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. Men with a strong sense of entitlement are three times more likely to commit "stealthing" during sex, according to a new University of the Sunshine Coast study. Stealthing, which has been criminalized in most Australian states over the past five years, is a form of sexual violence that involves the removal of a condom before or during sex without a partner's knowledge or consent. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-key-traits-condom-stealthers.html Social Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 21:40:01 EDT news698479627 Quantum computers get a lot of attention, even though they are not ready for prime time, but quantum sensors are already doing useful work. These sensors measure fields, forces and motion so small that ordinary background noise can drown them out. Some sensors are already in daily use, while others are moving from research labs into flight tests, hospitals and field instruments. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-quantum-sensors-atoms-electrons-ultrasteady.html Quantum Physics Wed, 20 May 2026 20:40:02 EDT news698499954 New research from a Texas A&M College of Agriculture and Life Sciences doctoral graduate could help producers better protect poultry flocks from disease outbreaks while reducing costs. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-biosecurity-tools-limit-poultry-disease.html Biotechnology Wed, 20 May 2026 20:00:01 EDT news698479638 Examination of pigeon bones from Late Bronze Age Hala Sultan Tekke, Cyprus indicates they were already semi-domesticated as early as c. 1400 BCE, pushing back direct evidence for pigeon domestication almost 1,000 years and challenging perceptions of the birds as opportunistic urban pests. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-friend-foul-exploring-ancient-bond.html Archaeology Wed, 20 May 2026 19:00:03 EDT news697969741 As is every large organization, the U.S. government is assessing how to best integrate artificial intelligence into its procedures and workflows. While AI has undeniable risks, it also has the potential to make work significantly more efficient and effective in a broad range of ways, from automating simpler tasks to unearthing unexpected insights. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ai-hiring-gaps-culture.html Economics & Business Wed, 20 May 2026 18:40:03 EDT news698514781 Researchers at the University of Würzburg have unveiled a new tool for analyzing RNA molecules. It visualizes their structures as interactive maps and could help to improve our understanding of diseases. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-rna-tool-motifs-viruses.html Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 20 May 2026 18:20:01 EDT news698500293 NASA scientists have developed an artificial intelligence tool to take on a longstanding challenge in ocean waters. In a study recently published in the Earth and Space Science journal, researchers reported the tool was able to fuse data from multiple satellites and detect harmful algal blooms that occurred in western Florida and Southern California. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ai-tool-fuses-satellite-datasets.html Earth Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 18:00:05 EDT news698513041 Adverts that feature people with a disability greatly enhance consumer attitudes towards brands and their products, according to new research co-authored by Bayes Business School that also shows the effectiveness of diversity regulations and the benefits of compliance. The paper, "Beyond Visibility: The Disability Inclusion Effect in Advertising" is published in the Journal of Marketing. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-disability-inclusion-advertising-stronger-brand.html Economics & Business Wed, 20 May 2026 18:00:03 EDT news698514542 Standardizing calculations of the helium byproducts generated in advanced fission and fusion energy system materials can increase reactor safety and longevity, according to a study led by University of Michigan Engineering with collaborators at Oak Ridge National Laboratory and its management contractor UT-Battelle. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-helium-fission-fusion-materials.html General Physics Wed, 20 May 2026 17:40:05 EDT news698508541 Juvenile Chinook salmon in the Lower Fraser River estuary are feeding and growing in a slurry of contaminants from pharmaceuticals, personal care products to industrial chemicals, according to a new Simon Fraser University study. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-young-fraser-river-chinook-salmon.html Plants & Animals Wed, 20 May 2026 17:40:02 EDT news698512681 Like so much else in nature, the human visual system has both a complex structure and functional efficiency that is difficult for scientists to replicate. The system is both a sensor and a processor, with the eyes and the brain working together to resolve images with less energy use than anything people have invented. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-optoelectronic-synapse-exceptional-photoresponse-neuromorphic.html Condensed Matter Wed, 20 May 2026 17:20:03 EDT news698508661 For decades, environmental debates have been framed around a stark trade-off: economic growth lifts people out of poverty but comes at the expense of forests, wildlife, and climate stability. More people and richer diets mean more farmland and less nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-economic-growth-income-countries-biodiversity.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 17:20:01 EDT news698507521 Severe droughts, intense floods, and heat waves are pushing river ecosystems beyond their natural limits of resilience. A review of data on river systems across several continents published in the journal Nature Reviews Biodiversity shows that, in most cases, nature is unable to return to its previous state after successive extreme weather events. The consequences range from local extinctions and food chain collapses to permanent changes in the services that rivers provide to human societies. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-extreme-weather-events-rivers-unable.html Ecology Wed, 20 May 2026 17:00:08 EDT news698507221 Scientists have uncovered new evidence that Earth's continents are continuously reworked deep beneath the surface, offering fresh insight into how continents have evolved over billions of years. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-earth-recycles-continents-deep-underground.html Earth Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 17:00:07 EDT news698507281 Cities don't just change the landscape, they change the weather. According to a new study analyzing tens of thousands of rain events in Texas, whether urban areas make rain worse, lighter or simply different depends strongly on the type of storm. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-cities-storms-impacts-storm.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 16:40:05 EDT news698506981 New research shows, for the first time, an unprecedented and significant warming of equatorial Atlantic upper intermediate waters during the mid- to late Holocene. The paper is published in the journal Geology. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ancient-atlantic-oceans-centuries.html Earth Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 16:40:01 EDT news698506201 Fish who display dominant traits are more at risk of consuming microplastic pollution than others in their social group, according to new research. The study, led by the University of Glasgow and published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, details the different levels of risk microplastic pollution poses to aquatic life, with some fish in hierarchical social groups affected more than others. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-dominant-fish-higher-microplastic-subordinates.html Plants & Animals Wed, 20 May 2026 16:20:06 EDT news698501763 The classic image of an archaeologist is of someone unearthing a potsherd in Pompeii or opening a Viking grave to better understand the distant past. Yet the same methods can also be applied to our own time—a field known as contemporary archaeology. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-contemporary-archaeologists-forgotten.html Archaeology Wed, 20 May 2026 16:20:04 EDT news698501751 Aerosols and clouds play a key role in Earth's climate budget. However, the extent to which they reflect solar energy depends heavily on how much water the particles can absorb. This so-called hygroscopicity has so far been represented in a simplified manner in climate models. An international research team led by the Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS) has now demonstrated through a global study that the models are not precise enough, particularly in urban regions. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-urban-aerosols-faster-polluted-air.html Earth Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 16:00:10 EDT news698501755 In a 1930 essay, British economist John Maynard Keynes predicted that in 100 years time, technological advances would have displaced so much human labor that people would be working 15-hour weeks—if they worked at all. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-australian-companies-fourday-week.html Social Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 16:00:03 EDT news698500427 Neptune's far-flung moon Nereid may be the last of the planet's original companions that managed to survive a cosmic crash, scientists reported Wednesday. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-neptune-mysterious-moon-nereid-survivor.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 15:55:54 EDT news698511286 How come our universe is full of disorder, when all elementary particles appear to follow strictly ordered laws of physics? And are there organizing principles behind disorder and apparent chaos? https://phys.org/news/2026-05-evolution-glass-chaos.html Condensed Matter Wed, 20 May 2026 15:46:10 EDT news698510725 In a silent war that has raged for millions of years, plants have evolved a sophisticated chemical arsenal to fight back against invading pathogens. Now, a team of researchers from Peking University and Tsinghua University has finally mapped out the blueprints for one of nature's most effective deterrents, solving a biological puzzle that has baffled scientists for nearly half a century. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-scientists-year-mystery-immunity-debneyol.html Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 20 May 2026 15:40:07 EDT news698500987 People who smile empathically at someone's happiness or frown at their suffering become more attractive. Conversely, smiling out of schadenfreude does not make someone any less attractive. Roujia Feng will defend her Ph.D. thesis on May 26, based on research into the social consequences of expressing (counter)empathic emotions. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-empathy-frown.html Social Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 15:40:04 EDT news698500309 By combining demand-driven life cycle assessment with a multi-objective optimization framework, researchers identified potential optimal solutions for reusable bubble tea packaging systems under actual market demand conditions. The results show that material selection and low reuse frequency dominate both economic costs and environmental impacts, while durability and logistics become increasingly important as reuse frequency increases. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-reusable-tea-cups-hidden-thresholds.html Environment Wed, 20 May 2026 15:20:09 EDT news698500012 The vulnerability of a shark population to losing even small numbers to fishing has been highlighted by researchers from the University of Chester and partners in the Philippines using a remote stereo camera system. The team has found that pelagic thresher sharks in the Central Visayan Sea would be vulnerable to a fishing mortality rate of 5.3% each year, and that the removal of 15 to 18 females would result in a potentially catastrophic decline in the population. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-fragility-high-shark-population.html Plants & Animals Wed, 20 May 2026 15:20:01 EDT news698500045 A new paper calls for ecologists and evolutionary biologists to consider how organisms experience climate rather than how weather stations record it when doing climate–biology research. The paper, "Matching climate to biological scales," is published in the April 2026 edition of Trends in Ecology & Evolution. Postdoctoral associate David Klinges, an incoming assistant professor at Rutgers University, was the lead author, and Yale Peabody Museum curators David Skelly and Martha Muñoz were among the co-authors. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-paper-biologists-rethink-impact-climate.html Ecology Wed, 20 May 2026 15:00:08 EDT news698499649 Academic success at university could depend on the changing interaction between students' habits over time rather than fixed traits such as intelligence or total study hours. This conclusion is discussed in the International Journal of Computational Systems Engineering in a paper that challenges the conventional methods of predicting and measuring educational success. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-analysis-students-dynamic-approach-life.html Education Wed, 20 May 2026 15:00:01 EDT news698500006 The sight of a saltwater crocodile basking on a mudbank is one of the most iconic and intimidating images of northern Australia. Yet the crocodiles that inhabit the region today are just the survivors of a much richer and stranger lost world. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-years-crocodiles-australasia-ancient-apex.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 20 May 2026 14:40:07 EDT news698499640 Imagine taking out a 12-inch ruler and finding that the number 12 is on the left side and the number 1 is on the right side. For most native English speakers, this would be disorienting. We are used to seeing the numbers move from smallest to largest, from left to right. When this layout flips, people struggle because the numbers are now in the "wrong" place. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mind-isnt-universal-people-language.html Social Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 14:40:04 EDT news698499991