Phys.org news

Phys.org / A new route to electrically controlled helimagnetic structures

Advanced magnetic memory and spintronic devices rely on the ability to control magnetic states using electricity. Today, such technologies work by manipulating relatively simple magnetic structures found in ferromagnets, ...

23 hours ago
Phys.org / AI can predict how you'll respond to a survey—but that's not the same as understanding you

What makes people change their minds or their behavior? Social scientists spend a lot of time thinking about this question, and experiments are one of the most powerful ways to answer it.

21 hours ago
Phys.org / Ancient fossil may reveal animal kingdom's earliest right-handedness at 550 million years old

Scientists have uncovered what may be the earliest evidence of "right-handedness" in the animal kingdom, dating back more than half a billion years. The discovery comes from the fossil record of Spriggina floundersi, an organism ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / Young giant gas planet Beta Pic B refuses to reveal its origin

The young planetary system of the 23-million-year-old star Beta Pictoris (short: Beta Pic) is regarded as an iconic circumstellar dust disk, which hosts at least three giant gas planets. Discovered in 2008 by direct imaging, ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / Hidden deep-sea turbulence could alter climate and fisheries within one lifetime

Tiny, invisible swirls and twirls—not much bigger than a coin—deep below the ocean's surface are silently shaping some of the biggest forces shaping our climate: sea level rise, fisheries collapse, extreme flooding and how ...

Jul 9, 2026
Phys.org / JWST's 'overmassive' early black holes may not be so massive after all

Astronomers studying a population of unusually X-ray-silent and overmassive black holes discovered by the James Webb Space Telescope have found that they may not be as massive as they appear. The new paper, outlining a plausible ...

Jul 8, 2026
Phys.org / Long-theorized electron-on-helium qubit achieves strong coupling to a single microwave photon

Quantum computers, devices that store and process information leveraging the principles of quantum mechanics, have been found to be promising for tackling some problems that cannot be solved by classical computers. Quantum ...

Jul 8, 2026
Phys.org / Black hole collisions may follow entropy law, offering simpler remnant predictions

When two black holes orbit each other, they eventually spiral inward and collide in one of the most violent phenomena in the universe. The event is so energetic that it significantly distorts the universe around it. It emits ...

Jul 8, 2026
Phys.org / Nanoplastics found in Antarctic soils for first time, suggesting long-range atmospheric transport

Microplastic contamination has been a much-discussed topic over the last several years, but contamination from even smaller plastic particles represents another pressing issue. Nanoplastics—defined as being under a micrometer ...

Jul 8, 2026
Phys.org / Tiny Jurassic bird reveals a key step in bird evolution

The transition from a lumbering, heavy dinosaur body to the flight-adapted bird body plan is one of many fascinating episodes in evolutionary history. Working out how this massive transformation took place relies heavily ...

Jul 8, 2026
Phys.org / How Fourth of July celebrations and the national political mood may shape psychedelic experiences

Psychedelic drugs are known to make people highly sensitive to their surroundings. In other words, a user's mindset and immediate environment heavily shape the entire trippy experience. In a study published in the journal ...

Jul 8, 2026
Phys.org / The oldest deliberately collected fossil ichthyosaur was discovered in Roman Britain around 1,800 years ago

Around 1,800 years ago, a fossilized spinal bone lay on the windswept beaches of Roman Britain until a curious passerby picked it up and carried it far away, only to drop it in a pit.

Jul 8, 2026