and powering the tech behind it. All of that comes with a carbon cost. AI advocates claim that in the long run, AI will save ...

Jun 17, 2026