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. Modern analytical tools are no less than a time machine. From their 21st-century labs, researchers can peer into the everyday lives, hygiene, and even the parasites that plagued the people who lived centuries ago. In one such recent venture, a team from Poland turned their attention to the Roman province of Moesia Inferior, studying the dried remains of human waste preserved in Roman toilets dating from the 2nd to 4th centuries CE. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ancient-roman-toilets-crusted-expose.html Archaeology Thu, 23 Apr 2026 13:20:02 EDT news696162917 As tough as medieval chainmail armor and as soft as a contact lens. This material is not taken from science fiction, it is a natural structure made of thousands of DNA circles interlinked with each other. Studying it can help us advance our knowledge in many fields, from biophysics and infectious diseases to materials science and biomedical engineering. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-vital-intertwining-blood-parasite-chainmail.html Biochemistry Tue, 16 Dec 2025 14:56:23 EST news685119361 For the first time, researchers at Umeå University have observed the same type of programmed cell death in microalgae as in humans. The discovery, published in Nature Communications, shows that this central biological process is older than previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-cell-death-microalgae-resembles-humans.html Evolution Mon, 29 Sep 2025 08:52:03 EDT news678354721 Leishmaniasis, a neglected tropical disease prevalent across 90 countries, affects approximately 12 million people worldwide, with 350 million more at risk of infection. Caused by unicellular parasites known as Leishmania protozoa, the disease commonly manifests as skin sores that can develop into deep ulcers. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-treatment-leishmaniasis-disease-okinawan-marine.html Biotechnology Wed, 24 Sep 2025 10:01:05 EDT news677926862 A set of bones belonging to sauropods, as long-necked dinosaurs are called, found in the municipality of Ibirá in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, reveals that the region was conducive to a bone disease that was fatal to these animals. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-deadly-bone-disease-doomed-southeast.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 27 Aug 2025 17:11:03 EDT news675533461 Near the Syrian city of Afrin, an international research team, including researchers from the Senckenberg Center for Human Evolution and Paleoenvironment at the University of Tübingen, has discovered a previously unknown fossil sea turtle. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-fossil-syria-unknown-sea-turtle.html Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 15 Aug 2025 08:56:04 EDT news674466961 Natural products are among the most promising candidates for the development of new drugs. However, due to their structural complexity, they are often difficult to access. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-enzymatic-genetic-advances-synthesis-natural.html Biochemistry Mon, 12 May 2025 14:16:40 EDT news666278193 A research team of the Cluster at the Leibniz Institute for Natural Product Research and Infection Biology—Hans Knöll Institute (Leibniz-HKI) and the Friedrich Schiller University, Jena has studied the interaction between amoebas, bacteria, and plants. Researchers from the University of Bayreuth were also involved in the study. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-pseudomonas-syringae-chemical-radar-amoebas.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 02 Apr 2025 11:00:06 EDT news662733241 Scientists from the Biology Centre of the Czech Academy of Sciences found forty new freshwater viruses infecting aquatic microorganisms this year. The first one, which they isolated and described in detail, was named Budvirus after the South Bohemian capital České Budějovice. It belongs to "Giant Viruses" and it infects unicellular algae called cryptophytes. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-scientists-giant-virus-infects-freshwater.html Ecology Wed, 20 Nov 2024 15:52:04 EST news651340322 Research shows that three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases are passed from animals to humans; an illness of this type is known as zoonosis (plural: zoonoses). Farm animals, especially pigs and poultry, pose a high risk of zoonotic infection. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-animal-welfare-health-case-farm.html Veterinary medicine Mon, 08 Jan 2024 09:19:16 EST news623927952 A team of pathologists, geneticists, immunologists and engineers at the Stanford University School of Medicine, has found a previously unrecognized diversity of protists in the Parabasalia phylum in both mice and humans. In their paper published on the open-access site of the journal Cell, the group describes their study of the differences between species of protists living in the guts of mice and humans. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-large-diversity-protists-parabasalia-phylum.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 29 Dec 2023 09:24:44 EST news623064280 Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have identified three 4,000-year-old British cases of Yersinia pestis, the bacteria causing the plague—the oldest evidence of the plague in Britain to date, reported in a paper published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2023-05-dna-year-old-plague-discoveredthe-oldest.html Archaeology Tue, 30 May 2023 11:00:05 EDT news604658680 A new analysis of ancient feces taken from two Jerusalem latrines dating back to the biblical Kingdom of Judah has uncovered traces of a single-celled microorganism Giardia duodenalis—a common cause of debilitating diarrhea in humans. https://phys.org/news/2023-05-early-toilets-reveal-dysentery-testament.html Archaeology Thu, 25 May 2023 19:00:01 EDT news604252103 At least 2 billion people worldwide routinely drink water contaminated with disease-causing microbes. https://phys.org/news/2023-05-nontoxic-powder-sunlight-quickly-disinfect.html Materials Science Thu, 18 May 2023 11:00:06 EDT news603623266 There's a new branch on the tree of life and it's made up of predators that nibble their prey to death. https://phys.org/news/2022-12-tree-life-lions-microbial-world.html Evolution Wed, 07 Dec 2022 11:00:04 EST news589625984 If you see a great bustard (Otis tarda) in the wild, you're unlikely to forget it. Massive, colorful, and impossible to mistake, they are the heaviest birds living today capable of flight, with the greatest size difference between the sexes. They are also "lek breeders," where males gather at chosen sites to put on an audiovisual show for the visiting females, who choose a mate based on his appearance and the quality of his showbirdship. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-world-heaviest-flying-bird-self-medicating.html Plants & Animals Tue, 22 Nov 2022 23:00:01 EST news588342293 Single-celled organisms with calcareous shells, called foraminifera, contribute significantly to the formation of sand deposited on beaches, islands and coastal areas. Researchers at the Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT) have now found for the first time that foraminifera can take up tiny plastic particles and incorporate them into their calcareous shells. The results were published in Scientific Reports and Limnology and Oceanography Letters. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-plastic-foraminifera-consequences-environment.html Ecology Tue, 22 Nov 2022 11:06:02 EST news588337561 A few years ago, scientists discovered a curious case of protozoa (oxymonads) that do not have mitochondria. Since then, the research group of Associate Professor Hampl from the Faculty of Science of Charles University and the BIOCEV research center has been asking how the unique loss of mitochondria occurred. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-purpose-mitochondria.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 08 Nov 2022 16:01:04 EST news587145661 LMU researchers have deciphered a crucial signaling mechanism that enables trypanosomes to reach the salivary glands of the flies. https://phys.org/news/2022-09-african-sickness-pathogen-colonizes-tsetse.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 22 Sep 2022 11:39:03 EDT news583065541 Researchers at the University of Bristol have discovered how microbes responsible for human African sleeping sickness produce sex cells. https://phys.org/news/2021-05-sex-cells-parasites.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 11 May 2021 11:36:39 EDT news539951759 A new study published this week in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B demonstrates a first attempt at using the methods of ancient bacterial detection, pioneered in studies of past epidemics, to characterize the microbial diversity of ancient gut contents from two medieval latrines. The findings provide insights into the microbiomes of pre-industrial agricultural populations, which may provide much-needed context for interpreting the health of modern microbiomes. https://phys.org/news/2020-10-tale-cesspits-dna-reveals-intestinal.html Archaeology Mon, 05 Oct 2020 03:30:53 EDT news521087250 A novel connection between primordial organisms and complex life has been discovered, as new evidence sheds light on the evolutionary origins of the cell division process that is fundamental to complex life on Earth. https://phys.org/news/2020-08-insight-evolution-complex-life-earth.html Evolution Thu, 06 Aug 2020 14:00:02 EDT news515918324 As the world wrestles with the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, which arose after the virus jumped from an animal species to the human species, University of Delaware researchers are learning about new ways other pathogens are jumping from plants to people. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-bacteria-ways-immune-defenses.html Plants & Animals Fri, 26 Jun 2020 09:06:37 EDT news512381190 The results of new research published this week in Scientific Reports reveal insights that may have profound effects on the use of medicinal leeches in hospital-based medicine. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-bloody-good-medicinal-leech-genome.html Plants & Animals Thu, 18 Jun 2020 05:29:21 EDT news511676953 Algae in the oceans often steal genes from bacteria to gain beneficial attributes, such as the ability to tolerate stressful environments or break down carbohydrates for food, according to a Rutgers co-authored study. https://phys.org/news/2020-04-algae-oceans-genes-bacteria.html Ecology Wed, 29 Apr 2020 14:00:02 EDT news507365456 Researchers from the Universities of Valencia and Cordoba, as well as from the Institute for Sustainable Agriculture of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), have studied the fungus that causes verticilosis, a disease that kills millions of olive trees. Through the observation of the olive root microbiome, they conclude that verticillium wilt is driven by a wide community of microorganisms that unite to attack plants, making researchers rethink how to cope with it. The results have been published in the prestigious journal BMC Plant Biology. https://phys.org/news/2020-04-fungus-verticillium-wilt-olive-trees.html Plants & Animals Wed, 29 Apr 2020 08:42:19 EDT news507368537 Cows can adapt themselves to a fluctuating sodium content in their feed. How they do that was so far a secret. Researchers from Goethe University have now discovered a bacterium in the microbiome of the rumen which has a new type of cell respiration. https://phys.org/news/2020-01-metabolic-pathway-rumen-microbiome.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 06 Jan 2020 10:00:02 EST news497526759 Charles Darwin suspected something in the "clear blue water" of the ocean that was even smaller than the protozoa he could see under the microscope. "Today we know that every liter of ocean water is swarming with hundreds of millions of microorganisms," explains marine researcher Rudolf Amann, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen. His colleague Tobias Erb from the sister institute of terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg adds: "Although only micrometers in size, the microorganisms with their sheer number and high rate of metabolism have a strong impact on energy flow and biomass turnover in the oceans." https://phys.org/news/2019-11-ocean-blue.html Earth Sciences Wed, 13 Nov 2019 13:01:04 EST news492872115 Fossils preserved in Dominican amber reveal a new family, genus and species of microinvertebrate from the mid-Tertiary period, a discovery that shows unique lineages of the tiny creatures were living 30 million years ago. https://phys.org/news/2019-10-mold-pigs-group-invertebrates-million.html Archaeology Tue, 08 Oct 2019 13:12:15 EDT news489759115 Single celled organisms in the environment are protecting pathogenic bacteria and priming them for human infection, an international team of researchers has discovered. https://phys.org/news/2019-10-protozoans-pathogens-infectious.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 01 Oct 2019 09:06:37 EDT news489139591