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. Although increased cell proliferation is a hallmark of cancerous tissues, in some cases it may actually protect against tumor growth, according to a new study by Caltech researchers. Using mathematical models, the work suggests a new paradigm for the earliest stages of cancer development. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-jellyfish-reveal-rapid-cell-turnover.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 19 Aug 2026 11:20:03 EDT news706351503 For thousands of years, the Anindilyakwa people have lived in deep connection with the waters surrounding Groote Eylandt, a remote island in the Gulf of Carpentaria. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-rangers-scientists-vulnerable-reefs-remote.html Plants & Animals Wed, 12 Aug 2026 14:00:01 EDT news705671161 An international research team led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen and the Leibniz Institute for Baltic Sea Research Warnemünde (IOW) investigated how the shape of black corals influences the functions of their cilia. The findings are published in the journal Communications Biology. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-black-coral-microscopic-cilia-food.html Ecology Wed, 22 Jul 2026 10:00:02 EDT news703931701 The star that formed the Jellyfish nebula may have had a partner star that exploded 100,000 years earlier, according to international researchers, who say that this may be the first known discovery of a binary star system in which both stars have gone supernova. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-jellyfish-nebula-scene-stars-supernova.html Astronomy Tue, 21 Jul 2026 16:30:01 EDT news703866901 Popular science fiction is no stranger to escape-pod scenarios, typically featuring characters who narrowly avoid their demise by jettisoning from a spaceship—think R2-D2 and C-3PO shooting away from a rebel spaceship in the opening of Star Wars: A New Hope. Biologists at the University of California San Diego have found that communities of bacteria feature a similar ejection capability. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-bacteria-ability-jettison-cells-survival.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 07 Jul 2026 05:00:14 EDT news702543214 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 The reefs scattered throughout the tropics arose only after algae took up full-time residence in coral cells, supplying corals with abundant food and enabling them to build extensive shallow-water communities. But with warming oceans, algae are often abandoning coral—causing what's known as bleaching—and turning reefs that were once teeming with life into ghost towns. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-algae-coral-reefs-hijacking-cells.html Ecology Wed, 01 Jul 2026 11:00:01 EDT news702115922 A decade ago this summer, at the Marine Biological Laboratory, Jocelyn Malamy watched jellyfish cells "walk" toward each other to close a wound for the first time. An associate professor of molecular genetics and cell biology at the University of Chicago, Malamy had received transparent, dime-sized medusae of the species Clytia hemisphaerica from Evelyn Houliston's lab at the Marine Observatoire in Villefranche. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-jellyfish-reveal-rapid-scar-free.html Plants & Animals Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:50:01 EDT news702055861 A new study has uncovered a previously unknown antiviral defense mechanism in sea anemones, revealing that animals may have evolved more than one way to fight viral infections. Researchers discovered that a protein resembling a key component of the human immune system actually plays the opposite role, yet remains essential for effective antiviral protection. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-sea-anemones-reveal-antiviral-defense.html Evolution Fri, 26 Jun 2026 05:00:08 EDT news701592181 A new study of two supernova remnants, the debris left behind after stars explode, suggests the explosions came from stellar siblings that once orbited each other. The first star's detonation sent its binary companion hurtling through space, and then, after traveling for thousands of years, the surviving star blew up, too. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-fermi-mission-uncovers-sibling-supernova.html Astronomy Thu, 18 Jun 2026 16:40:05 EDT news701018038 In order for vertebrate embryos to develop their body axes, they require what is known as an embryonic signaling center. This group of cells provides the instructions that determine where up and down, left and right, and front and back are. Biologists at Friedrich Schiller University Jena have now discovered that even cnidarians—which form the sister group to all other multicellular animals, according to current understanding—possess this fundamental coordinate system. The study is published in the journal Nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-jelly-embryos-reveal-embryonic-center.html Plants & Animals Wed, 17 Jun 2026 19:00:04 EDT news700925566 Using box jellyfish as an example, researchers from Kiel University show how the physics of density, not behavior or physiology, can prevent animals from reaching the surface even as they actively swim upward. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-jellyfish-surface.html Plants & Animals Thu, 04 Jun 2026 10:40:03 EDT news699782281 Box jellyfish are often feared as dangerous animals, with some species capable of causing severe or even fatal stings. However, box jellyfish nematocysts—organelles responsible for this toxic sting—are theorized to also play an unexpected role in reproduction. While many studies focus on researching the range of toxicity levels exhibited by the more than 50 species of box jellyfish, their reproductive process is poorly understood. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-jellyfish-reveal-secret-life-implications.html Plants & Animals Mon, 01 Jun 2026 13:00:01 EDT news699533821 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 Researchers have uncovered a remarkable fossil site in a remote part of Canada's Northwest Territories, offering unprecedented insight into the earliest evolution of complex animal life on Earth. Findings from the site represent life from the Ediacaran biota—soft-bodied organisms that lived on the seafloor more than 500 million years ago—and push back the origins of animal movement and sexual reproduction by 5–10 million years. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-discovery-fossils-northwest-canada-view.html Evolution Wed, 20 May 2026 14:00:15 EDT news698486161 A new study of the blue button (Porpita porpita), a small and elusive sea creature which lives on the surface of the ocean, has found that it may live for several years adrift at sea, much longer than previously estimated. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-tiny-sea-creature-porpita-adrift.html Plants & Animals Wed, 20 May 2026 08:40:03 EDT news698484541 Finding highly venomous box jellyfish that are almost invisible in water is not an easy task—but researching them is crucial so that we can learn how to safely avoid them. Stings from these "sea-wasps" are extremely painful and can be fatal. Knowing more about box jellyfish helps us know where to expect them, when to expect them, and how we can minimize the risk of encountering them while out for what should be a pleasant swim. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-species-venomous-jellyfish-singapore.html Plants & Animals Fri, 15 May 2026 08:49:22 EDT news698053742 When most people think about biodiversity in lakes and rivers, they imagine fish, plants, or perhaps birds and amphibians. But beneath the surface exists another world that often goes unnoticed: microscopic parasites that quietly shape aquatic ecosystems in ways scientists are only beginning to understand. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-scientists-uncover-hidden-parasite-diversity.html Ecology Thu, 07 May 2026 18:00:08 EDT news697365840 Arctic glacial fjords are hotspots of marine life, yet their seafloor environments remain some of the least explored regions on Earth. Their extreme remoteness and the technical challenges of deep-water observation have led scientists to rely on indirect measurements like sonar. However, these methods cannot visually verify animal behavior or identify specific species. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-rare-footage-elusive-sea-floor.html Plants & Animals Wed, 06 May 2026 18:50:01 EDT news697306021 Canadian researchers studying 450-million-year-old fossils near Quebec City have identified a new species of basal-medusozoan: Paleocanna tentaculum, a soft-bodied, tube-shaped polyp with a ring of tentacles. Closely related to modern jellyfish, the species was identified from fossils discovered about 50 kilometers northeast of Quebec's capital. It's a rare find: only a few other species in its subphylum have ever been described in the fossil record. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-rare-soft-bodied-fossil-quebec.html Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 20 Apr 2026 14:20:03 EDT news695903652 Most polychaete species spend their lives in burrows in the seabed. However, adult individuals of two species, Alitta succinea and Platynereis dumerilii, leave their burrows to spawn during warm summer nights around the full moon. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-unexpected-predator-jellyfish-shown-polychaete.html Plants & Animals Fri, 10 Apr 2026 13:40:03 EDT news695041467 We are what we eat. And in the ocean, most life-forms source their food from phytoplankton. These microscopic, plant-like algae are the primary food source for krill, sea snails, some small fish, and jellyfish, which in turn feed larger marine animals that are prey for the ocean's top predators, including humans. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-climate-fast-food-phytoplankton.html Environment Tue, 31 Mar 2026 16:20:01 EDT news694180261 Animals come in an extraordinary range of body shapes. A starfish looks nothing like an earthworm, a mouse, or a human. Yet even closely related species can appear radically different: corals, jellyfish, and sea anemones all belong to the same biological phylum, but their bodies take strikingly different forms. A new study by EMBL researchers and their collaborators at the University of Geneva, appearing in Cell, shows how such shape diversity is determined by variation in mechanical tissue properties—an idea they termed "mechanotypes." https://phys.org/news/2026-03-sea-creatures-reveal-physics-animal.html Plants & Animals Fri, 20 Mar 2026 11:00:03 EDT news693151501 In physics, the mesoscale lies between the microscopic and the macroscopic. It is not just the domain of tiny living creatures like small larvae, shrimp, and jellyfish, but also where physics equations become extreme. While the macroscopic realm is governed by inertia and the microscopic by viscosity, the mesoscale is both and neither, requiring a new set of physics to describe it. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-mesoscale-swimmers-pave-drug-delivery.html General Physics Sun, 08 Mar 2026 16:00:01 EDT news691772107 Researchers have reported the discovery of a new species of jellyfish, Malagazzia michelin, marking only the second species of its genus ever found in Japanese waters. Led by Takato Izumi of Fukuyama University, the discovery was a collaborative effort between marine biologists and staff from several prominent institutions, including the Tsuruoka City Kamo Aquarium and the Saikai National Park Kuju-kushima Aquarium. The study is published in ZooKeys. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-michelin-star-jellyfish-japanese-aquaria.html Plants & Animals Wed, 25 Feb 2026 12:20:02 EST news691236322 Astrophysicists from the University of Waterloo have observed a new jellyfish galaxy, the most distant one of its kind ever captured. Jellyfish galaxies are named for the long, tentacle-like streams that trail behind them. They move quickly through their hot, dense galaxy cluster, and the gas within the cluster acts like a strong wind pushing the jellyfish galaxy's own gas out the back, forming trails. The technical term for this process is ram-pressure stripping. The Waterloo scientists found this galaxy in deep space data captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). It is at z = 1.156, meaning we're seeing it as it was 8.5 billion years ago, when the universe was much younger. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-jwst-distant-jellyfish-galaxy-date.html Astronomy Tue, 17 Feb 2026 11:24:44 EST news690549842 Benefits to society from coral reefs, including fisheries, tourism, coastal protection, pharmaceutical discovery and more, are estimated at about $9.8 trillion per year. For the first time, an international team led by Smithsonian researchers estimated the extent of coral bleaching worldwide during a global marine heat wave, finding that half of the world's reefs experienced significant damage. Another heat wave began in 2023 and is ongoing. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-world-coral-reefs-major-global.html Earth Sciences Tue, 10 Feb 2026 05:00:04 EST news689849281 Astronomers have strengthened long-standing predictions that massive runaway stars could have originated in binary pairs, and were dramatically ejected into space when their companion stars underwent supernova explosions. Through a combination of observations and stellar models, a team led by Baha Dinçel at the University of Jena in Germany revealed that the star HD 254577 likely did just this—and that its origins can be tied back to a companion whose remnants now form the Jellyfish nebula. The research is published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-astronomers-runaway-star-companion-supernova.html Astronomy Wed, 04 Feb 2026 10:20:04 EST news689420154 Almost a hundred new animal species that survived a mass extinction event half a billion years ago have been discovered in a small quarry in China, scientists revealed Wednesday. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-rare-fossils-reveal-species-survived.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 28 Jan 2026 13:10:06 EST news688827978 A team of astronomers has employed a cutting-edge, artificial intelligence–assisted technique to uncover rare astronomical phenomena within archived data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope. The team analyzed nearly 100 million image cutouts from the Hubble Legacy Archive, each measuring just a few dozen pixels (7 to 8 arcseconds) on a side. They identified more than 1,300 objects with an odd appearance in just two and a half days—more than 800 of which had never been documented in scientific literature. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ai-hundreds-cosmic-anomalies-hubble.html Astronomy Tue, 27 Jan 2026 12:41:37 EST news688740062