https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. Superfluids are intriguing states of matter in which particles behave like a giant collective wave, allowing them to flow without any friction. When this fluid flows past a fixed obstacle at a velocity below a specific threshold, it moves around it without slowing down or exerting any drag. Above this critical velocity, however, the superfluid state starts to break down, and the energy from the flow dissipates in the form of ripples and vortices in the fluid. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-tiny-superfluid.html Soft Matter Fri, 19 Jun 2026 13:20:01 EDT news701088049 Physicists in China have observed five phases in localization physics within a single quantum system. Using an advanced photonic platform, the team, led by Yucheng Wang and Jingyun Fan at the Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, has demonstrated that localization physics is likely far richer than physicists anticipated. Their results have been published in Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-phases-localization-physics-quantum.html General Physics Fri, 19 Jun 2026 07:00:12 EDT news700992908 There is evidence that nonhuman animals perceive the world, and how it unfolds in time, differently from humans and from each other. For example, certain beetles can see flickering in lights up to around 500 Hz, while in humans that flickering appears as a steady light after 60 Hz. Humans see flashed objects as lagging behind moving objects when they actually aren't. While other animals also seem to experience this illusion, the flash appears in a different location. Apparent motion—where stationary objects appear to be moving—also has been shown to differ in humans and mice. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-timescapes-animal-species-events-differently.html Plants & Animals Thu, 18 Jun 2026 14:00:05 EDT news701009982 High above our heads, a silent battle is unfolding within Earth's magnetic shield. For decades, scientists have tracked "killer electrons"—ultrafast particles capable of piercing satellite armor and endangering astronauts as they zip through the Van Allen radiation belts. While we knew these dangerous particles eventually leak out of the belts and into the atmosphere, the primary mechanism "cleaning" the highest-energy electrons has remained a persistent mystery of space weather. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-hidden-electric-space-quietly-earth.html Astronomy Thu, 18 Jun 2026 11:20:07 EDT news700999652 When pigeons are flying through the air, they lock their eyes in a near-fixed position instead of moving them around. Researchers from Harvard University discovered this after attaching a lightweight rig of cameras and mirrors to nine pigeons before they took off on short flights. Their findings are published in a paper in the journal Current Biology. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-pigeons-eyes-theyre-flying.html Plants & Animals Thu, 18 Jun 2026 10:20:08 EDT news700993249 Food has always had a unique way of bringing people together. It becomes especially evident during family mealtimes, when children and adults gather around the table to share more than just a meal. They share stories, catch up on their day and discuss issues they are dealing with. The scene at the dinner table has, however, changed. People still sit together, but attention often shifts away from the conversation to the devices in their hands. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-screens-dominate-dinner-table-parents.html Social Sciences Thu, 18 Jun 2026 09:40:01 EDT news700992924 Two U.S. physicists have suggested that the nine concentric rings surrounding the galaxy LEDA 1313424, also known as the Bullseye galaxy, could have emerged through the quantum behavior of particles of dark matter. Through analysis published in The Astrophysical Journal, Pierre Sikivie and Yuxin Zhao at the University of Florida argue that the extraordinary structure wasn't created by a collision between galaxies, as previous theories had suggested—but by a Bose-Einstein condensate of axions. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ripple-bullseye-galaxy-dark.html Astronomy Thu, 18 Jun 2026 08:40:01 EDT news700990454 AI is growing fast, and keeping up means building more data centers, manufacturing advanced chips and powering the tech behind it. All of that comes with a carbon cost. AI advocates claim that in the long run, AI will save energy and cut carbon emissions across global industries. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ai-carbon-valley-action.html Environment Wed, 17 Jun 2026 13:20:01 EDT news700914505 Genes aren't just transferred from parents to their offspring. Nature has found other ways to pass on genetic information, even between different species. And a new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reports that cockroaches, in particular, are riddled with DNA transferred from another species. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-cockroach-genomes-dna-endosymbiont-bacterial.html Plants & Animals Wed, 17 Jun 2026 12:20:08 EDT news700914540 Goats appear to have a rare ability not shared by many in the animal kingdom, and that is being able to follow the direction of a human voice to locate hidden objects. While dogs have been shown to do this, even our closest primate cousins, like chimpanzees, have struggled with the task in previous experiments. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-goats-human-voices-hidden-food.html Plants & Animals Wed, 17 Jun 2026 10:20:01 EDT news700909066 Physicists have long been drawn to the nonlinear Hall effect: a subtle variant of the classical Hall effect, in which an electric voltage appears perpendicular to a current flowing through a material. Unlike its classical counterpart, the nonlinear version can arise even without breaking time-reversal symmetry, and its magnitude is tied to deep geometric properties of electron wave functions. So far, however, the behavior of the effect when a magnetic field is applied has remained poorly understood. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-quantum-hall-effect-gains-graphene.html Condensed Matter Wed, 17 Jun 2026 09:40:01 EDT news700903892 Could the secret to preventing dangerous falls be surprisingly simple? For older adults, these unexpected tumbles are a leading cause of injury, affecting roughly 1 in 4 people 65 and older each year. What if the key isn't complex technology or intensive therapy, but something as straightforward as a shared connection? Forget holding hands—new research reveals a surprising twist in how two people can become a dynamic duo against sudden loss of balance. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-significantly.html Other Wed, 17 Jun 2026 08:40:06 EDT news700902810 Many animals exhibit fascinating collective behaviors, which allow them to move, search for food, reproduce and avoid threats more effectively than they would alone. One of these behaviors is queuing migration, which essentially entails traveling as a group in an organized line or procession. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ancient-amber-fossil-captures-mites.html Evolution Wed, 17 Jun 2026 07:00:01 EDT news700735961 When female bottlenose dolphins want to avoid males known for pushy mating behaviors, they listen out for their unique signature whistles. That's the suggestion of a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that tracked a population of Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Western Australia. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-dolphins-troublesome-males.html Plants & Animals Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:20:02 EDT news700831986 Most of the earthquakes we hear about are due to tectonic plates colliding or sliding past each other near plate boundaries. Yet researchers have detected some enigmatic earthquakes happening inside the more stable interiors of plates. Intermediate-depth earthquakes (IDEs), which occur around 70–300 kilometers (43–186 miles) below the surface, are especially puzzling because rocks at those depths are hot enough to flow more fluidly. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-deep-hundreds-antarctic-earthquakes.html Earth Sciences Tue, 16 Jun 2026 12:40:01 EDT news700831490 We often hear about glacier melting and predictions of what climate change could do. But very little is mentioned about the effects on ecosystems or the animals that call them home. To redress some of this imbalance, an international team of researchers set out to map this hidden biodiversity. Their findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-glaciers-hidden-life.html Plants & Animals Tue, 16 Jun 2026 11:20:04 EDT news700822381 In a strong El Niño winter, normally dry regions can suddenly drown in rain. NASA notes that "typically dry regions can experience nearly two times as much rain during a strong El Niño." Indeed, the blockbuster El Niños of 1982–83 and 1997–98 unleashed record-breaking California storms and unusually mild Northeast winters. These far-reaching effects—atmospheric "teleconnections" linking the tropics to North America—arise because Pacific warming steers the jet stream south and east. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-super-el-nios-world.html Earth Sciences Tue, 16 Jun 2026 10:40:08 EDT news700822198 Could Earth have seeded Jupiter's moon Europa with bacterial life, where it could have taken hold in Europa's ocean and perhaps evolved into something more? That's the hypothesis of a new paper in the International Journal of Astrobiology by Zaza Osmanov of the Free University of Tbilisi in Georgia. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-earth-life-jupiter-moon-europa.html Astrobiology Tue, 16 Jun 2026 09:20:07 EDT news700742290 Italian astronomers have used the Very Large Telescope (VLT) to perform polarimetric observations of the star WRAY 15-1880 and its young circumstellar disk. Results of the new observations, presented June 10 on the arXiv preprint server, suggest that this disk may host a primitive planetary system. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-young-disk-wray-primitive-planetary.html Astronomy Tue, 16 Jun 2026 08:20:01 EDT news700802492 Astronomers have detected one of the most powerful ultra-fast outflows ever seen from a distant supermassive black hole. Using XMM-Newton and NuSTAR, a team studied a hyper-luminous quasar at cosmic noon and found two distinct wind components blasting away from the black hole, details of which are outlined in a paper submitted to the arXiv preprint server on June 3. The study has been submitted to the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics and is currently under minor revision. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-powerful-ufo-blasting-distant-black.html Astronomy Tue, 16 Jun 2026 07:00:01 EDT news700486457 The Arctic and northern high latitudes are warming about 2–4 times faster than the global average, allowing ancient permafrost to thaw and release stored carbon. These permafrost soils currently store roughly one-third of the world's organic soil carbon, much of which has remained frozen for thousands of years. As the soils thaw, organic matter from dead plants and animals within them starts to decompose, and greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, are released. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-northern-permafrost-carbon-source-earlier.html Earth Sciences Mon, 15 Jun 2026 12:59:59 EDT news700747125 Archaeologists have discovered a game board carved into the steps of a medieval bathhouse in the Moroccan town of Walīla (the Roman city of Volubilis). The find is a rare example of a medieval game board that can be securely dated. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-medieval-moroccan-bathhouse-reveal-rare.html Archaeology Mon, 15 Jun 2026 09:53:29 EDT news700735920 A team of U.S. researchers has designed a passive quantum error correction technique that enables qubits to correct their own errors. Demonstrated by Shruti Shirol and colleagues at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the protocol transforms the inevitable dissipation of energy in qubit systems from a hindrance into an advantage, offering a promising route toward practical quantum computing outside the lab. The research has been published in Physical Review X. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-passive-quantum-error-qubit-lifetime.html Quantum Physics Mon, 15 Jun 2026 09:40:08 EDT news700480884 The ability to control the movement of negatively charged particles (i.e., electrons) is central to the functioning of all modern electronic devices. This control is typically attained using a gate, an electrode via which an applied electric field alters a material's electrical properties. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-quasi-1d-material-electric-standard.html Condensed Matter Mon, 15 Jun 2026 06:40:01 EDT news700304476 Climate change is altering where and when rocks are most likely to fracture across Spain, according to new research that suggests warming temperatures are redistributing a key process responsible for breaking down mountain landscapes. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-climate-reshapes-spain-rockfall-frost.html Earth Sciences Mon, 15 Jun 2026 05:40:02 EDT news700479435 Many insects will eat almost anything in their sight, such as certain beetles, grasshoppers and locusts, while others are remarkably picky eaters. For example, numerous insect herbivores will feed only on a single plant family or a specific type of tree. But why is this so? https://phys.org/news/2026-06-diversity-caterpillars-fussy-food.html Plants & Animals Sun, 14 Jun 2026 14:30:01 EDT news700484036 Most people have seen nylon listed as a material on their clothing tags, but nylon is used in an array of other products, too, including automotive parts, wire insulation and medical supplies. Unfortunately, one of the building blocks of nylon, adipic acid, is produced from petroleum-derived benzene through energy-intensive processes and has a rather high carbon footprint. However, there may be a better way to produce this ubiquitous polymer. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-years-overlooked-material-poised-reshape.html Biochemistry Sun, 14 Jun 2026 12:40:01 EDT news700402907 Archaeologists digging at an Inca site on the arid coast of southern Peru have unearthed two rare, roughly 500-year-old freeze-dried potatoes. The potatoes are among the only ones found in more than a century and would have been transported across the empire from the freezing peaks of the Andes. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-rare-year-dried-potatoes-unearthed.html Archaeology Sun, 14 Jun 2026 11:10:01 EDT news700215525 In the next few decades, many physicists are hopeful that nuclear fusion could become a realistic source of practically limitless energy. But before this can happen, it will be critical to ensure that reactors cannot be covertly misused to produce materials for nuclear weapons. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-fusion-reactors-covert-plutonium-production.html General Physics Sat, 13 Jun 2026 13:00:03 EDT news700233543 Using NASA's Chandra X-ray spacecraft, astronomers have performed deep X-ray observations of a galactic globular cluster known as NGC 6540. The new observational campaign, described June 1 on the preprint server arXiv, focused on disentangling the nature of a peculiar X-ray flare emitted by the cluster about two decades ago. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-chandra-ngc-mysterious-ray-flare.html Astronomy Sat, 13 Jun 2026 10:10:01 EDT news700225575