Phys.org news

Phys.org / Honeybees crowd out bumblebees—even on flower-rich heathlands

When the late summer sun falls over Ireland's Wicklow Mountains, the slopes turn purple with blooming heather. Honeybees are moved to the heathlands for the sought-after heather honey, but their presence affects wild bumblebees.

Dec 10, 2025 in Biology
Phys.org / How emotions spread online following celebrity suicide news

Reshare cascades on X (formerly Twitter) show how different expressed emotions unfold in the aftermath of celebrity suicides, according to a study published in PLOS One by Ehsan Nouri of the University of Virginia, U.S., ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Other Sciences
Phys.org / Fossils reveal sea cows have engineered Arabian Gulf's seagrass ecosystems for over 20 million years

Today, the Arabian Gulf is home to manatee-like marine mammals called dugongs that shape the seafloor as they graze on seagrasses. A newly described fossil site in Qatar reveals that ancient sea cows engineered aquatic ecosystems ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Biology
Phys.org / A new 'hypertropical' climate is emerging in the Amazon, exposing trees to deadly stress

The Amazon rainforest is slowly transitioning to a new, hotter climate with more frequent and intense droughts—conditions that haven't been seen on Earth for tens of millions of years.

Dec 10, 2025 in Earth
Phys.org / Hidden gatekeeper of cell death reveals new layer of control

A new Dartmouth study opens new avenues for understanding—and potentially manipulating—how cells decide to live or die.

Dec 10, 2025 in Biology
Phys.org / Painting galaxy clusters by numbers (and physics)

Galaxy clusters are the most massive objects in the universe held together by gravity, containing up to several thousand individual galaxies and huge reservoirs of superheated, X-ray-emitting gas. The mass of this hot gas ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Global warming amplifies extreme day-to-day temperature swings, study shows

A new study has revealed that rapid, large-scale day-to-day temperature fluctuations have intensified amid global warming, representing a distinct climate hazard with impacts on human health. This growing volatility creates ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Earth
Phys.org / The rhythm of swarms: Tunable particles synchronize movement like living organisms

A collaboration between the University of Konstanz and Forschungszentrum Jülich has achieved the first fully tunable experimental realization of a long predicted "swarmalator" system. The study, published in Nature Communications, ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Physics
Phys.org / Tropical cyclones and the carbon cycle: New insights from a model simulation

For the first time, scientists have resolved extremely intense tropical cyclones and their effect on the ocean carbon cycle in a global Earth system model. Using two category-4 hurricanes in the North Atlantic as examples, ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Earth
Phys.org / Westerlund 1: First evidence of particle outflow from a young massive star cluster

Star clusters are of great importance in any galaxy: they are the birthplace of new stars, often containing massive stars of 10 solar masses or more. Such massive stars often drive powerful winds; the combined action of all ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Direct observation reveals 'two-in-one' roles of plasma turbulence

Producing fusion energy requires heating plasma to more than one hundred million degrees and confining it stably with strong magnetic fields. However, plasma naturally develops fluctuations known as turbulence, and they carry ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Physics
Phys.org / Estimating stellar-mass compact object accretion in AGN disks with a new method

A research team from the Yunnan Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with other researchers, has developed a new method to estimate how stellar-mass compact objects (COs)—including black ...

Dec 10, 2025 in Astronomy & Space