Phys.org news
Phys.org / Scattered Roman bones point to potential fourth-century purge at Brading Villa
Disarticulated bones found scattered across a luxurious Roman villa on England's Isle of Wight may be evidence of a massacre carried out during a brutal political purge in the fourth century, a new study in Britannia suggests.
Phys.org / Venus's polygonal plains could point to a watery past
Venus may be overwhelmingly inhospitable today, but many planetary scientists believe that it wasn't always this way. Billions of years ago, some observational evidence suggested that our planetary neighbor may have looked ...
Phys.org / New semiconductor maser operates continuously above room temperature
Lasers have become indispensable in everyday life and research, with applications ranging from data transmission and metrology to manufacturing. Masers, by contrast, have so far found hardly any practical applications.
Phys.org / 'Little red dots' may be pulsating monster stars that created early-universe black holes
Astronomers have speculated about the mysterious "little red dots" seen through the James Webb Space Telescope's images of the early universe: They could be galaxies, black holes, quasi-stars, starbursts ... or something ...
Phys.org / Attosecond X-ray method maps early electron motions that trigger chemical reactions
All chemistry starts with a push from electrons. In the early moments of a chemical reaction, it's the movement of electrons that initiates the breaking of old chemical bonds and forging of new ones, transforming one molecule ...
Phys.org / Were there tiny dinosaurs? New study explores one of evolution's biggest mysteries
Dinosaurs are famous for being big, from the towering Tyrannosaurus rex to the colossal Apatosaurus. But a new study published today in the journal Evolution by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and Princeton ...
Phys.org / 'Spooky' particles transit DC suburbs, a step toward a quantum network
In early 2025, special signals wended their way through a fiber-optic highway strung above the streets and sidewalks of the Maryland suburbs. The arrival of those signals at their destination marks a significant step toward ...
Phys.org / Nanowires restore key functions in aging T cells
For decades, scientists have accepted that the immune system naturally weakens with age. Georgia Tech biomedical engineer and Carl Ring Family Professor Ankur Singh wasn't convinced. Then the COVID-19 pandemic made the stakes ...
Phys.org / Little-known protein helps the body restrain scar-forming signals
U.K. and U.S. scientists have uncovered an important piece of the puzzle in the signaling pathway that causes damaging scar tissue to build up in the body, raising hopes for future treatments. A team from the University of ...
Phys.org / Turning one of the world's most difficult plastics into premium lubricant
Virginia Tech chemist and chemical engineer Guoliang "Greg" Liu and his lab have developed a process that converts the plastic polyvinyl chloride (PVC) into polyalphaolefin, a key component in lubricants such as engine oil. ...
Phys.org / Backpack lab finds wastewater contamination and drug-resistant bacteria in Galápagos waters
From routine surgeries to cancer treatment, modern medicine depends on drugs that can fight infections caused by microbes such as bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites. But some microbes are becoming resistant to the drugs ...
Phys.org / Diffuse inter-filament gas is likely a key fuel source for massive star formation
Researchers from Kyushu University have discovered that diffuse gas surrounding dense filaments in a nearby stellar nursery plays a much larger role in star formation than previously recognized. By tracking the movement of ...