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 Facebook post about your trip to Peru. An Amazon review of a new toaster oven. An email to the super about the inflatable reindeer blocking the hallway. You phrase and rephrase things all day without thinking that anyone—or anything—is putting words in your mouth. But what happens when AI joins the conversation? Are chatbots changing the way you write, talk and interact with others? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-bots-people-language-age-ai.html Social Sciences Fri, 18 Sep 2026 08:51:23 EDT news708940190 Physicists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have developed a technology that uses quantum sensors to measure biomagnetic signals, such as heart activity. Researchers from the DIAQNOS (DIAmond-based Quantum Sensing for NeurOSurgery) flagship project, coordinated by Dr. Arne Wickenbrock in Mainz, have demonstrated the potential of quantum technology for future medical applications. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-diamond-quantum-sensors-heart-magnetism.html Condensed Matter Thu, 17 Sep 2026 11:40:08 EDT news708854822 Two-thirds of a century after Jane Goodall observed "David Greybeard" break off a twig to fashion a fishing rod for termites, researchers following in her footsteps have found that adult chimpanzees in Senegal literally hand youngsters the tools for learning. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-chimpanzees-youngsters-tools-tricky-techniques.html Plants & Animals Wed, 16 Sep 2026 00:00:02 EDT news708597361 Why do some ants help nestmates in distress while others don't? A research team from Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and Tel Aviv University addressed this question in a new study. The researchers examined worker ants of the species Cataglyphis niger, some of which had shown rescue behavior while others had not. The results, recently published in the Journal of Experimental Biology, suggest that the key difference lies not in body size, morphology or the animals' energy reserves, but in gene activity in the nervous system. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ant-nervous-gene-behavior.html Plants & Animals Fri, 04 Sep 2026 17:40:01 EDT news707747341 Two tiny ant fossils recovered in southern Saskatchewan are helping scientists better understand the evolutionary history of modern ants. Ant fossils dating from 72–56 million years ago are rare. What happened to insects such as ants during this period that saw a mass extinction wipe out all non-bird dinosaurs? How did that event reshape their world? https://phys.org/news/2026-09-tiny-fossils-reveal-big-insights.html Evolution Thu, 03 Sep 2026 19:20:01 EDT news707668441 Global temperature rise is set to cross 1.5°C, likely within the next few years, pushing climate risks and impacts to increasingly dangerous heights. But it is still possible to bring temperatures down and achieve the global goals of the Paris Agreement, according to a new UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-quick-action-world-hotter.html Environment Wed, 02 Sep 2026 15:20:04 EDT news707575981 When I first arrived in Peru's Allpahuayo-Mishana National Reserve in 2005, a local youth surprised me with an offer to sell me a live owl, despite the fact that we were in a protected area where commercial hunting was prohibited. We set the owl free together, but this turned out to be an early lesson about the vulnerability of tropical protected areas to exploitation, even when laws and policies had been put in place to protect them. At that time, Allpahuayo-Mishana was a newly designated protected area with no paid staff except for its director, who was stationed in the nearby city of Iquitos. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-bird-eye-view-illegal-consequences.html Plants & Animals Mon, 24 Aug 2026 17:40:06 EDT news706783338 Don't assume an uptick in ant activity after setting out pesticide traps means the treatment failed. New UC Riverside research shows their behavior changes as chemicals make their way through a colony. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-pesticides-argentine-ants-crazy-roaming.html Plants & Animals Mon, 17 Aug 2026 17:50:01 EDT news706205761 In ant colonies, a single ant can be the catalyst for a wave of mob activity, launching brief bursts of coordinated movement involving hundreds or even thousands of swarming workers, according to new simulations from New Jersey Institute of Technology. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-scientists-simulating-ant-swarms-mover.html Ecology Sat, 15 Aug 2026 07:00:03 EDT news705724257 Bumblebees are able to learn to associate new odors with their colony's queen, instead of being preprogrammed to recognize the queen's pheromones from birth, according to a new study led by researchers at Penn State. For the study, published in the journal Communications Biology, the researchers treated buff-tailed bumblebee queens daily with one of two different floral scents as they built their colonies. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-bumblebees-associate-queen.html Ecology Wed, 12 Aug 2026 08:40:03 EDT news705742562 In the coastal forests of a tropical Japanese island near Okinawa grows an inconspicuous plant that is easy to mistake for a mushroom. It is a non-green parasite that feeds on the roots of other plants and produces up to 1 million tiny seeds, each covered in a minuscule, dry fruit. The seeds, in particular, present a mystery to scientists: How do they get dispersed? https://phys.org/news/2026-08-secret-gardeners-parasitic.html Plants & Animals Tue, 11 Aug 2026 06:00:01 EDT news705585324 Scientists have long known that ant colonies sometimes seem to move as one. A nest that appears quiet can suddenly erupt into activity, with workers throughout the colony springing into motion almost simultaneously before settling back into stillness. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-ant-trigger-colony-wide-mathematical.html Plants & Animals Thu, 06 Aug 2026 18:20:03 EDT news705251999 Ants make up one of the most diverse groups of animals on the planet, with many species boasting remarkable physical abilities and social behaviors, and an overall species richness that far exceeds that of mammals. Various types of ants can carry up to one hundred times their weight or forage hundreds of meters from their nest, the equivalent of a human carrying thousands of kilograms and walking hundreds of kilometers. These feats have inspired researchers to study not only the anatomy that makes them possible but also how ants use these capabilities to forage and explore. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-random-physics-individual-ant-motion.html Plants & Animals Thu, 06 Aug 2026 14:00:07 EDT news705155701 Newborn German cockroaches use pheromones in cockroach feces to identify members of their own colony and form a kind of social bond, a discovery that could be used to improve pest control efforts. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-german-cockroaches-social-animals-previously.html Plants & Animals Wed, 05 Aug 2026 13:40:08 EDT news705149701 For more than 60 years, evolutionary biologists have debated whether a unique genetic system found in ants, bees and wasps helps explain one of nature's most remarkable innovations: eusociality, a form of social organization in which colonies divide reproductive labor between queens and workers. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-decades-theory-insect-societies-evolve.html Plants & Animals Tue, 04 Aug 2026 16:20:01 EDT news705071641 Ants live in highly organized colonies and cooperate daily to tackle a wide range of problems. Their striking group behaviors have fascinated biologists for centuries and even inspired the development of various artificial intelligence (AI) systems. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-ant-teams-gravity-based-puzzle.html Plants & Animals Mon, 03 Aug 2026 15:20:10 EDT news704987373 A team led by researchers at the National Institute for Amazonian Research (INPA), in Manaus, has found evidence that the "zombie-ant" fungus (genus Ophiocordyceps), known worldwide for controlling ant behavior and forcing infected ants to bite plants before dying, also lives hidden inside mosses in the Amazon rainforest. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-amazonian-zombie-fungus-harbors-hidden.html Plants & Animals Thu, 30 Jul 2026 12:40:04 EDT news704629501 Ants are known allies in the fight against coffee pests known as coffee berry borers. Now, a discovery made by Jonathan "Jonno" Morris while he was a University of Michigan graduate student has revealed there may be a new dimension to this protection. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-small-ants-evict-coffee-pests.html Ecology Tue, 28 Jul 2026 13:20:02 EDT news704458620 Quantum information is notoriously fragile. Internet traffic is anything but. Yet Northwestern University scientists have demonstrated they can peacefully coexist inside the same fiber-optic cable. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-quantum-internet-lab-real-world.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 22 Jul 2026 18:40:01 EDT news703948921 When a fruit fly catches a whiff of a ripe peach, it quickly heads toward it. Time after time, it finds the fruit—even from many feet away and even if the scent arrives only as a few drifting, disconnected puffs. How do they home in with such unerring accuracy? https://phys.org/news/2026-07-fruit-flies-fleeting-scent-puffs.html Plants & Animals Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:00:29 EDT news703857961 A tapeworm fundamentally changes the lives of ants: Workers of the species Temnothorax nylanderi infected with the tapeworm Anomotaenia brevis live several times longer than their uninfected nestmates. They are also less active, and their metabolism becomes more similar in some respects to that of queens. A new study by Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU), published in the journal BMC Genomics, reveals the molecular basis of this unusual effect. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-tapeworm-hijacks-worker-ants-queen.html Ecology Tue, 21 Jul 2026 17:20:09 EDT news703862342 If you've driven down two-lane highways in rural parts of North Florida recently, you may have noticed a spate of new signs that designate the grassy knolls bordering the asphalt as wildflower areas. The signs likely feel redundant right about now as thousands of milkweeds produce thick umbels packed full of pentagonal buds and fully developed flowers. Many of these flowers and all the monarchs they attract have the same attention-grabbing orange color as the safety vests worn by workers who carefully planted each milkweed by hand months earlier. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-butterfly-experts-milkweed-florida-roadsides.html Plants & Animals Sat, 18 Jul 2026 13:30:01 EDT news703499199 Social animals use a suite of preemptive behaviors in anticipation of conflict, including staying quiet, monitoring their surroundings, conducting raids and bonding through play. In a review published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution , researchers describe how environmental cues and memories of past events can trigger these behaviors. Over generations, these prewar preparations could affect sociocognitive evolution, population dynamics and community structures. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-animals-war.html Plants & Animals Thu, 16 Jul 2026 11:00:03 EDT news703318203 An international team led by Dr. Gary Lewin, group leader of the Molecular Physiology of Somatosensory Perception lab at the Max Delbrück Center in Berlin, has discovered that the queens of naked mole-rat colonies release a volatile compound called isopropyl myristate, which induces temporary infertility in all other females in the colony. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-naked-mole-rat-queens-odorous.html Ecology Wed, 15 Jul 2026 11:00:33 EDT news703229499 How do bees make group decisions without a leader? Math experts have determined that the best strategy is for a few to assume the risk of foraging under all conditions while the majority stay safely back and forage only when conditions are favorable. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-math-reveals-honeybee-hives-patient.html Ecology Fri, 10 Jul 2026 13:20:06 EDT news702900976 Steep hillsides and mountainsides in many regions worldwide are often covered in characteristic step-like patterns, also known as terracettes. These repeating landforms have fascinated scientists for more than a century, yet the factors contributing to their formation had not been clearly confirmed until now. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-darwin-150yearold-hillside-mystery-virtual.html Plants & Animals Fri, 10 Jul 2026 07:30:01 EDT news702823350 Nature has invented countless types of pointy appendages, and scientists have long sought to explain what makes these structures so effective at puncturing other things. A new study models the key physical characteristics of puncturing tools to reflect their diversity in nature, finding that the shape of a biological tool is driven in part by trade-offs between its puncture efficiency and its ability to resist bending or buckling. The findings are described in the journal Science Advances. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-nature-tools-reveal-offs-piercing.html Plants & Animals Wed, 08 Jul 2026 14:00:13 EDT news702700982 Long before the dawn of modern parenting, animals laid eggs and moved on, leaving their progeny to fend for themselves. Now, a study published in Nature uncovers one of the elegant ways evolution transformed neglect into nurture. Working with clonal raider ants, a surprisingly parental insect, researchers found that rather than evolving entirely new brain circuits for caregiving, evolution repurposed ancient neural systems for regulating hunger into triggers for social behaviors. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-tiny-neuron-ant-brains-reveal.html Evolution Wed, 08 Jul 2026 12:10:01 EDT news702729697 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 Researchers have identified "DNA switches" that become active as honeybee larvae grow into worker bees, offering new insight into the development of these important pollinators and the ecosystems they support. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-honeybee-metamorphosis-uncovers-dna-worker.html Ecology Tue, 23 Jun 2026 10:20:07 EDT news701425717