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. Discovering new catalysts is one of the central challenges in developing clean-energy technologies such as green hydrogen production. Yet catalyst discovery has traditionally remained confined within individual material families, limiting researchers' ability to transfer knowledge across chemically distinct systems. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ai-catalyst-boundaries-uncover-route.html Analytical Chemistry Sun, 31 May 2026 13:00:01 EDT news699204084 Ancient Egyptians are often depicted wearing black eyeliner, known as kohl, which was stored in small containers. While kohl containers are typically found throughout Egypt and Sudan (Nubia), their presence beyond these areas is limited to only a handful of examples. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-kohl-bottle-york-hint-ancient.html Archaeology Sun, 31 May 2026 11:40:01 EDT news698998416 Many soybean farmers use seeds treated with fungicides to ward off disease, but the profits from these increased yields might not offset the cost of the treatment in most cases, according to a study published in Scientific Reports by researchers at Penn State. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-fungicide-soybean-seeds-boost-harvests.html Agriculture Sun, 31 May 2026 10:00:01 EDT news699200272 Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have discovered a stellar bar in GN20, a massive galaxy seen just 1.5 billion years after the Big Bang. The new paper was submitted to the preprint server arXiv on May 14. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-jwst-stellar-bar-early-universe.html Astronomy Sun, 31 May 2026 08:50:02 EDT news698923618 Few creatures inspire as much universal dislike as ticks. Though small, these parasites have an enormous impact on human and animal health. Each year, ticks spread viruses and bacteria that infect people, livestock, wildlife, and pets around the world. Scientists at the University of Tennessee College of Veterinary Medicine are working to better understand how ticks transmit these diseases—and how to stop them. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-hidden-saliva-protein-disease-source.html Molecular & Computational biology Sun, 31 May 2026 08:00:03 EDT news699432354 Australian researchers have trained lab-grown brain cells on a silicon computer chip to play the nineties shooter game "Doom" and say they are just scratching the surface of what the neurons could be capable of doing. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-brain-cells-play-doom.html Biotechnology Sun, 31 May 2026 07:19:01 EDT news699430701 Researchers with the University of Cincinnati and Johns Hopkins Medicine developed a potential treatment for brain cancer that uses nanofibers embedded with a combination of drugs that work in concert to target tumors. The drugs proved more effective in combination than when administered alone and can provide both immediate and long-lasting doses to kill cancer cells. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-nanofiber-implant-drugs-survival-glioblastoma.html Bio & Medicine Sat, 30 May 2026 17:00:04 EDT news699190974 In a study published in Nature Geoscience, a research team led by Prof. Liu Lingli from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (IBCAS) has identified a mean annual precipitation (MAP) threshold of approximately 700 mm, beyond which the dominant controls on ecosystem nitrogen retention shift. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-rainfall-mm-ecosystem-nitrogen-retention.html Earth Sciences Sat, 30 May 2026 15:00:02 EDT news699029320 Nonlinear interactions between light and matter are at the heart of some of the most powerful tools in modern optics, but pushing these processes to their limits has long been hampered by a fundamental constraint: the stronger you make the laser, the more likely it is to destroy whatever it illuminates. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-quantum-boost-ultrafast-laser.html Optics & Photonics Sat, 30 May 2026 13:00:02 EDT news699017292 Astronomers from the George Washington University (GWU) in Washington, DC, and elsewhere have employed NASA's Chandra X-ray spacecraft to observe a pulsar wind nebula inside a supernova remnant known as CTA 1. Results of the observational campaign, presented in a research paper published May 20 on the arXiv preprint server, shed more light on the morphology and properties of this nebula. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-pulsar-nebula-supernova-remnant-explored.html Astronomy Sat, 30 May 2026 10:40:02 EDT news699190452 Highlights from the last week of May, 2026: A key climate tipping point is disrupting the Arctic Ocean food chain (more of a lowlight, I guess). Scuba-diving tourism may not be the benefit to coral reef systems that we once thought, and might actually be unsustainable. And an experimental mRNA vaccine showed promising results against strains of Ebola. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-saturday-citations-failure-cellular-mortality.html Other Sat, 30 May 2026 09:20:02 EDT news699280662 Nearly 5,000 years ago, respiratory infections, possibly including tuberculosis, were ravaging the children buried at Camino del Molino (CMOL), Spain. The massive circular burial cave carved into rock is Europe's largest Copper Age mass burial, containing over 1,300 individuals, and has been the subject of years of excavation and analysis. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-europe-largest-copper-age-tomb.html Archaeology Sat, 30 May 2026 08:40:01 EDT news698927145 Cosmic rays seen at Earth show a wide range of particle energies, from 107 electron-volts (eV) to more than 1020 eV, the latter being about the same as the kinetic energy of a 450 gram football (soccer ball) being kicked across the pitch at about 8 meters per second. A plot of cosmic ray energies from the Milky Way galaxy often shows a fair amount of what scientists might call "structure"—interesting deviations from the underlying trend called "knees" and "ankles" that indicate new processes or methods of cosmic ray production taking place at that energy. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-evidence-cosmic-ray-nearby-supernova.html Astronomy Sat, 30 May 2026 07:20:01 EDT news699280638 Non-native wall lizards living in Cincinnati, Ohio, have thrived against the odds thanks to an ability to expand their population more quickly than any inbreeding-amplified harmful genes could weaken their chances for survival, new research suggests. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-wall-lizards-ohio-genetic-bottleneck.html Ecology Sat, 30 May 2026 06:11:43 EDT news699340243 New research reveals a potential link between the gut microbes of a fish and global ocean processes, offering new insight into how marine ecosystems help regulate ocean chemistry and the marine carbon cycle. The study, titled "Symbiotic bacteria may support calcium carbonate precipitation in the Gulf toadfish," is published in the journal PLOS Biology. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-fish-microbe-partnership-ocean-health.html Ecology Fri, 29 May 2026 15:40:01 EDT news699281453 For nearly a century, there were two known kinds of magnets. Ferromagnets are the classic magnets that attract metal and keep pictures stuck to the refrigerator. Antiferromagnets hide their magnetism at the atomic scale but are increasingly prized for their technological potential. A third category discovered within the last decade may combine the best qualities of both. Dubbed altermagnets, they could someday help create faster, more energy-efficient electronics. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-diamond-quantum-sensor-reveal-elusive.html Condensed Matter Fri, 29 May 2026 15:20:02 EDT news699280720 Bright colors in animals are beautiful but often considered risky because they are more obvious to predators. However, conspicuous colors can also serve defensively, signaling toxicity or even luring predators away from more vulnerable body parts. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-predator-triggered-orange-tails-tadpoles.html Plants & Animals Fri, 29 May 2026 15:00:03 EDT news699279902 When viruses invade a plant, you might expect an all-out immune war. But new research published in Science shows that, much like in humans, too strong an immune response can actually do more harm than good. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-immunity-survive-viral-infections.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 29 May 2026 14:40:02 EDT news699274682 Gas streetlights might look quaint, but researchers at the University of Cincinnati say they are costly, wasteful and release toxic pollutants into the air. In two studies examining their use in Boston, Massachusetts, and Cincinnati, UC researchers found that each lamp releases many times the amount of methane and carbon monoxide of other appliances such as gas stoves and water heaters. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-taxpayers-gaslighted-street-lamp-charm.html Environment Fri, 29 May 2026 14:20:05 EDT news699273722 Researchers at the University of Toronto's Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy, working with collaborators around the world, have demonstrated the effectiveness of a suite of low-cost, portable biotechnology tools designed to improve access to laboratory research and diagnostics in resource-limited settings. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-dried-reagents-powered-hardware-biomanufacturing.html Biotechnology Fri, 29 May 2026 14:00:02 EDT news699264902 There's a conundrum that has perplexed biologists since Charles Darwin himself. Why do some exotic species take off as invasive pests while others don't? https://phys.org/news/2026-05-vast-botanical-darwin-puzzle-exotic.html Evolution Fri, 29 May 2026 13:40:04 EDT news699273241 A new study published in Physical Review Letters by the IceCube Collaboration reports evidence that the energy spectrum of astrophysical neutrinos is not a simple straight line. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-icecube-cosmic-neutrino-spectrum-simple.html General Physics Fri, 29 May 2026 13:20:06 EDT news699105986 University of Calgary researchers are a part of a group who just got one step closer to solving a mystery of the universe. Dr. Timothy Friesen, Ph.D., an associate professor of Physics and Astronomy in the Faculty of Science, and his team led a new measurement comparing the spectrum of hydrogen to its antimatter counterpart—antihydrogen. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-antihydrogen-mirrors-hydrogen-spectrum-narrowing.html General Physics Fri, 29 May 2026 13:00:03 EDT news699273183 For decades, ecologists have theorized that the extinction of one important species could set off a chain reaction of losses throughout an ecosystem. Now, new research offers some of the clearest real-world evidence that this idea of coextinction is not just theoretical. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-elephant-declines-trigger-wider-ecosystem.html Plants & Animals Fri, 29 May 2026 12:40:04 EDT news699269895 The red pipefish (Notiocampus ruber) is a rare relative of seahorses and seadragons found only in Australia. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-rare-male-red-pipefish-eggs.html Plants & Animals Fri, 29 May 2026 12:20:02 EDT news699269781 It's tricky to make an exact copy of yourself. Or at least it is for cells undergoing mitosis, where cells replicate everything inside of them, including their neatly packaged DNA, then split in half. Rice University professor Peter Wolynes is interested in how the packaged DNA, called a chromosome, changes its structure during replication, going from a ball shape to a cylinder shape that can be transported easily to the daughter cell. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-chromosome-links-steady-motor-shift.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 29 May 2026 12:00:03 EDT news699268719 Past research has indicated Mars's largest northern basin, Utopia Planitia, was once the location of a large body of water, but details surrounding when this body of water may have existed have not been resolved. Researchers have now identified a ring of minerals in the region that have helped them string together a timeline of what happened there. The new study, published in Nature Communications, provides details about the ocean's timeline and what it says about life on Mars. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mars-manganese-bathtub-reveals-ancient.html Astrobiology Fri, 29 May 2026 11:50:26 EDT news699274173 Which comes first, the galaxy or the black hole? We don't know, but scientists have long thought it could be the galaxy: Large stars within an existing galaxy consume their fuel and collapse to form black holes, which can gobble up surrounding material and merge over time to form more massive entities. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-webb-reveals-black-hole-galaxy.html Astronomy Fri, 29 May 2026 11:40:13 EDT news699266881 Orangutans have one of the slowest life histories among mammals, and a new study now shows just how long orangutan mothers continue to breastfeed their offspring. An international team has demonstrated that wild orangutan juveniles keep consuming their mother's milk continuously until at least six and a half years of age, confirming one of the longest breastfeeding periods known among mammals. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-orangutans-breastfeed-years-longest-mammals.html Plants & Animals Fri, 29 May 2026 11:20:06 EDT news699266762 A new international study published in Nature Geoscience reveals that dark brown carbon from wildfires exerts a powerful warming effect on the global climate—potentially matching or even exceeding that of black carbon in the visible spectrum. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-wildfire-dark-brown-carbon-strong.html Earth Sciences Fri, 29 May 2026 11:00:04 EDT news699265921