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. Domestic cats age in remarkably similar ways to humans and show comparable age-related patterns of brain deterioration, according to an international collaboration among the University of Bath in the U.K., Auburn University College of Veterinary Medicine in the U.S. and École Nationale Vétérinaire de Toulouse in France. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-cats-age-humans-brains-reveal.html Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 22 Jun 2026 18:10:03 EDT news701367962 Nanorobots have shown great promise in precision medicine over the past few decades. Yet one key challenge remains: how to track and guide these tiny devices in real time as they move through complex physiological environments. Existing imaging approaches often require long exposure times to detect ionizing radiation or suffer from blurred images because of strong light scattering in living tissues. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-infrared-magnetic-nanorobots-drugs-real.html Bio & Medicine Sat, 20 Jun 2026 08:00:03 EDT news700740092 When H5N1 bird flu first began infecting U.S. cattle in early 2024, diagnosis was elusive because, in cows, the disease looked completely different. Instead of affecting the lungs, as H5N1 does in other mammalian species, it caused severe infection in the cows' udders, largely sparing the lungs. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-h5n1-bird-flu-hid-unrecognized.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 19 Jun 2026 14:00:05 EDT news700991161 Superfluids are intriguing states of matter in which particles behave like a giant collective wave, allowing them to flow without any friction. When this fluid flows past a fixed obstacle at a velocity below a specific threshold, it moves around it without slowing down or exerting any drag. Above this critical velocity, however, the superfluid state starts to break down, and the energy from the flow dissipates in the form of ripples and vortices in the fluid. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-tiny-superfluid.html Soft Matter Fri, 19 Jun 2026 13:20:01 EDT news701088049 Finding life beyond our solar system is a major goal of modern astronomy. NASA's planned Habitable Worlds Observatory (HWO) aims to take direct images of Earth-sized planets around stars other than our sun. This task, however, is extraordinarily difficult, given that these planets are roughly 10 billion times fainter than their host stars. To detect them, scientists must find ways to suppress nearly all of the nearby starlight, which would otherwise overwhelm the faint planetary signal. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-telescope-mirror-stability-exoplanet.html Astronomy Thu, 18 Jun 2026 16:20:01 EDT news701011867 Cells have evolved careful checks to ensure DNA is copied only once, but how they switch on replication at the right moment has been the focus of a 30-year research question. New work from the Crick has recorded the missing step. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-dna-replication-revealed-image-pre.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 18 Jun 2026 15:00:09 EDT news701010095 An international study led by Curtin University has revealed new insights into how an ancient flying reptile was preserved in extraordinary detail for 113 million years, offering a rare glimpse into a vanished world. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-pterosaur-wing-rewrites-fossil-rulebook.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 18 Jun 2026 11:00:11 EDT news700897502 Northwestern University-led astronomers have discovered salty skies surrounding the universe's famous "Pink Planet." For more than a decade, the ancient, rosy-hazed world kept astronomers guessing. One of the coldest known planetary-mass companions ever directly imaged, the elusive object is too faint for astronomers to dissect its light from Earth. But new observations from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal an atmosphere filled with exotic chemistry—and salty clouds unlike anything seen before. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-famous-pink-planet-harbors-salty.html Astronomy Thu, 18 Jun 2026 10:00:09 EDT news700896902 Scientists studying particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) usually capture what happens when atomic nuclei smash into one another at nearly the speed of light. But even when the nuclei don't collide, interesting things can happen. In a new paper just published in Physical Review Letters, members of RHIC's STAR collaboration describe a new way to use near-miss collisions at RHIC to study what's going on inside the nucleus. The approach advances the reach of RHIC, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility at DOE's Brookhaven National Laboratory, into the next frontier in nuclear physics—a journey into the inner workings of the building blocks of matter. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-flipped-quantum-clearer-gluon-nuclear.html General Physics Wed, 17 Jun 2026 18:20:01 EDT news700920181 Heidelberg University researchers have deciphered the inscription on an ancient curse tablet, which was once used to invoke deities and demons in order to harm an enemy. The "magical" artifact from the Roman province of Lower Germania was discovered during excavations carried out in the Dutch municipality of Heerlen. The lead tablet, which dates to the 2nd century A.D., is distinctive in that it contains not a Latin but an ancient Greek text in the Egyptian style, as Dr. Rodney Ast, academic director at the Institute for Papyrology, explains. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ancient-curse-tablet-rare-greek.html Archaeology Wed, 17 Jun 2026 17:20:04 EDT news700919282 The solar atmosphere is a turbulent and magnetized environment, with the release of magnetic energy readily manifesting as emission across the electromagnetic spectrum. Solar radio emission dominates the radio sky, with the brightest solar radio bursts generated via the plasma emission process. The emission has a complex frequency-time structure with many features that are yet to be understood. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-lofar-reveals-spike-radio-pairs.html Astronomy Wed, 17 Jun 2026 14:40:01 EDT news700915332 Cleveland Clinic researchers are unlocking quantum computing's full potential through the creation of a new computing paradigm inspired by the human brain. Fabio Cumbo, Ph.D., research associate in the lab of Daniel Blankenberg, Ph.D., associate staff, Computational Life Sciences, is developing the model, called quantum hyperdimensional computing (QHDC). https://phys.org/news/2026-06-quantum-hyperdimensional-faster-methods.html Quantum Physics Tue, 16 Jun 2026 19:00:03 EDT news700834148 A new fluorescent reporter capable of visualizing biologically active iron and oxygen inside living cells at single-cell resolution has been developed, as reported by researchers from Science Tokyo. Using this new tool, they revealed striking differences in the distribution of iron and oxygen across organs and even between neighboring cells of the same type. This innovation could serve as a platform for studying cancer, liver diseases, neurodegeneration and aging. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-lion-fluorescent-molecule-tracks-iron.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 16 Jun 2026 15:30:01 EDT news700841341 An international team of astronomers led by Camille Poitras, a Ph.D. student in the Faculty of Science and Engineering at Laval University, has produced the most detailed X-ray view ever obtained of the jet launched by the supermassive black hole in the galaxy M87. By combining observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory acquired between 2012 and 2025 with advanced image-processing techniques, the researchers were able to track the evolution of jet structures with unprecedented detail. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-chandra-tracks-m87-black-hole.html Astronomy Tue, 16 Jun 2026 12:20:05 EDT news700824001 In a seismic shift since Kew's inaugural State of the World report 10 years ago, the sixth State of the World's Plants and Fungi report, published June 16, 2026, brings together expertise from more than 400 scientists across 40 countries to explore how new technology is transforming the race to save nature. The report argues technology can be nature's ally, with digital tools exposing critical gaps in scientific knowledge and highlighting where action is most urgently needed to safeguard plants and fungi. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-digital-tools-reveal-hidden-extinctions.html Plants & Animals Mon, 15 Jun 2026 19:00:07 EDT news700748402 Advances in structural biology have allowed scientists to determine molecular structures with atomic-level detail, sometimes yielding static snapshots that do not reflect the dynamism of proteins. However, these motions are often crucial for biological function. Researchers from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA), together with international collaborators, have now combined several methods to shed light on how proteins "breathe" and how some experimental techniques freeze their motion. The findings—which could boost protein design approaches and improve AI-based structural prediction tools—are published in Nature Chemistry. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-frozen-snapshots-protein-view-combined.html Biochemistry Mon, 15 Jun 2026 18:20:08 EDT news700759022 Researchers have developed a new approach using data from NASA's Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite to observe the timing and progression of fall colors across landscapes. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-pace-satellite-tracks-fall-daily.html Earth Sciences Mon, 15 Jun 2026 14:20:04 EDT news700744981 The vaquita (Phocoena sinus), an elusive porpoise found only in the shallow waters of Mexico's northern Gulf of California, is one of the rarest and most endangered marine mammals on Earth. Measuring about 5 feet (1.5 meters) in length, it is the world's smallest cetacean—a group that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. Known for the distinctive dark rings around its eyes and mouth, the vaquita remained unknown to science until the latter half of the 20th century. Today, it has become a global symbol of the growing biodiversity crisis unfolding in the world's oceans. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-pixels-world-rarest-porpoise-3d.html Biotechnology Mon, 15 Jun 2026 12:00:01 EDT news700736341 In a first, a large, international team led by multiple labs at Harvard Medical School and Princeton University has published a complete wiring diagram of all the connections between neurons in the central nervous system of an adult fruit fly. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-publish-connectome-fruit-fly-brain.html Cell & Microbiology Sun, 14 Jun 2026 12:00:05 EDT news700146657 Researchers at the UCLA Samueli School of Engineering and CNSI (California NanoSystems Institute), led by Professor Aydogan Ozcan, introduced a snapshot 3D image projection system that integrates a digital encoder with a passive diffractive optical decoder, jointly optimized end-to-end through deep learning. The hybrid architecture projects multiple distinct images onto closely spaced axial planes in a single shot, marking a significant step toward compact, high-fidelity volumetric display technologies. The research is published in the journal Light: Science & Applications. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-layer-3d-images-shot.html Optics & Photonics Sun, 14 Jun 2026 08:20:01 EDT news700642019 Researchers at Princeton University have harnessed AI to understand how drugs affect the dynamics of vital structures within the cell, introducing a tool that can map the shape of these structures to functional outcomes and shed light on important markers of health. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ai-cell-droplets-uncovering-drug.html Molecular & Computational biology Sat, 13 Jun 2026 06:20:01 EDT news700547546 A new AI model has become so good at predicting how molecules evolve over time that, in the future, it could speed up the costly and time-consuming process of testing new drugs. In the long term, this technology could facilitate the development of medicines and new treatments, as promising drug candidates can be identified more quickly and with greater accuracy. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ai-fast-forwards-molecular-simulations.html Biotechnology Thu, 11 Jun 2026 18:20:01 EDT news700410781 Building the complex 3D molecules needed for new medicines has always been a bit like assembling a puzzle with pieces that keep trying to flip over. Now, chemists at Scripps Research have found a way to snap two such molecular pieces together while keeping their original 3D shapes intact, even when using some of the most reactive molecules in chemistry: free radicals. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-chemists-snap-complex-3d-molecules.html Analytical Chemistry Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:00:03 EDT news700400641 Modern fluorescence microscopy can generate images of living cells as stunning to look at as they are informative to study. For techniques like fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM), those images provide a window into cell metabolism, helping scientists study cancer treatment, autoimmune disease and more. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-source-flim-playground-analysis-complex.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 10 Jun 2026 16:30:02 EDT news700325582 A new telescope technology—measuring just 6 millimeters (0.24 inches) in diameter—could improve how future space missions study and monitor the sun while simplifying onboard hardware and reducing costs. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-small-optical-component-telescopes-view.html Space Exploration Wed, 10 Jun 2026 14:00:02 EDT news700234792 Recent years have witnessed great advances in applying deep learning to improve fluorescence microscopy imaging. However, enhancing the fidelity of image restoration networks and improving their robustness under fluorescence noise remain significant challenges. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-tunnel-vision-imaging-ai-fluorescence.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:40:03 EDT news700239961 Nature is filled with remarkable visual phenomena created by microscopic surface structures that interact with light in fascinating ways. The iridescent wings of butterflies, the shimmering feathers of birds and the glossy surfaces of flower petals are all examples of how living organisms control the reflection, absorption and scattering of light. These optical effects are not only visually striking but also serve important biological functions, including attracting pollinators, communication, camouflage and protection from environmental stress. Understanding these naturally occurring photonic structures has become an important area of research, as they provide inspiration for the development of advanced biomimetic materials and optical technologies. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-hardy-ice-optical-possibilities.html Optics & Photonics Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:30:01 EDT news700243562 Solar flares are the most explosive energy-release events in the solar corona, leading to intense particle acceleration, plasma heating and bulk plasma motions on short timescales. Core questions during solar flares remain unresolved, including how and where particle acceleration occurs, and how energized electrons propagate through coronal magnetic structures. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-meerkat-reveals-electron-sites-solar.html Astronomy Tue, 09 Jun 2026 13:40:01 EDT news700228561 A collaboration of scientists from NASA and Brazilian research institutions has produced a detailed picture of groundwater change across Brazil. The images reveal significant declines in some of the aquifers that are critical to one of the world's largest agricultural producers. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-brazilian-breadbasket-aquifers-falling-satellite.html Earth Sciences Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:00:06 EDT news700146661 A new study combining NASA satellite observations, ocean surveys and genetic testing of marine microorganisms found evidence that warming ocean waters may be limiting nutrient availability across much of the global ocean. The researchers report that this nutrient stress affects microscopic marine organisms and could influence marine ecosystems over time. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-nasa-satellites-reveal-major-ocean.html Earth Sciences Mon, 08 Jun 2026 13:00:06 EDT news700137901