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. Every year, bacteria kill more than a million people worldwide through infections that no longer respond to antibiotics. In many cases, why those bacteria are so hard to stop comes down to their uniquely powerful structure. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-bacteria-linked-motors-reel-resistance.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 30 Jun 2026 17:30:01 EDT news702055681 In 1562, Cardinal Giovanni de Medici, a scion of the dynastic family that dominated politics and banking in Tuscany during the Renaissance, died of malaria. Twenty-five years later, his older brother, Grand Duke Francesco de Medici, succumbed to the same disease. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-medici-brothers-reveal-renaissance-era.html Archaeology Tue, 30 Jun 2026 16:50:01 EDT news702054601 Accurate RNA splicing is essential for gene expression and human health, yet predicting how DNA sequence variations affect splicing remains a major challenge. Although recent artificial intelligence (AI) models have improved splice-site prediction, many struggle to capture regulatory signals located thousands of DNA bases away from the sites they influence. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ai-deciphers-range-dna-rna.html Biotechnology Tue, 30 Jun 2026 15:20:08 EDT news702037742 Scientists discovered a protein secreted by a deep-sea extremophile—an organism adapted to extreme environmental conditions—that self-assembles into a biofilm and is highly stable, boosting its potential for biomedical applications. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-deep-sea-extremophile-yields-protein.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 29 Jun 2026 17:50:01 EDT news701968261 A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has offered insight into how Staphylococcus aureus, a major human pathogen, fine-tunes its internal machinery to survive stress and potentially cause infection. The research uncovers new details about the structure and function of a previously understudied nuclease, YhaM, revealing how it regulates cellular machinery and contributes to bacterial virulence, or severity. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-understudied-enzyme-aureus-pathogen-prosper.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 29 Jun 2026 16:20:05 EDT news701966457 Researchers from the University of Osaka have demonstrated that mitochondrial hyperfusion, when induced by low levels of DRP1 or cellular stress, activates an immune response through the RIG-I–MAVS pathway. Dependent on the involvement of the BAX protein, the release of mitochondrial RNA into the cytosol enhanced natural killer cell cytotoxicity and reduced tumor growth in a xenograft model. The findings, published in Cell Reports, provide new possibilities for cancer research and treatment. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-mitochondria-abnormally-leaked-rna-anti.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 29 Jun 2026 15:50:01 EDT news701964901 A new estimate of insect species globally finds that there may be 8 million to 14 million more species than people thought, with few of them discovered. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-insect-species-previously-thought.html Plants & Animals Mon, 29 Jun 2026 15:00:05 EDT news701942881 Amid the peatlands of northern Sweden, billions of microbes are quietly rewriting their genetic playbooks—and doing so far more often than scientists realized. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-tiny-dna-hitchhikers-reshaping-life.html Ecology Mon, 29 Jun 2026 11:40:08 EDT news701950861 The tropical rainforests of Central and South America are among the most biodiverse places on Earth. Costa Rica alone is home to half a million species, five times more than exist in the entire country of Canada, despite the former having 200 times less land area than the latter. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-widespread-butterfly-species-disguise.html Plants & Animals Thu, 25 Jun 2026 09:40:01 EDT news701594281 A new method for recognizing and targeting DNA that dramatically expands the range of genetic sequences scientists can identify has been developed by experts at the University of Portsmouth. Published this week in Nature Communications, the research opens new possibilities for gene-targeting technologies, molecular diagnostics and DNA nanotechnology. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-synthetic-dna-toolkit-scientists-ability.html Biotechnology Wed, 24 Jun 2026 18:00:03 EDT news701529781 Genome editing lets scientists rewrite DNA, the instruction manual inside every living cell, with a precision that was unthinkable a generation ago. Technologies such as CRISPR have made this almost routine, and its uses now reach far beyond medicine, from engineering hardier crops and more productive microbes to creating sustainable biomaterials. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-cleanfinder-browser-based-genome-analysis.html Biotechnology Wed, 24 Jun 2026 17:20:09 EDT news701528761 Historic wooden structures across Svalbard are crumbling under the combined weight of climate change and human activity. Longer, warmer, and wetter seasons fuel wood-decaying fungi, while tourism adds physical wear to sites never built to last. The ArcticAlpineDecay project has provided a crucial baseline of knowledge—revealing how vulnerable these cultural landmarks are and why continued monitoring will be essential in the years ahead. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-wooden-heritage-arctic-tourism-converge.html Archaeology Wed, 24 Jun 2026 16:00:07 EDT news701525733 For the first time, scientists have shown that ancient human DNA can survive for thousands of years on cave walls, opening new ways to study prehistoric human activity. This interdisciplinary study was conducted within the framework of the First Art project, which is led by researchers from Spain and Portugal in collaboration with institutions across Spain, Portugal, the U.K., China and Germany. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-human-dna-survive-cave-walls.html Archaeology Wed, 24 Jun 2026 14:20:01 EDT news701522401 A lot of things need to go right on a molecular level for immune cells to launch an adaptive response to an infection. B cells can produce different classes of antibodies tailored for specific infections through controlled DNA damage and repair that alter the genetic information needed to encode the antibodies. When the process goes awry, it can produce mutations or genomic rearrangements that promote the formation of tumors. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-real-imaging-reveals-rna-hub.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 23 Jun 2026 17:00:02 EDT news701445781 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 Gene editing of plant DNA has the potential to produce crops with increased performance and resilience, but it can take a long time to achieve these gains. To shorten this process, scientists often use screening tools to determine where and how edits to the plant genome can be most effective. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-leaf-based-fluorescence-gene.html Biotechnology Mon, 22 Jun 2026 19:40:03 EDT news701362681 In a rapidly changing climate landscape, the plants we rely on for food, textiles and more face a multitude of challenges, including rising temperatures, drought and disease. Caltech's Gözde Demirer, the Clare Boothe Luce Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering, uses genetic engineering tools to make crops more resilient to such threats and enhance plant health. Now, she and a team of Caltech researchers have found a new solution to an old problem in an unlikely source: the zebra finch. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-bird-derived-gene-tool-inserts.html Biotechnology Mon, 22 Jun 2026 18:30:06 EDT news701368321 Tropical rainforest patches perched on isolated granite mountains in northern Mozambique have yielded four new species of sylvan chameleons, according to a new study by Prof. Krystal A. Tolley and Dr. Werner Conradie, recently published in Vertebrate Zoology. The new species have been named after animal behavior scientist and conservationist Jane Goodall, chemist Rosalind Franklin, and the concept of "vanishing," honoring scientific pioneers while sounding an alarm about disappearing habitats. The research reveals that each "sky island" harbors its own, previously unknown chameleon species and highlights the urgent need to conserve these fragile forest habitats. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-chameleon-species-mozambique-mountaintop-sky.html Plants & Animals Mon, 22 Jun 2026 17:20:07 EDT news701358241 A team of researchers led by Professor Akitsu Hotta (Department of Clinical Application) developed a comprehensive framework that combines computational prediction, experimental validation and whole-genome analysis to evaluate intended and unintended mutations arising from CRISPR-Cas9 delivered by lipid nanoparticles (LNPs), providing a practical strategy to improve the safety of genome-editing therapies. The work is published in the journal Molecular Therapy Nucleic Acids. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-crispr-safety-unintended-mutations.html Biotechnology Mon, 22 Jun 2026 13:20:10 EDT news701352362 Aptamers are short DNA or RNA strands that can recognize and bind to a specific target molecule with high precision. Similar to antibodies, they can be used to detect these molecules or modulate their activity. Unlike antibodies, they are much more stable, can be produced synthetically and can be chemically modified to achieve the desired properties. As a result, they can offer capabilities that cannot be achieved with antibodies. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-faster-aptamer-screening-synthetic-alternatives.html Biochemistry Sat, 20 Jun 2026 12:00:01 EDT news701014712 Resurrecting dinosaurs using DNA retrieved from a mosquito trapped in amber is a great movie plot, though it's less likely to happen in the real world. However, researchers have been trying to unlock the secrets behind the evolution of a single protein family to understand the evolution of ancestral proteins. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ancient-proteins-life.html Biotechnology Wed, 17 Jun 2026 13:20:07 EDT news700910161 Genes aren't just transferred from parents to their offspring. Nature has found other ways to pass on genetic information, even between different species. And a new study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, reports that cockroaches, in particular, are riddled with DNA transferred from another species. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-cockroach-genomes-dna-endosymbiont-bacterial.html Plants & Animals Wed, 17 Jun 2026 12:20:08 EDT news700914540 Silicon chips have powered computing for half a century. Increasingly, they are also becoming platforms to read and manipulate biology at scale—recording from many neurons, reading many DNA sequences and now synthesizing DNA. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-semiconductor-chip-dna-sequences-enzymatic.html Biotechnology Wed, 17 Jun 2026 11:47:12 EDT news700915316 Plague is commonly associated with rats, crowded medieval cities, and the epidemics that swept across Europe during and after the Middle Ages. But a new study published in Nature shows that the disease was already lethal 5,500 years ago, when it killed humans in small, mobile hunter-gatherer communities—long before the rise of agriculture and cities created the conditions usually associated with plague epidemics. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ancient-dna-uncovers-deadly-plague.html Archaeology Wed, 17 Jun 2026 11:00:15 EDT news700748701 Greenland has a long and checkered history of human settlement: several Paleo-Inuit cultures since approximately 2,500 BCE, descendants of Vikings between the 10th and 15th centuries, and early modern Danes since 1721. All left their traces on the landscape, for example in the form of ancient domestic rubbish heaps. Composed of waste like animal bones, excrement, mollusk shells and human artifacts, these middens are a precious resource for archaeologists. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-frozen-greenland-middens-years-farms.html Archaeology Wed, 17 Jun 2026 00:00:01 EDT news700748581 An interdisciplinary team of Rice University researchers has uncovered previously unknown relationships between bacteriophages—viruses that infect bacteria—and their bacterial hosts, offering a powerful new tool for next-generation microbiome engineering. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-rna-barcoding-approach-reveals-previously.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 16 Jun 2026 18:30:01 EDT news700845781 Genome sequencing has revealed insights into how current-day residents of the Faroe Islands can trace their ancestry to a North Atlantic founder population and how evolutionary forces have shaped their genomes since. The research, published in eLife, uses whole-genome sequencing data from 40 Faroese individuals and is described by eLife's editors as a useful study with convincing analyses of demographic history and selection, generating results that add value beyond the region. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-genome-wide-analysis-uncovers-clues.html Evolution Tue, 16 Jun 2026 15:50:01 EDT news700841882 An international research team led by Forschungszentrum Jülich and the IPK Leibniz Institute has developed an artificial intelligence model that predicts where regulatory proteins dock onto plant DNA to switch genes on and off. Trained entirely on the rich genomic data available for the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, the model transfers successfully to crops such as maize—opening new ways to understand how genetic variation shapes crop performance. The study was recently published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ai-decodes-dna-gene.html Biotechnology Tue, 16 Jun 2026 13:40:04 EDT news700828681 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 Prime editing can potentially repair the vast majority of known disease-causing human mutations, but the technology, first developed in 2019, has not yet been widely used in the body, or in vivo, to treat genetic disease. The only clinical application of prime editing that has been publicly announced uses the technology to edit cells outside the body before transplanting them back into the patient. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-scientists-aspect-prime-closer-genetic.html Biotechnology Mon, 15 Jun 2026 12:40:04 EDT news700736907