Phys.org news

Phys.org / The woman and the goose: A 12,000-year-old glimpse into prehistoric belief

A 12,000-year-old clay figurine unearthed in northern Israel, depicting a woman and a goose, is the earliest known human-animal interaction figurine. Found at the Late Natufian site of Nahal Ein Gev II, the piece predates ...

Nov 17, 2025 in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Omo-Turkana Basin fossil catalog helps piece together early hominin record

The Omo-Turkana Basin, where the Omo River drains into Lake Turkana in Africa, has been one of the three most valuable regions for the study of hominin evolution in Africa. Since the 1960s, many large-scale studies have taken ...

Nov 17, 2025 in Biology
Phys.org / Parasitic ant tricks workers into killing their queen, then takes the throne

Scientists document a new form of host manipulation where an invading, parasitic ant queen "tricks" ant workers into killing their queen mother. The invading ant integrates herself into the nest by pretending to be a member ...

Nov 17, 2025 in Biology
Phys.org / Enduring patterns in world's languages: One-third of grammatical 'universals' stand up to rigorous testing

Despite the vast diversity of human languages, specific grammatical patterns appear again and again. A new study reveals that around a third of the long-proposed "linguistic universals"—patterns thought to hold across all ...

Nov 17, 2025 in Other Sciences
Phys.org / ID830 is the most X-ray luminous radio-loud quasar, observations find

An international team of astronomers have employed the Spektr-RG spacecraft and various ground-based telescopes to investigate a distant quasar known as ID830. Results of the new observations, published November 7 on the ...

Nov 17, 2025 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Supercomputer simulates quantum chip in unprecedented detail

A broad association of researchers from across Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the University of California, Berkeley have collaborated to perform an unprecedented simulation of a quantum microchip, ...

Nov 17, 2025 in Physics
Phys.org / 'City of seven ravines': Bronze age metropolis unearthed in the Eurasian steppe

An international team of archaeologists from UCL, Durham University, and Toraighyrov University (Kazakhstan) has uncovered the remains of a vast Bronze Age settlement, Semiyarka, in the Kazakh steppe—a discovery that is ...

Nov 17, 2025 in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Balloon telescope captures new details of matter swirling around black holes

An international collaboration of physicists including researchers at Washington University in St. Louis has made measurements to better understand how matter falls into black holes and how enormous amounts of energy and ...

Nov 17, 2025 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Earth's earliest life 3.3 billion years ago revealed by faint biosignatures

A new study uncovered fresh chemical evidence of life in rocks more than 3.3 billion years old, along with molecular traces showing that oxygen-producing photosynthesis emerged nearly a billion years earlier than previously ...

Nov 17, 2025 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Interpretable AI reveals key atomic traits for efficient hydrogen storage in metal hydrides

Hydrogen fuels represent a clean energy option, but a major hurdle in making its use more mainstream is efficient storage. Hydrogen storage requires either extremely high-pressure tanks or extremely cold temperatures, which ...

Nov 17, 2025 in Chemistry
Phys.org / Green-synthesized zinc oxide nanoparticles from desert plants show broad antimicrobial activity

As drug-resistant infections continue to rise, researchers are looking for new antimicrobial strategies that are both effective and sustainable. One emerging approach combines nanotechnology with "green" chemistry, using ...

Nov 17, 2025 in Nanotechnology
Phys.org / Early Triassic sediments reveal Earth's hidden wildfire past

An international team of scientists, including a senior researcher at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, Scotland, has uncovered new evidence of ancient wildfires that reshapes our understanding of Earth's turbulent Early ...

Nov 17, 2025 in Earth