Phys.org news

The Black Death is often remembered as a single catastrophic event that swept across Europe between 1347 and 1353, killing millions. Yet the disease did not disappear after that first devastating outbreak. For more than four ...

X-ray technology and artificial intelligence—along with the discovery of lead in the ink of fragments from a collection of ancient Roman scrolls—could soon help scientists read long-lost texts buried by the eruption of Mount ...

Large-scale oyster reef restoration in the Chesapeake Bay is successfully creating three-dimensional habitats that support larger, more diverse fish communities, according to new research from scientists at the University ...

Sir John Gage, a key figure in Henry VIII's dissolution of the monasteries, saved a dangerous Catholic book from likely destruction, a new study suggests. The identification of six lost pages of a medieval bestseller—illicitly ...

Bipedalism, or walking on two legs, is one of the key features that distinguishes humans from other apes. But when and why our ancestors transitioned from a life often spent in trees to a life spent almost exclusively on ...

Oxford University researchers have captured the step-by-step assembly of individual virus-like particles, revealing how simple molecular interactions can reliably build these complex biological structures. The results were ...

When a material heats up, its electrical resistance often rises. The harder question is what, exactly, is getting in the way. The electrons carrying the current may be scattered by vibrations of the material's atomic lattice, ...

Forty-four years ago, Nadrian Seeman published his groundbreaking ideas on using DNA as a structural material, expanding DNA's significance far beyond its role as a carrier of genetic information. Since then, the steadily ...

In March 2026, scientists succeeded in transporting antiprotons by road for the first time in a purpose-built trap loaded on a truck. The BASE collaboration, which realized this experiment at the European Organization for ...

Seasonal changes redistribute enough water around Earth to shift the planet's center of mass back and forth by fractions of an inch relative to its geometric center. NASA scientists are on the case, tracking the oscillations ...

The ocean's aphotic zone—the dark, high-pressure region below the surface, where sunlight cannot reach—is home to a vast wealth of microbial life. Yet scientists know relatively little about the genetic makeup, growth and ...

A square peg doesn't fit a round hole. But what if the peg could change the shape of the hole? A newly developed drug molecule can do something surprisingly similar when binding to its target protein, according to a University ...