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. The Apollo astronauts didn't know what they'd find when they explored the surface of the moon, but they certainly didn't expect to see drifts of tiny, bright orange glass beads glistening among the otherwise monochrome piles of rocks and dust. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-moon-shimmers-shiny-glass-beads.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 11 Jun 2025 16:55:03 EDT news668879701 A new type of adhesive that can be cleanly removed from plastic bottles and packaging before disposal could lead to better-quality recycled plastic, a new study has shown. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-plastic-bottles-easier-recycle-degradable.html Polymers Tue, 18 Feb 2025 12:05:03 EST news659102701 By probing chemical processes observed in the Earth's hot mantle, Cornell scientists have started developing a library of basalt-based spectral signatures that not only will help reveal the composition of planets outside of our solar system but could demonstrate evidence of water on those exoplanets. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-scientists-library-exoplanet.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 14 Nov 2024 05:00:02 EST news650712664 A Southwest Research Institute-led team combined compositional data of primitive bodies like Kuiper Belt objects, asteroids and comets with new solar data sets to develop a revised solar composition that potentially reconciles spectroscopy and helioseismology measurements for the first time. Helioseismology probes the sun's interior by analyzing the waves that travel through it, while spectroscopy reveals the surface composition based on the spectral signature produced by each chemical element. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-team-solar-composition-ratios-longstanding.html Astronomy Tue, 12 Nov 2024 12:25:03 EST news650636701 The TOC (Translocon at the Outer envelope of Chloroplasts)-TIC (Translocon at the Inner envelope of Chloroplasts) supercomplex is responsible for mediating the transport of most precursor proteins from the cytoplasm into the chloroplast. The chloroplast protein transport system includes a motor protein complex, which plays a critical driving role in the translocation of precursor proteins across the chloroplast membrane. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-scientists-reveal-basis-precursor-protein.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 12 Nov 2024 12:02:02 EST news650635321 For the first time, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide ices have been observed in the far reaches of our solar system on trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). https://phys.org/news/2024-05-scientists-ices-outskirts-solar.html Astronomy Sat, 25 May 2024 05:39:13 EDT news635834337 Most systems used to detect toxic gases in industrial or domestic settings can be used only once, or at best a few times. Now, researchers at MIT have developed a detector that could provide continuous monitoring for the presence of these gases, at low cost. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-detector-toxic-gases.html Analytical Chemistry Thu, 16 May 2024 14:13:03 EDT news635087581 A ring of icy rocks orbiting our sun just beyond Neptune may give us a glimpse of how Neptune—and other objects in the outskirts of our solar system—were formed. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-scientists-james-webb-space-telescope.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 06 Mar 2024 16:57:04 EST news628966621 Earth's moon achieved its Swiss cheese appearance from celestial objects crashing into its surface, forming impact craters. But craters weren't all that was left behind; the intense pressure and temperature of such a collision also impacted the rocks and dust covering the lunar surface, known as regolith, altering its mineral composition and structure. Analyzing the resulting minerals provides modern researchers clues to the moon's past. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-lunar-sample-china-mission-minerals.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 06 Feb 2024 11:00:02 EST news626433081 Janus adhesive hydrogels hold promising applications across health care fields. Nevertheless, a simple method to synthesize the material had yet to be bioengineered in the lab. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-one-step-synthesis-janus-hydrogel.html Analytical Chemistry Mon, 04 Dec 2023 09:42:46 EST news620905360 It's a world like no other: a metal-rich asteroid that could be the remnants of a small planet, or perhaps an entirely new type of celestial body unknown to science. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-nasa-journey-metal-rich-asteroid.html Space Exploration Thu, 12 Oct 2023 15:53:44 EDT news616344819 In addition to oxygen, nitrogen or carbon dioxide, the air we breathe contains small amounts of organic gases, such as benzene and toluene. These oxidize into small particles or aerosols that contribute to the condensation of water in the droplets that form clouds. Now, a study by the Institut de Cièncias del Mar (ICM-CSIC), the Instituto de Química Física Rocasolano (IQFR-CSIC) and the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) stresses the importance of clouds, which filter solar radiation, for understanding past and future climate changes. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-highlights-impact-marine-gases-climate.html Earth Sciences Tue, 31 Jan 2023 10:41:03 EST news594384061 Macromolecules in diverse phases can adsorb onto natural systems, composite materials, and thin-film devices. In a new report now published in Science Advances, Yuma Morimitsu and a research team in applied chemistry and polymer interfaces and molecular adhesion used atomic force microscopy (AFM) to visualize well-defined double-stranded DNAs and conducted molecular dynamics simulations to identify the adsorption mechanisms of polymer chains to solid surfaces. https://phys.org/news/2022-12-visualizing-cooperative-adsorption-string-like-molecule.html Biochemistry Tue, 06 Dec 2022 09:50:01 EST news589538479 Early crust on Mars may be more complex than previously thought—and it may even be similar to our own planet's original crust. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-mars-crust-complex-evolved-previously.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 04 Nov 2022 00:00:02 EDT news586707275 A multinational team of researchers, co-led by a City University of Hong Kong (CityU) physicist, has found that a novel metallic crystal displays unusual electronic behavior on its surface, thanks to the crystal's unique atomic structure. Their findings open up the possibility of using this material to develop faster and smaller microelectronic devices. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-kagome-metallic-crystal-electronics.html General Physics Thu, 27 Oct 2022 10:47:43 EDT news586086448 A new study by a recent graduate of Southwest Research Institute's joint graduate program in physics with The University of Texas at San Antonio demonstrates the ability of the Lyman-Alpha Mapping Project (LAMP) to determine the composition of areas on the lunar surface by measuring the reflectance of far-ultraviolet (far-UV) light. https://phys.org/news/2021-10-lunar-composition-capabilities-spectrograph-instrument.html Space Exploration Thu, 07 Oct 2021 08:18:14 EDT news552813492 "Skin electronics" are thin, flexible electronics that could be mounted onto the skin. While it may sound like something out of science fiction, it is anticipated that soon such devices will serve in a wide range of applications such as health monitoring, health diagnosis, virtual reality, and human-machine interface. https://phys.org/news/2021-08-highly-elastic-nanomembrane-skin-electronics.html Nanomaterials Thu, 26 Aug 2021 14:00:07 EDT news549198918 Diamonds that formed deep in the Earth's mantle contain evidence of chemical reactions that occurred on the seafloor. Probing these gems can help geoscientists understand how material is exchanged between the planet's surface and its depths. https://phys.org/news/2021-03-deep-diamonds-evidence-deep-earth-recycling.html Earth Sciences Wed, 31 Mar 2021 14:00:08 EDT news536394068 Researchers at the Advanced Science Research Center at The Graduate Center, CUNY (CUNY ASRC) and Northwestern University have created a 4-D printer capable of constructing patterned surfaces that recreate the complexity of cell surfaces. The technology, detailed in a newly published paper in Nature Communications, allows scientists to combine organic chemistry, surface science, and nanolithography to construct precisely designed nanopatterned surfaces that are decorated with delicate organic or biological molecules. The surfaces will have a wide variety of uses, including in drug research, biosensor development, and advanced optics. Importantly, this technology can create surfaces with different materials, and these materials can be patterned across the surface without the use of expensive photomasks or tedious clean room processes. https://phys.org/news/2020-03-nanoscale-d-technique-therapeutics.html Nanophysics Fri, 06 Mar 2020 05:00:01 EST news502690204 Nanoscale photocatalysts are small, man-made particles that harvest energy from sunlight to produce liquid fuels and other useful chemicals. But even within the same batch, the particles tend to vary widely in size, shape and surface composition. That makes it hard for researchers to tell what's really doing the work. https://phys.org/news/2020-02-wire-real-time-imaging-reveal-sites.html Nanophysics Wed, 19 Feb 2020 08:57:27 EST news501325044 A discovery that helps explain how organic matter produced by life thousands of years ago is ultimately removed from the sea has been published in Science Advances by Steven Beaupré of Stony Brook University's School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) and a national team of scientists. https://phys.org/news/2019-10-propel-ancient-molecules-air.html Earth Sciences Thu, 24 Oct 2019 09:59:53 EDT news491129985 Thin, brownish layers of a thickness of about a millimeter or two are sometimes observed in the whitish/transparent ice cores. These brown layers consist of material originating from volcanic eruptions. https://phys.org/news/2019-08-synchronization-ice-cores-volcanic-ash.html Earth Sciences Thu, 08 Aug 2019 07:23:02 EDT news484467753 For some crystalline catalysts, what you see on the surface is not always what you get in the bulk, according to two studies led by the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory. https://phys.org/news/2017-10-customize-catalysts-boost-product-yields.html Materials Science Wed, 18 Oct 2017 11:27:04 EDT news427544812 In 2020, NASA plans to launch a new Mars rover that will be tasked with probing a region of the planet scientists believe could hold remnants of ancient microbial life. The rover will collect samples of rocks and soil, and store them on the Martian surface; the samples would be returned to Earth sometime in the distant future so that scientists can meticulously analyze the samples for signs of present or former extraterrestrial life. https://phys.org/news/2016-08-raman-spectra-mars-rover-life.html Materials Science Tue, 16 Aug 2016 08:55:11 EDT news390556473 University of Maryland astronomers Silvia Protopapa and Douglas Hamilton are among the authors of the first published paper from the New Horizons flyby, which appears in the Oct. 16, 2015 issue of the journal Science. Protopapa helped map the composition of Pluto's surface and locate ices on it. Hamilton helped confirm the shapes, sizes and unique rotations of two of Pluto's moons and the finding that no other moons appear to orbit Pluto. The findings will help scientists understand the origins and subsequent history of Pluto and its moons. https://phys.org/news/2015-10-horizons-reveals-pluto-surface-variations.html Space Exploration Thu, 15 Oct 2015 14:00:05 EDT news364119881 The surface of the Earth preserves little or no information about its distant past. Constant tectonic activity has recycled Earth's crust and shifted landmasses. Rainfall, wind, ice and snow have weathered away surface features over billions of years. Most of the craters formed by the impacts of asteroids and comets have been erased from the geologic record, with just over 100 known craters remaining on the continents. https://phys.org/news/2015-07-exploring-moon-today-earth-youth.html Space Exploration Wed, 08 Jul 2015 09:40:01 EDT news355563261 Breaking ocean waves beget a wake of bubbles. Reaching the sea surface, they burst into a spray of salt and carbon-rich material produced from microscopic sea critters. The far-flung particles can loft high enough to affect cloud-forming droplets. In a paper appearing in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, a team of researchers including Drs. Susannah Burrows and Phil Rasch of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and Los Alamos National Laboratory scientist Dr. Scott Elliott, devised a new method to identify the chemical composition of the sea spray, and how that chemical make-up is affected by ocean biology. https://phys.org/news/2015-02-scientists-ocean-biology-affects-sea.html Earth Sciences Mon, 02 Feb 2015 07:14:43 EST news342083675 In the time it takes you to complete a single workday, or get a full night's sleep, a small fireball of a planet 700 light-years away has already completed an entire year. https://phys.org/news/2013-08-year-team-exoplanet-orbits-star.html Astronomy Mon, 19 Aug 2013 07:25:09 EDT news296115894 In order to better understand the composition of rocky exoplanets, researchers have proposed a method to identify chemical signatures from surface materials. A better understanding of exoplanet surface compositions will help researchers determine the prevalence of Earth-like planets in our galaxy. https://phys.org/news/2013-05-exoplanet-surfaces.html Astronomy Mon, 27 May 2013 11:20:01 EDT news288870598 (Phys.org) —Until recently, most everyone accepted the conventional wisdom that the moon has virtually no atmosphere. Just as the discovery of water on the moon transformed our textbook knowledge of Earth's nearest celestial neighbor, recent studies confirm that our moon does indeed have an atmosphere consisting of some unusual gases, including sodium and potassium, which are not found in the atmospheres of Earth, Mars or Venus. It's an infinitesimal amount of air when compared to Earth's atmosphere. At sea level on Earth, we breathe in an atmosphere where each cubic centimeter contains 10,000,000,000,000,000,000 molecules; by comparison the lunar atmosphere has less than 1,000,000 molecules in the same volume. That still sounds like a lot, but it is what we consider to be a very good vacuum on Earth. In fact, the density of the atmosphere at the moon's surface is comparable to the density of the outermost fringes of Earth's atmosphere where the International Space Station orbits. https://phys.org/news/2013-04-atmosphere-moon.html Space Exploration Tue, 16 Apr 2013 07:55:59 EDT news285317751