Physics

Contrary to elementary school science class, it turns out that heat may not be necessary to make water evaporate. Scientists at MIT have made the surprising discovery that light alone can evaporate water, and is even more efficient at it than heat.

Using paired smartphones, motion-capture app OpenCap films video and then uses AI to analyse human movement, providing detailed data for use in rehabilitation, presurgery plans and disease diagnostics – and is 1% of the cost of traditional technology.

The very fabric of spacetime is constantly warping on unimaginably tiny scales, as ripples from past cataclysms wash over us. Astrophysicists have now detected a background sea of gravitational waves, using a galaxy-scale detector of dead stars.

Smart textiles and patches are the near future of home health monitoring. The latest in this burgeoning field of medical therapies is one that impressively keeps an eye on your muscles in real time, helping with both injury recovery and prevention.

Ever dropped a peanut in a glass of beer? If not, researchers say you're missing out, as it triggers an unusual interaction that temporarily defies the principle of buoyancy. We believe the hypothesis was rigorously tested with repeat experiments.

A team of researchers led by Ohio University Professor of Physics Saw Wai Hla has captured the first X-ray "image" of a single atom, allowing scientists to study materials and their chemical states with greater resolution than ever before.

To make the United States self-sufficient in rare exotic elements, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has developed a latest generation electromagnetic isotope separator (EMIS) to harvest stable isotopes across the entire periodic table.

We’re willing to bet you’ve never given much thought to how bugs urinate, but even if you did you probably wouldn’t imagine them using butt-based pinball paddles to flick drops of pee at 40 G’s, using physics never before seen in nature.

Ice and water aren't very exciting to most of us, but they’re super strange from a scientific standpoint. Researchers have now discovered a brand new type of ice that’s described as being a true “snapshot” of water, and may be found on alien worlds.

Scientists have demonstrated a more advanced lightning rod than a humble metal stick. Beaming a high-powered laser into the sky was shown to deflect lightning bolts, enabling laser lightning rods that protect a wider area from dangerous strikes.

The best bits of thunderstorms often happen above the clouds. Scientists have now described in detail the most powerful “gigantic jet” of lightning ever observed, which blasted energy equivalent to 60 regular lightning bolts upwards into space.

If you’ve seen the first images from the James Webb Space Telescope this week, you might have heard the term “gravitational lensing” being thrown around. But what does it mean exactly? And how can it help this new telescope make discoveries?