Phys.org news

Phys.org / Using the Earth's magnetic field to hunt for axions and dark photons

Dark matter's existence is all but certain—astronomers believe it makes up about a quarter of the universe's total energy content—yet its true identity has eluded us for decades. Two of the leading candidates for dark matter ...

Aug 5, 2026
Phys.org / Two origins of life: Free-living cells may have emerged twice as bacteria and archaea diverged

How and where did the first forms of life arise? These are the main questions driving research at the Institute of Molecular Evolution at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU). In a new publication in Science Advances, ...

Aug 5, 2026
Phys.org / Runaway supermassive black hole RBH-1 offers new way to reconstruct ancient merger

Black holes are fascinating regions in space where gravity is so strong that nothing, even light, can escape them. The largest known black holes, called supermassive black holes, contain millions to billions of times the ...

Aug 5, 2026
Phys.org / Astronomers catch 'Hatchling' quasar breaking out of its dusty cocoon

Using observations from multiple powerful telescopes, a team of astronomers studied a red quasar nicknamed "the Hatchling" at redshift 3.7. They may have identified one of the clearest examples yet of a quasar caught in transition ...

Aug 5, 2026
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.

Aug 5, 2026
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 ...

Aug 5, 2026
Phys.org / One of the world's only two complete dodo skulls reveals new clues about the extinct bird

Only two complete dodo skulls are known to exist anywhere in the world: one at the Natural History Museum Denmark and one at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. The specimen housed in Copenhagen has been preserved ...

Aug 5, 2026
Phys.org / Miniaturized laser technology paves the way for fundamental physics experiments in space

An international team of researchers has succeeded in producing atomic quantum gas mixtures with an unprecedented particle flux. In the journal Nature Communications, the scientists report on experiments conducted with the ...

Aug 5, 2026
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 ...

Aug 5, 2026
Phys.org / Air-stable, ultrathin superconductors developed for more scalable quantum devices

Super-thin superconducting materials, which are only one or a few atoms thick, have unique properties scientists can leverage to produce more compact, scalable, and efficient quantum devices. But these fragile materials degrade ...

Aug 5, 2026
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 ...

Aug 5, 2026
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.

Aug 5, 2026