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. Hundreds of millions of metric tons of plastics are produced every year, and most of them end up sitting in landfills or polluting natural environments after use. These plastics endure for dozens to hundreds of years. But some scientists are on the lookout for solutions to this problem. And now, one team of researchers might have found a potential solution in bee nests. Their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows that a natural plastic made by bees may offer design lessons for plastics that degrade naturally in far less time. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-bee-linings-plastics-soil.html Biochemistry Tue, 03 Nov 2026 13:30:01 EST news712933595 If a dangerous asteroid were headed toward Earth, one defense could be a nuclear detonation to blast one side with X-rays and nudge it off course. But new simulations suggest that for a lumpy, irregular asteroid, exactly where those X-rays hit could make a huge difference. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-asteroid-nuclear-blast-aimed-deflect.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 03 Nov 2026 11:20:09 EST news712923481 University of Cape Town (UCT) researchers recently named a series of approximately 400,000-year-old fossilized underground nests of an extinct termite species after Calitzdorp, the Little Karoo town near which they were found. In October 2026, the research team returned to the town to donate a poster documenting their discovery to the Calitzdorp Museum, helping to connect local communities with the region's fossil heritage. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-year-fossilized-termite-karoo-town.html Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 02 Nov 2026 13:00:01 EST news712841275 Asteroid Ryugu and some carbonaceous meteorites, which are thought to have similar origins in the early solar system, are known as chemically "primitive" materials because they preserve the chemical composition of the early solar system remarkably well. Yet these rocks also reacted extensively with water after they formed, transforming many of their original minerals into new ones. https://phys.org/news/2026-11-overlooked-material-ryugu-meteorites-ancient.html Astrobiology Mon, 02 Nov 2026 11:40:13 EST news712839301 Tucked away among its sensors, cameras and navigation tools, NASA's Mars rover Perseverance is wearing small swatches of spacesuit material. A rover doesn't need a spacesuit, but the swatches—each less than a square inch (6.5 square centimeters) in size—serve an important purpose: They're helping scientists assess the potential damage caused by ubiquitous Martian dust. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-mars-abrasive-lunar-spacesuit-samples.html Space Exploration Sun, 01 Nov 2026 15:00:01 EST news712512186 The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS carries a chemical clue to conditions in the planetary system of its origin, locked away long before it reached our sun. Its methane signature is unusually rich in heavy hydrogen, suggesting that the comet's frozen ingredients took shape in an intensely cold environment around another star—or in the cloud that preceded it. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-heavy-hydrogen-3iatlas-methane-frigid.html Astronomy Sun, 01 Nov 2026 10:20:02 EST news712416739 Neutrinos are funny little particles that weigh almost nothing, making them one of the universe's most elusive building blocks. They can come from objects as mundane as bananas and as exotic as supernovas—the exploding death throes of massive stars. Most neutrinos stream through space and pass through the Earth without interacting with anything. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-figuring-cosmic-neutrinos-tricky-radio.html Astronomy Fri, 30 Oct 2026 20:20:01 EDT news712584267 For decades, physicists recognized only two types of magnetism that occur in materials without external influence: ferromagnetism and antiferromagnetism. In findings published in Science, a team led by the U.S. Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory has delivered conclusive experimental proof of a third magnetic phase called altermagnetism. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-altermagnetism-geometric-experimental-proof.html Condensed Matter Fri, 30 Oct 2026 08:20:01 EDT news712566421 Evolutionary changes in a key protein synthesis enzyme, isoleucyl-tRNA synthetase (IleRS), may help bacteria fine-tune how quickly proteins are made, report researchers from Institute of Science Tokyo, Japan; the University of Zagreb Faculty of Science, Croatia; and ETH Zürich, Switzerland. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-evolutionary-key-enzyme-bacteria-proteins.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 29 Oct 2026 19:40:05 EDT news712502284 Proteins perform essential functions in living organisms, from catalyzing biochemical reactions to supporting cellular energy metabolism. Their functions depend on their amino acid composition and three-dimensional structures. However, early proteins may have evolved when fewer amino acid types were available than those used by most modern proteins. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ancestral-enzyme-atp-amino-acid.html Biotechnology Thu, 29 Oct 2026 19:00:06 EDT news712501801 A cosmic explosion that announced itself with a modest flash of gamma rays went on to produce one of the brightest afterglows astronomers have recorded in the past 20 years. An international team of astronomers now finds evidence that the surprising mismatch comes down to perspective: Earth was outside the most intensely beamed light from the explosion. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-modest-gamma-ray-dazzling-afterglow.html Astronomy Thu, 29 Oct 2026 09:40:10 EDT news712482781 Ocean fish stocks have been increasingly exploited over time, and remote sensing shows they have declined in the open ocean over the last three decades, particularly in the tropics. But it's uncertain how fish populations will fare in the future, as climate models show both increases and decreases in global trends by the end of this century. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ancient-oceans-carbon-export-fish.html Earth Sciences Thu, 29 Oct 2026 07:20:02 EDT news712402208 Chemical reactions have their own "impatient molecules." Unable to stay still even for a moment, they latch onto other molecules indiscriminately. Researchers have now found that even these molecules change where they "sit" and how far they roam depending on who their neighbors are. The findings are expected to help scientists make better medicines and materials by directing reactions only to the desired sites. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-radical-paths-ray-snapshots-reveal.html Analytical Chemistry Wed, 28 Oct 2026 17:20:13 EDT news712419782 Making complex molecules often means joining smaller chemical building blocks together, a process facilitated by catalysts, compounds that make such reactions possible or speed them up without being consumed themselves. Many widely used reactions also require chemists to modify their starting molecules before joining them. These added chemical "handles" make the molecules reactive, but preparing them means extra steps and, often, additional waste. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-reusable-palladium-catalyst-enables-chemical.html Analytical Chemistry Tue, 27 Oct 2026 15:40:08 EDT news712319329 Over 1,645 Martian days, NASA's Perseverance Mars rover measured the fine and ultrafine Martian dust particles found clinging to samples of spacesuit materials that are carried aboard the rover, including particles small enough to penetrate the lungs and enter the bloodstream. The findings are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and could inform spacesuit and habitat design, dust-removal procedures and crew health standards for future NASA missions to Mars. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-perseverance-clues-crews-ultrafine-mars.html Space Exploration Tue, 27 Oct 2026 12:00:01 EDT news712314844 Generating hydrogen without releasing carbon dioxide sounds simple: pass electricity through water, split water molecules and generate green hydrogen. The hard part is the electrocatalyst. The best ones rely on platinum, ruthenium and iridium, which are scarce and expensive. We wanted to know whether a small amount of iron and nickel oxides, anchored on carbon nanofibers grown by chemical vapor deposition the right way on the right scaffold, could do the job instead. Our results are published in ACS Applied Nano Materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-fuel-nanomaterial-green-hydrogen.html Nanomaterials Mon, 26 Oct 2026 19:00:03 EDT news712234922 From its visible surface, the sun radiates heat at a relatively cool temperature of 5,800 Kelvin. Yet within the thin outer layer of the sun's atmosphere known as the corona, electrons can reach temperatures of millions of degrees, for reasons astronomers have yet to fully explain. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-laser-blasted-plasma-instabilities-sun.html Astronomy Mon, 26 Oct 2026 13:00:10 EDT news712234865 A lizard making a dramatic escape, leaving its tail wriggling behind as it darts to safety, is an image familiar to many. Tail-shedding is one of the most widespread defenses against predators among living lizards, yet tracing the origins of this extraordinary ability has proved to be surprisingly difficult—how can we tell when this escape tactic first arose in lizards? https://phys.org/news/2026-10-lizard-tail-amber-million-year.html Evolution Mon, 26 Oct 2026 12:40:06 EDT news712234861 A team of Yale researchers has figured out what gives a magnetic material its mysterious properties, a discovery that could help boost computing memory and the field of "spintronics." Their work is published in Physical Review Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-tiny-shifts-iron-content-potential.html Condensed Matter Mon, 26 Oct 2026 10:28:02 EDT news712229158 To produce hydrogen using sunlight, the energy obtained from light must be retained until it can be used in a chemical reaction. However, if an electron that has gained energy from light quickly returns to its original position, it becomes difficult to make use of that energy. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-electron-room-blue-titanium-dioxide.html Analytical Chemistry Mon, 26 Oct 2026 10:20:06 EDT news712224902 A team at HZB has, for the first time, reported polar vortices in (BaTiO₃/SrTiO₃)₁₀ superlattices on silicon. These results expand the range of materials and substrates on which polar topological textures can occur and open up new options for incorporating complex ferroelectric states into silicon-based technologies. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-patterns-polar-vortices-free-superlattices.html Condensed Matter Sun, 25 Oct 2026 13:00:01 EDT news711645241 Understanding instabilities and turbulence in plasmas is one of the key challenges across a wide range of plasma research fields, including nuclear fusion, astrophysics and laser-plasma physics. In plasmas, slight disturbances can grow due to instabilities, and energy is transferred between structures of various sizes due to turbulence. These phenomena give rise to structures ranging from very small to large, which significantly influence the overall motion and energy flow of the plasma. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ray-pulse-reveals-plasma-nanostructures.html Plasma Physics Sat, 24 Oct 2026 15:00:06 EDT news711645235 In 1953, two physicists showed that an electron beam skimming past a grating emits light whose color depends only on the electron's speed and the grating's spacing. Known as Smith-Purcell radiation, this phenomenon has become a useful tool for building compact, tunable light sources and tracking particle beams without touching them. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-plain-silicon-reveals-hidden-electron.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 23 Oct 2026 16:20:08 EDT news711980881 In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers from The University of Manchester and Lancaster University have isolated and characterized uranocenium, the positively charged form of a landmark uranium compound called uranocene. The work shows that this long-sought molecule is stable, and that it behaves in a way that challenges how chemists usually think about bonding in heavy elements. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-elusive-uranium-sandwich-molecule-isolated.html Analytical Chemistry Fri, 23 Oct 2026 12:00:12 EDT news711969002 In the deepest region of the Earth's mantle, just above the core, much of the material consists of crystals of magnesium oxide. In larger rocky exoplanets called super-Earths, the higher pressures in the lower mantle may drive magnesium oxide to transform into a new high-pressure crystal structure or a metallic, electrically conductive liquid that generates a magnetic field. And in gas giants, magnesium oxide could exist in the cores themselves. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-mineral-planets-reveals-lesson.html Planetary Sciences Fri, 23 Oct 2026 03:42:44 EDT news711945720 Technion researchers have presented evidence for the existence of solar-storm-like outbursts near supermassive black holes, which can be a million times larger than the sun or more. The phenomenon was discovered in the vicinity of the black hole in the galaxy NGC 3783, and the researchers' findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-black-hole-uncover-evidence-solar.html Astronomy Thu, 22 Oct 2026 11:03:31 EDT news711885705 Researchers at the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) at the U.S. Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have measured the shortest high-energy X-ray pulses ever recorded at an X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL). The pulses had photon energies of about 9 kiloelectronvolts (keV) and clocked in at durations of 100 to 400 attoseconds—mere billionths of a billionth of a second. The results are published in Nature Photonics. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ray-free-electron-laser-shortest.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 21 Oct 2026 14:40:10 EDT news711803582 Water isn't always as it seems. Under extreme conditions, such as those found on other planets, it has been discovered to change its atomic structure, giving it the means to alter its appearance and other properties. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-weve-physicists-earth-conditions.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 20 Oct 2026 16:10:02 EDT news711729662 Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars, the extremely dense cores left behind when massive stars explode. Astrophysicists have recently observed a pulsar rotating over 300 times per second that appeared to be slowing down unusually quickly. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-pulsar-apparent-slowdown-reveals-rare.html Astronomy Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:20:10 EDT news711713533 Light is one of the most powerful tools scientists have for probing matter. By interacting with electrons, light reveals how atoms, molecules and materials are structured and how they evolve in time. Highly energetic ultraviolet and X-ray photons are particularly attractive because they can access electrons located close to atomic nuclei, where each chemical element carries its own distinctive electronic fingerprint. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-electrons-extreme-ultraviolet-team-quantum.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 20 Oct 2026 14:00:31 EDT news711713761