Phys.org news

Dialog / Liquid ripples rewrite 130-year-old biological classic: New reflections on the lock-and-key model

This April, when the spring breeze carried the formal acceptance notice of our paper by the Journal of the American Chemical Society to my desk, my thoughts instantly drifted back to the late Phil Geissler. A legendary physical ...

14 hours ago
Phys.org / Amazon fish reveal a synchronized survival tactic that could transfer to drone swarms

Some fish swim in synchrony. Others, it turns out, breathe in synchrony. This is true for arapaimas, an obligate air-breathing species living in the Amazon. A new study in Communications Biology, led by the Leibniz Institute ...

15 hours ago
Phys.org / Contact lenses can repair themselves with just one hour of UV light exposure

Contact lenses are a great vision correction option for many, but if one of them gets damaged, there is little to do other than throw it away. A team reporting in ACS Applied Polymer Materials has a solution: special polymer ...

15 hours ago
Phys.org / Honeybee metamorphosis map uncovers 842 active DNA switches that drive worker bee development

Researchers have identified "DNA switches" that become active as honeybee larvae grow into worker bees, offering new insight into the development of these important pollinators and the ecosystems they support.

16 hours ago
Phys.org / Solid-state material turns visible light into high-energy UV at sunlight intensity, expanding solar energy potential

Two cups of warm water don't make one cup of boiling water. But in the quantum world, multiple low-energy photons can combine to produce a single, higher-energy photon.

21 hours ago
Phys.org / Local species trends may flag global extinction risk, global study finds

New research from the University of St. Andrews has shown that higher extinction risk is associated with a higher frequency of decreasing local prevalence of species, in an analysis of one of the most comprehensive long-term ...

21 hours ago
Phys.org / Corrected Pantheon+ analysis of supernovae challenges accelerating universe claim

Research led by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai, along with Professor Subir Sarkar from the University of Oxford, questions the widely accepted argument that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating ...

Jun 22, 2026
Phys.org / Newly described Australian ballista spider builds a spring-loaded snare to catch a single ant species

An international team of researchers has discovered a remarkable new spider species in the rainforest of North Queensland that spins an ingenious and powerful spring-actuated snare to catch a single species of ant—one ant ...

Jun 22, 2026
Phys.org / Broken time-reversal symmetry phase in kagome metals may establish conditions for superconductivity

Physicists have long suspected that a peculiar quantum state lurks inside a class of materials known as kagome metals, but proving its existence has been elusive. Now, a team led by Yeongkwan Kim at the Korea Advanced Institute ...

Jun 22, 2026
Phys.org / How languages recycle parts of words to avoid confusion

Many languages recycle words, giving them different meanings. For example, in English, "run" can mean to move quickly but also to manage something, like "run a company." In Spanish, "lengua" is both the word for tongue and ...

Jun 22, 2026
Phys.org / Titan and Pluto exhibit the same mysterious spectral feature—and researchers can't figure out its origin

Researchers are constantly sifting through new spectral data gathered by powerful telescopes, like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). Most of the time, when they identify spectral features—specific absorption or emission ...

Jun 22, 2026
Phys.org / How oxygen sneaks into a corked wine bottle long before the first pour

The main reason for sealing wine bottles with a cork is to protect the liquid from oxygen. However, it is not an impermeable barrier, and a small amount of air leaks in, which is not always entirely bad news. The gas helps ...

Jun 22, 2026