Phys.org news

Standing on the sandy, windswept shores of Provincetown, Massachusetts, people may find themselves squinting at the horizon, waiting for a whale to make its grand entrance with a spectacular breach.

Astronomers have detected an enormous cloud of gas tens of millions of degrees hot surrounding one of the most extreme structures known in the early universe. The study offers one of the clearest views yet of a galaxy cluster ...

Quantum batteries, devices that store energy by exploiting quantum mechanical phenomena, could, in principle, be charged faster and more efficiently than classical ones. Despite their potential, connecting these batteries ...

We reach for brighter, better lighting for sharper pictures, whether we're photographing a puppy or a microscopic cell. In most cases, the light comes from outside the object being photographed. A recent study explored a ...

Scientists had previously observed that some species of shrews undergo a form of biological plasticity in which their bodies, skulls, brains and some organs shrink in the winter, then regrow in the spring. Now, a new study ...

A mysterious background of extremely low-frequency gravitational waves detected by networks of pulsars may carry information about events that began more than 13 billion years ago—including the formation of some of the first ...

Volcanoes emit smoke. Beneath a volcano lies a huge chamber filled with liquid magma. A series of earthquakes means an eruption is imminent. And if a "supervolcano" like Yellowstone were to awaken, a global catastrophe would ...

At the bottom of the ocean, optical fibers transmit telecommunications and internet data around the world. Waveguides make that feat possible by channeling and amplifying the light—and therefore the data within—over enormous ...

Did brands exist before modern society, in noncapitalist economies? An international team led by Marta Luciani of the University of Vienna has made unexpected discoveries about Bronze Age trade: Yes, brands did indeed exist ...

Despite science's best efforts to classify the vast menagerie of subatomic particles discovered over the past few decades, some exotic varieties defy explanation. Now, nuclear physicists at the U.S. Department of Energy's ...

Scientists studying one of nature's greatest reproductive innovations have discovered how some lizards evolved from laying eggs to giving birth to live young. The new research is the first to reveal the evolutionary process ...

Docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) are omega-3 fatty acids known to have beneficial effects and are popular as functional foods and dietary supplements. They are polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFAs); ...