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New framework links magnetic phase boundaries to string-like defects in spin ice
Science News

New framework links magnetic phase boundaries to string-like defects in spin ice

A research team led by Haruki Watanabe, a professor in the Department of Physics and the Jockey Club Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), in collaboration with professor Yukitoshi Motome and graduate student Sena Watanabe from the University of Tokyo, has developed a unified theory that predicts when two states of matter are genuinely distinct and when they are actually the same.

📅 2026-10-14 20:20:08    •    Phys.org
Job loss and AI-exposed jobs: Q&A with sociology professor
Science News

Job loss and AI-exposed jobs: Q&A with sociology professor

Jennie Brand, a UCLA professor of sociology with an appointment in statistics and data science, is an expert on the socioeconomic effects of job loss, including the long-term economic, psychological, physiological and intergenerational effects.

📅 2026-10-14 20:00:24    •    Phys.org
Rare particle decays hint at deviations from Standard Model predictions
Science News

Rare particle decays hint at deviations from Standard Model predictions

Studying rare processes is part and parcel of particle physics, providing stringent tests of the Standard Model. At the recent International Conference on High Energy Physics (ICHEP), the CMS and LHCb collaborations presented their latest research into one such process: the transformation of a beauty quark into a strange quark, a muon and the oppositely charged antimuon (b→sμ⁺μ⁻).

📅 2026-10-14 19:50:01    •    Phys.org
DNA from centuries-old skeletons buried in Montreal reveals no genetic mixing between Indigenous people and French colonists
Science News

DNA from centuries-old skeletons buried in Montreal reveals no genetic mixing between Indigenous people and French colonists

Ancient DNA from skeletons buried in a historic cemetery in Quebec is changing people's understanding of their Indigenous ancestry. Contrary to popular belief, there may be little truth to stories of intermarriage between Indigenous and French people during the early days of colonization, according to a new archaeology study published Oct. 5 in the journal PNAS."Family stories of an Indigenous ancestor are very common" in Quebec, study first author Diane Martin-Moya, a biological anthropologist at the University of Quebec in Trois-Rivières in Canada, told Live Science in an email, and "commercial genealogy and DNA tests have amplified this." But distant or claimed Indigenous identities can a...

📅 2026-10-14 19:46:12    •    Live Science
Sheep grazing in solar fields offers farmers economic, ecological gains
Science News

Sheep grazing in solar fields offers farmers economic, ecological gains

Two new research papers shed light on the growing practice of grazing sheep in fields with solar arrays. One demonstrates that, in the right numbers, sheep grazing increases populations of beneficial insects like bees and lady beetles compared to mowing around solar panels. The other research describes a decision-making support tool to help farmers profitably grow their solar grazing herds.

📅 2026-10-14 19:40:07    •    Phys.org
Tapeworm drug could help treat endometriosis, mouse study hints
Science News

Tapeworm drug could help treat endometriosis, mouse study hints

A modified tapeworm medication could be a promising new treatment for endometriosis, an early study in mice hints. In endometriosis, tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the organ, and these patches of tissue, called "lesions," trigger painful inflammation and heavy menstrual bleeding. In the new study, scientists fitted an anti-worm drug with nanotech armor, and it directly targeted these painful lesions in laboratory mice. The treatment reduced inflammation and slowed or prevented further spread of the lesions, researchers reported in August in the journal Advanced Healthcare Materials. The team is already working on bringing the new drug to clinical trials and hopes th...

📅 2026-10-14 19:34:46    •    Live Science
Ancient Indigenous people in New Mexico lived through extreme climate change 23,000 years ago, study suggests
Science News

Ancient Indigenous people in New Mexico lived through extreme climate change 23,000 years ago, study suggests

Some of the first people in North America lived through extreme climate change at the peak of the last ice age, a new study suggests. Researchers studied ancient pollen locked in rocks at White Sands National Park in New Mexico, which houses an archaeological site thought to contain the oldest human footprints in the Americas. The researchers previously dated those footprints to around 21,000 to 23,000 years ago, though their age is the subject of some scientific debate because they are significantly older than other Indigenous sites in the Americas.The new findings, published Wednesday (Oct. 14) in the journal Science Advances, suggest that humans kept using White Sands after temperatures w...

📅 2026-10-14 18:19:41    •    Live Science
Self-replicating AIs are a great digital horror story – here’s the reality
Science News

Self-replicating AIs are a great digital horror story – here’s the reality

Is self-replicating AI really just months away?janiecbros/Getty Images Much of the AI industry is built on stories, from the idea that AI could kill us all to the goal that it might one day become superintelligent. This often leads to problems, because when people have a story in their head, they don’t always look at the facts on the ground to check that they actually match the fiction. That has happened this week, with widely reported claims from Anthropic that we are mere “months away” from self-replicating AIs taking over smart devices. That’s a great headline, and it’s hard to resist clicking, but it almost certainly isn’t true. Read more AI or ‘super intelligence’? Trump isn’t the only ...

📅 2026-10-14 18:11:02    •    New Scientist
We can rescue the AMOC after its collapse – but it won’t be easy
Science News

We can rescue the AMOC after its collapse – but it won’t be easy

Icebergs near GreenlandCavan Images/Alamy A collapse in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) would be catastrophic, bringing “ice age” winters to Europe, raising sea levels in North America and disrupting vital monsoons in Africa and Asia. But there is a sliver of good news: a climate-driven collapse of the AMOC might not be permanent. The AMOC could weaken significantly under rising global temperatures over the coming decades, but it could recover its strength just as quickly if global cooling occurs. “There’s a very linear relationship between the global mean temperature and the AMOC response,” says Chuncheng Guo at the Danish Meteorological Institute. “When people talk a...

📅 2026-10-14 18:00:00    •    New Scientist