Phys.org news

Phys.org / Grains of sand prove people—not glaciers—transported Stonehenge rocks

Ask people how Stonehenge was built and you'll hear stories of sledges, ropes, boats and sheer human determination to haul stones from across Britain to Salisbury Plain, in south-west England. Others might mention giants, ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Earth
Phys.org / Nature-inspired 'POMbranes' could transform water recycling in textile and pharma industries

Scientists have collaborated to develop a new class of highly precise filtration membranes. The research, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, could significantly reduce energy consumption and enable ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Nanotechnology
Phys.org / Webb finds young sun-like star forging common crystals and flinging them into its outer disk

Astronomers have long sought evidence to explain why comets at the outskirts of our own solar system contain crystalline silicates, since crystals require intense heat to form and these "dirty snowballs" spend most of their ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Optical technique reveals hidden magnetic states in antiferromagnets

Imagine computer hardware that is blazing fast and stores more data in less space. That's the promise of antiferromagnets, magnetic materials that do not interfere with each other and can switch states at high speed, opening ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Physics
Phys.org / New insight into light-matter thermalization could advance neutral-atom quantum computing

Light and matter can remain at separate temperatures even while interacting with each other for long periods, according to new research that could help scale up an emerging quantum computing approach in which photons and ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Physics
Phys.org / Single enzyme found to control formation of immune cells critical for health

A new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, its Bloomberg~Kimmel Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health found that an enzyme involved in protein ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / Innovative optical atomic clock could combine single-ion accuracy with multi-ion stability

For many years, cesium atomic clocks have been reliably keeping time around the world. But the future belongs to even more accurate clocks: optical atomic clocks. In a few years' time, they could change the definition of ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Physics
Phys.org / Kenya's big cats under pressure: Cattle are pushing lions away

In the Kenyan savanna, lions and livestock essentially live in shifts: Cattle graze during the day and are enclosed at night when lions are active.

Jan 21, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / Using magnetic frustration to probe new quantum possibilities

Research in the lab of UC Santa Barbara materials professor Stephen Wilson is focused on understanding the fundamental physics behind unusual states of matter and developing materials that can host the kinds of properties ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Physics
Phys.org / EAST achieves new plasma confinement regime using small 3D magnetic perturbations

A research group has achieved a new plasma confinement regime using small 3D magnetic perturbations that simultaneously suppress edge instabilities and enhance core plasma confinement in the Experimental Advanced Superconducting ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Physics
Phys.org / Old diseases return as settlement pushes into the Amazon rainforest

Human activity continues to expand ever further into wild areas, throwing ecology out of balance. But what begins as an environmental issue often evolves into a human problem.

Jan 21, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / AI helps find trees in a forest: Researchers achieve 3D forest reconstruction from remote sensing data

Existing algorithms can partially reconstruct the shape of a single tree from a clean point-cloud dataset acquired by laser-scanning technologies. Doing the same with forest data has proven far more difficult. But now a team ...

Jan 21, 2026 in Biology