Phys.org news

Phys.org / Planning Titan entry? New lab tests flag nitrogen-driven heat shield debris risks

Heat shields are designed to protect the surface and cargo of a spacecraft as it enters an atmosphere. Aerospace engineers in The Grainger College of Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign recently observed ...

Mar 16, 2026
Phys.org / Coastal ocean chemistry now substantially shaped by humans

A global analysis of more than 2,300 seawater samples from more than 20 field studies around the globe indicates that human-made chemicals make up a significant portion of organic matter in coastal oceans. The international ...

Mar 16, 2026
Phys.org / Building a reference manual for how cells connect with each other

Every multicellular organism, from tiny worms to humans, elephants, and whales, needs a way for their cells to connect with each other to form tissues, organs, and organize their overall body plan. Cells have a variety of ...

Mar 16, 2026
Phys.org / Sea turtles, shrinking beaches and rising seas: Study finds nesting sites running out of room

Sandy beaches account for approximately a third of the world's ice-free coastlines. These sandy shorelines are responsible for sediment and water retention, provide a buffer against rising water levels, and offer habitats ...

Mar 16, 2026
Phys.org / AI analysis of nanoribbon assembly reveals protein design principles

Two parallel experiments in protein self-assembly produced strikingly different results, demonstrating that protein designers should consider incorporating physical forces now missing from even Nobel-prize-winning protein ...

Mar 16, 2026
Phys.org / Computational model predicts telomere length from routine biopsy slide images

A new computational tool infers changes occurring at the ends of the chromosomes housing our DNA. It does so by detecting structural alterations in cells and tissues captured in images taken of routine medical biopsies, according ...

Mar 16, 2026
Phys.org / Could reduced air pollution from climate mitigation boost crop yields and lower hunger risk?

An international research team used multiple global agroeconomic models and found that climate mitigation consistent with the 1.5 °C target could raise global hunger risk in 2050 by 17% (56 million people) compared with ...

Mar 16, 2026
Phys.org / Could a recently detected ultra-high-energy neutrino be linked to new physics?

Neutrinos are extremely lightweight and electrically neutral particles that rarely interact with ordinary matter. Due to these rare interactions, neutrinos can travel across space almost entirely unaffected, carrying information ...

Mar 15, 2026
Phys.org / Physicists break longstanding high-temperature superconductivity record at ambient pressure

Researchers from the Texas Center for Superconductivity (TcSUH) and the department of physics at the University of Houston have broken the temperature record for superconductivity at ambient pressure—a breakthrough that ...

Mar 15, 2026
Phys.org / Models warn Thwaites Glacier could rival entire Antarctic ice loss by 2067

The future of one of Antarctica's most iconic glaciers could be far more dramatic than scientists previously thought. Using satellite calibrated ice sheet models, a team of researchers from the University of Edinburgh found ...

Mar 15, 2026
Phys.org / TESS discovers a super-Earth exoplanet orbiting nearby star

Using the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers have discovered a new super-Earth exoplanet orbiting a star located about 83 light years away. The newfound alien world is slightly larger than Earth and ...

Mar 15, 2026
Phys.org / ATCA observations probe peculiar pulsar wind nebula Vela X

Astronomers have employed the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) to investigate a peculiar pulsar wind nebula known as Vela X. Results of the new observations, published March 2 on the arXiv pre-print server, provide ...

Mar 15, 2026