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. A German-Japanese research team involving the University of Augsburg has made a significant breakthrough in the use of antiferromagnets. For the first time, the team has succeeded in writing magnetic information using only ultrashort laser pulses—without the need for electric currents or magnetic fields. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-optical-antiferromagnets-storage-devices-energy.html Condensed Matter Sat, 04 Jul 2026 16:00:03 EDT news702223904 A newly developed framework for understanding the photoproperties of both natural organic matter and eumelanin, a natural pigment responsible for dark colors in organisms, may inspire advanced sustainable technologies, scientists say. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-common-nanostructures-photoproperties-widespread-dark.html Nanophysics Sat, 04 Jul 2026 14:00:01 EDT news701963416 The state of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) has been a hot topic among climate scientists in recent years. The AMOC is crucial for climate regulation because it pulls warm surface water from the tropics north and sends colder, deeper water south, redistributing large amounts of heat, helping to sustain marine ecosystems and keeping global weather patterns steady. However, most standard AMOC-focused climate models may be missing an important piece of the puzzle—they don't include the growing pulse of freshwater from Greenland ice melt, which could further disrupt the AMOC. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-greenland-meltwater-amoc-weakening-sight.html Earth Sciences Sat, 04 Jul 2026 13:00:01 EDT news702218339 A small change in acidity can transform the world around us. A squeeze of lemon changes the taste of food. Vinegar preserves vegetables. Stomach acid helps break down a meal. These familiar effects come from protons—tiny charged particles that can reshape chemical interactions. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-bacterial-protein-reveals-hidden-calcium.html Cell & Microbiology Sat, 04 Jul 2026 11:20:01 EDT news702218376 Astronomers have spotted many "red and dead" galaxies in the early universe. These are massive systems that stopped forming stars surprisingly early in cosmic history. Now, they may have found evidence of one in the act of becoming dead: a massive galaxy being stripped of its star-forming gas just 1.4 billion years after the Big Bang. The clues behind why it lost its star-forming material are detailed in a paper posted to the arXiv preprint server on June 16. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-astronomers-caught-early-galaxy-dying.html Astronomy Sat, 04 Jul 2026 09:40:01 EDT news701947729 Birds are known for their distinctive plumage that helps them attract mates during the breeding season. For some birds, the path to adulthood is quite linear. One day they are chicks, and a few months later they are fully grown adults with their mature plumage, all set to find and fight for a mate. However, some seabirds linger much longer in the awkward adolescent phase. Species like the American herring gull take several years to develop their adult feathers, a process called delayed plumage maturation. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-young-gull-mottled-brown-plumage.html Plants & Animals Sat, 04 Jul 2026 08:00:04 EDT news702287142 Europe is still taking stock of a powerful heat wave in late June, but experts are already confident it ranks among the worst ever recorded—even rivaling a freak 2003 episode. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-history-european.html Environment Sat, 04 Jul 2026 04:10:01 EDT news702355927 Costa Rican scientists may have discovered a new species of ghost shark in Pacific waters near Cabo Blanco and Cano Island. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-species-ghost-shark-costa-rica.html Plants & Animals Sat, 04 Jul 2026 03:50:20 EDT news702355799 Diseases spread by insects in the Brazilian Amazon are not randomly distributed but form distinct regional patterns linked to land use, rural economies and environmental change, according to new research led by the Environmental Change Institute (ECI) at the University of Oxford. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-insect-borne-diseases-amazon-linked.html Ecology Fri, 03 Jul 2026 20:40:01 EDT news702290375 Why do people make the choices they do? Researchers from the Center Synergy of Systems (SynoSys) at TUD Dresden University of Technology, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, and the University of Basel present their new approach to finding answers to that question. The approach combines observed choices with participants' own descriptions of their decision processes, allowing researchers to study human behavior in greater detail than is possible with behavioral data alone. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-free-text-llms-reveal-hidden.html Mathematics Fri, 03 Jul 2026 15:00:01 EDT news702136906 Scientists have grown wheat containing supersized starch granules—a leap forward in biological engineering with potential benefits for our daily diets and a raft of industrial applications. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-giant-wheat-starch-granules-biological.html Biotechnology Fri, 03 Jul 2026 14:00:10 EDT news702286264 A new ancient DNA study published in Science Advances provides evidence that political power among Scythian elites may have been inherited through family lineages that extended across multiple burial sites. By combining archaeology, anthropology and genetics, the new study offers fresh insight into how social inequality and political authority developed among ancient nomadic societies. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-newfound-family-link-scythian-elite.html Archaeology Fri, 03 Jul 2026 14:00:09 EDT news702200941 Picture a mouse taking rapid, staccato sniffs of a crumb it's found while foraging for food. Now compare that with a human leaning in for a single, deep inhale to gauge whether a cantaloupe is ripe. New research from Northwestern University has found that, like humans, mice also can take a single sniff to deliberately probe their environment—something scientists previously did not know. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-mammals-underlying-evolution.html Plants & Animals Fri, 03 Jul 2026 14:00:06 EDT news702203566 The Southern Ocean has long stood out as an oddity in the global climate system. While most of the planet's surface oceans have warmed in response to rising greenhouse gases, waters circling Antarctica showed an unexpected tendency to cool during the late 20th and early 21st centuries. This cooling coincided with a period when Antarctic sea ice briefly expanded before its more recent decline, adding to the mystery. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-antarctic-ozone-loss-drove-unexpected.html Earth Sciences Fri, 03 Jul 2026 13:20:01 EDT news702288123 Patients in hospitals generally trust the nursing staff. After all, they have undergone training and, in some cases, have several years of professional experience. In the case of carpenter ants, it is not nursing expertise that determines who cares for the patients. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-colony-ant-wound-transitional-workers.html Plants & Animals Fri, 03 Jul 2026 13:00:01 EDT news702205505 Werner Heisenberg's famous uncertainty principle describes one of the most intriguing features of quantum physics: certain pairs of physical quantities describing a particle, such as position and momentum, cannot simultaneously be determined with arbitrary precision—not because of imprecise measuring instruments, but because nature forbids it. Between position and time, however, there is no Heisenberg uncertainty principle. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ultrafast-scanning-tunneling-microscopy-quantum.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 03 Jul 2026 12:00:06 EDT news702290288 Whether mussels, crustaceans or fish, marine animals have been responding to environmental crises with a reduction in body size for hundreds of millions of years. A new study by Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), in conjunction with the Universities of Warsaw and Lille, now shows that this phenomenon, known as the "Lilliput effect," is especially pronounced during phases of strong global warming. The researchers see it as a warning sign regarding changes to today's climate. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-paleontological-climate-marine-animals.html Evolution Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:40:05 EDT news702290246 Chinese goldsmiths working during the Ming Dynasty were masters of their craft, capable of creating intricate and elaborate jewelry pieces. The evidence is there in the abundance of finds in royal and noble tombs across Hubei province. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-recreate-lost-ming-dynasty-goldworking.html Archaeology Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:20:03 EDT news702287228 Short-lived sources of radio radiation in the sky, known as radio transients, can originate in the vicinity of supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies. They are the result of processes that take place under extreme physical conditions. While most radio transients associated with galactic centers last only days or weeks, the galaxy SDSS J110546.07+145202.4 has been shining very brightly in radio light for several years—the first source of its kind. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-radio-outburst-black-hole-properties.html Astronomy Fri, 03 Jul 2026 11:00:01 EDT news702290072 An international team of astronomers reports the discovery of a new massive barred spiral galaxy. The newfound galaxy, designated M1149-BSG-z5, was identified using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). The finding was detailed in a paper published June 23 on the preprint server arXiv. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-jwst-barred-spiral-galaxy.html Astronomy Fri, 03 Jul 2026 10:40:03 EDT news702286662 Researchers at the University of Münster and Ruhr University Bochum have demonstrated for the first time in real time that the body's own defense cells use catecholamines—neurotransmitters such as dopamine and adrenaline—to communicate via the same chemical signals as nerve cells. This discovery opens up a new understanding of how the immune system is regulated. The study has been published in Advanced Science. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-neurotransmitter-communication-immune-cells.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 03 Jul 2026 10:20:09 EDT news702290049 There is a constant war going on in your body. Working against you are viruses and cancer cells growing uncontrollably, threatening your tissues and organs. Fighting on your side are immune cells such as lymphocytes, a type of white blood cell that includes T cells and B cells. B cells produce antibodies that target viruses, while T cells coordinate immune responses and can kill infected or abnormal cells. Together, these defenses help limit infection and the spread of cancer. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-natural-born-killers-tracking-immune.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 03 Jul 2026 10:00:03 EDT news702042144 Researchers have spent decades—and billions of dollars—sequencing animal and crop genomes, but fungi have historically been the forgotten middle child of genomics, only noticed when they're ruining bread or colonizing toes. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-fungal-genome-tool-fresh-paths.html Biotechnology Fri, 03 Jul 2026 09:40:03 EDT news702287408 New research from the University of Kansas uses network science to determine why people make mistakes when lip-reading. Michael Vitevitch, professor of speech-language-hearing at KU, and his co-authors created a visual map of about 20,000 words in English, hoping to better grasp why some words are more difficult to lip-read than others. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-visual-words-reveals-lip-readers.html Mathematics Fri, 03 Jul 2026 09:20:06 EDT news702053517 Neutrinos: They have no electric charge, pass through matter like a ghost and are so light they were initially thought to have zero mass. These are just some of the traits that make them so difficult to detect. Research on neutrinos requires massive underground observatories far from potential confounders that drown out their weak signals. One of the largest in the world, located 1,000 meters (3,281 feet) underground in Gifu Prefecture, Japan, is called Super-Kamiokande. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-cosmic-neutrino-surface-day-super.html Astronomy Fri, 03 Jul 2026 09:00:06 EDT news702287361 When trying to attract and recognize potential mates, animals are known to rely on various signals, traits and behaviors. In the case of birds, these signals can typically include a wide range of sounds—such as trills, whistles, chirps or melodious notes defined as "songs"—as well as the color and movement of their feathers. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-songs-play-greater-role-plumage.html Evolution Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:20:04 EDT news702042111 The Congo River is the second-largest river in the world, releasing an average of 40,000 cubic meters of water per second into the Atlantic Ocean. This huge discharge rate creates a large plume of fresh water that fans out 800 kilometers (500 miles) offshore. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-congo-river-freshwater-day-atlantic.html Earth Sciences Fri, 03 Jul 2026 07:20:04 EDT news702225861 Experts have unlocked secrets hidden for two hundred years in a beautiful navigational chart made for 18th century seafarers negotiating the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. The paper scroll is evidence seafaring communities in the region used their own effective system of navigation that enabled trade and exchange between India, Arabia and the Horn of Africa in the age of sail, before the uptake of a more abstract, instrument-based navigation. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-centuries-experts-secrets-red-sea.html Archaeology Fri, 03 Jul 2026 03:20:01 EDT news702266873 Bottlenose dolphins in the Adriatic Sea are spending much of their time following trawlers to scavenge for food, scientists say. The Adriatic seabed has been plowed by bottom trawlers for decades, resulting in ecosystem damage. Many apex predators are no longer present there. Only bottlenose dolphins are left, and the frequency of their presence around fishing trawlers—up to 76% of the trawlers inspected by scientists off Marche, Italy, were followed by dolphins—suggests they may be struggling to hunt normally. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-bottlenose-dolphins-adriatic-sea-heavily.html Plants & Animals Fri, 03 Jul 2026 00:00:01 EDT news702201181 A new airborne imaging approach can reliably detect unexploded weapons that lie in shallow coastal waters and remain an ongoing hazard to public safety, marine ecosystems and infrastructure worldwide. By combining advanced multispectral sensing with artificial intelligence, the researchers were able to identify underwater munitions with high confidence, even when they are partially hidden by sediment, biological growth or debris. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-airborne-ai-underwater-munitions-shallow.html Environment Thu, 02 Jul 2026 20:20:01 EDT news702210143