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. Fabian Coscia and his team have published in Nature Methods an open-source workflow that makes Deep Visual Proteomics easier to use, adapt and scale. OpenDVP enables scientists to spatially map thousands of proteins inside cells and their cellular environments, while preserving their tissue context. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-source-workflow-spatial-proteomics-easier.html Biotechnology Fri, 23 Oct 2026 12:20:10 EDT news711969422 Populations of many pollinators, including bumblebees, have been crashing over the last few decades, thanks to the widespread use of chemical pesticides, loss of habitat and the acceleration of climate change. But it can be hard to know just how bad the problem is, or whether conservation strategies are helping, without relying on lethal traps—which can kill tens of thousands of bees in order to get an accurate count of their populations. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ai-bee-lethal.html Plants & Animals Wed, 21 Oct 2026 19:40:05 EDT news711817081 Ever wonder what goes on inside the brain of a worm—how it processes information, responds to stimuli and perceives the world around it? Northeastern University researchers have opened up that can of worms, specifically the one containing C. elegans, a tiny roundworm that's one of the most extensively studied animals in biology. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-worm-brain-sex-differences-nervous.html Cell & Microbiology Sat, 17 Oct 2026 17:20:01 EDT news711373421 The writer Malcolm Gladwell popularized the term "tipping points" to refer to the moment when a trend or social behavior crosses a threshold and rapidly spreads everywhere. In physics, tipping points occur when systems—say, Earth's climate—reach an unstable point and topple over into a sea of change that is sometimes irreversible. Examples include global warming or the melting of polar ice caps. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ai-climate-simulation.html Earth Sciences Fri, 16 Oct 2026 13:40:01 EDT news711366961 As an embryo develops from a small cluster of stem cells, those once "blank slate" cells begin to take on more specialized roles like brain, liver or muscle cells and organize themselves into three-dimensional structures such as tissues and organs. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ai-reveals-language-cell.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 16 Oct 2026 11:20:12 EDT news711364201 On May 10, 2025, a spacecraft built in the Soviet Union to land on Venus came home. Launched in 1972, Cosmos-482 was stranded by a failed upper stage of its rocket and circled Earth for 53 years. In its last days, several space agencies and research groups forecasted when it would fall, and therefore where. Roscosmos later reported that it came down in the Indian Ocean, west of Jakarta. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-air-deep-uncontrolled-satellites-rocket.html Space Exploration Fri, 16 Oct 2026 10:40:12 EDT news711280994 About 2 billion metric tons of metal are produced worldwide every year to meet the demands of industry, infrastructure and the energy sector. Much of this production still relies on primary raw materials, contributing to an estimated 40% of industrial greenhouse gas emissions and 10% of global energy consumption. Increasing the use of recycled metals could significantly reduce the environmental impact of metal production while also lowering dependence on imports of scarce and strategically critical raw materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ai-scrap-impurities-ingredients-stronger.html Materials Science Thu, 15 Oct 2026 16:20:18 EDT news711292976 Our brain must be able to learn new things without losing previously stored information or the stability of its networks. Researchers at the Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology (LIN) in Magdeburg, together with partners in Bielefeld and Zurich, have investigated how this balance is achieved. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-reshapes-inhibitory-synapses-differently-nerve.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 14 Oct 2026 16:00:12 EDT news711199021 Researchers at National Taiwan University (NTU), working across the College of Engineering, College of Medicine and National Taiwan University Hospital (NTUH), have developed a new method for producing aerogels, introducing what they describe as the world's first purely gaseous-born aerogel fabrication platform. The study is published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-vapor-based-method-ultralight-aerogels.html Polymers Mon, 12 Oct 2026 17:00:10 EDT news711037681 Some insects, including honeybees and ants, live in highly organized colonies where individuals take on specific roles. In many ant societies, young adult workers typically care for developing young inside the nest before beginning to forage, or search for food, outside it. Some ant species, however, start hunting for food as soon as they reach adulthood, without undergoing a transition period. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-young-ants-early.html Plants & Animals Sat, 10 Oct 2026 08:00:06 EDT news710584123 In a study led by Tampere University, researchers have developed a new lensless imaging method that produces precise quantitative data on living cells from a single image. The compact system can be placed inside a standard cell-culture incubator, allowing living cells to be monitored continuously for hours or even days without staining or other labels. The research is published in the journal Applied Physics Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-lensless-imaging-method-enables-term.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 08 Oct 2026 17:50:01 EDT news710698142 Predicting a system's final outcome from its initial state is the ultimate goal for many physicists. In certain complex systems, however, this goal is thwarted by chaos, where even the subtlest tweaks to the initial state can lead to completely different fates, making the system almost impossible to predict. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nonchaotic-reveals-emerge-seemingly-unpredictable.html General Physics Thu, 08 Oct 2026 17:00:08 EDT news710680141 Using data from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys, with help from artificial intelligence, an international team of scientists has discovered 70 new gravitational lenses—rare cosmic alignments that act as natural magnifying glasses. The new lenses further expand one of the largest collections of confirmed lenses to date and will allow scientists to study dark matter, galaxy evolution and the structure of the universe. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-largest-2d-universe-scientists-gravitational.html Astronomy Thu, 08 Oct 2026 09:40:12 EDT news710669701 Francis Halzen, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, spoke with pride on Wednesday about his early promotion of artificial intelligence in his research on neutrinos. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nobel-physics-winner-pride-ai.html General Physics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 18:40:01 EDT news710587906 Anyone who has ever tried and failed to swat a fly has experienced the speed of a tiny nervous system. Now, a new review brings together evidence that its secret lies partly in microscopic movements and shape changes within sensory cells and neurons, challenging conventional views of how brains process information. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-shifting-sensory-cells-insects-visual.html Plants & Animals Tue, 06 Oct 2026 16:20:12 EDT news710507162 In early 2024, laboratory-grown neurospheres (i.e. clusters of neural stem cells) were sent to the International Space Station (ISS) to be exposed to microgravity. The return trip was delayed several times due to bad weather in the landing zone. As a result, the cells were outside controlled culture conditions for longer than anticipated—beyond the limit of what they were expected to survive. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-stem-cells-survive-unexpectedly-rough.html Space Exploration Tue, 06 Oct 2026 12:40:10 EDT news710500141 When you walk into a bakery and smell fresh cookies, the enticing smell draws you in. After you eat a handful of cookies, though, the same smell likely doesn't send you back for more. Researchers in the McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis sought to determine the biological mechanisms in the brain that controllably alters odor-evoked behavior by using an unlikely model—a locust. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-locust-neuromodulators-odor.html Plants & Animals Mon, 05 Oct 2026 18:40:10 EDT news710440622 A new study finds that coastal forest loss in North Carolina's Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula began accelerating after 2010 and may still be speeding up. The study also found that North Carolina lost more than 20% of its coastal forest between 1985 and 2021. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-forests-dying-north-carolina-coast.html Environment Mon, 05 Oct 2026 18:00:10 EDT news710438881 Scientists used machine learning and super-resolution microscopy to overcome a challenge that has stymied research into the natural history of grasses for decades. Their method allowed them to detect subtle differences among grass pollen grains and trace changes in grass diversity and the proportions of the two main photosynthetic types of grasses at one site over a period of 25,000 years. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-pollen-reveals-hidden-history-grasses.html Ecology Mon, 05 Oct 2026 13:40:16 EDT news710421361 Imagine a proton catching a wave and surfing it to gain speed. While the imagery may seem wild, the premise of laser-driven ion acceleration has promise as an alternative to conventional accelerators. However, the ultrathin targets used to drive this increase in ion energy are vulnerable to the weak prepulse that precedes the main high-intensity laser pulse, meaning an adaptation in the process is necessary. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-protons-energy-pulse-lasers.html General Physics Fri, 02 Oct 2026 10:20:08 EDT news710151602 The circadian clock is an internal biological system that regulates sleep-wake cycles, as well as many physiological functions such as body temperature and hormone production. In many animals, this clock relies on a network of neurons that generates rhythms of approximately 24 hours. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-biological-clock-phases.html Cell & Microbiology Thu, 01 Oct 2026 16:40:15 EDT news710077081 A tiny device that can be reprogrammed using a laser could lead to adaptable devices for computing, imaging and telecommunications. Most devices are built to perform a particular job. If you want them to do something different, you generally need to replace a component, rewire the system or manufacture a new one. For example, every time you ask a large language model like ChatGPT or Claude a question, many electrical signals race through computer chips, carrying information and performing calculations. This takes energy, and lots of it. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-laser-temporarily-reprograms-ultrathin-optical.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 28 Sep 2026 13:00:13 EDT news709812601 A new graph-theoretic framework provides a unified description of atom-light interactions across regimes ranging from weak to deep-strong coupling. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-atom-interaction-uncovers-unbounded-network.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 28 Sep 2026 09:40:10 EDT news709805821 Quantum photonics could be a pivotal part of future quantum technology if the right materials can be created, a new review paper has found. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ultrathin-materials-quantum-circuits-programmable.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 25 Sep 2026 15:40:01 EDT news709554121 New York University researchers have trained an AI model to learn chemical patterns associated with stability in drug-like molecules and accurately predict where their hydrogen atoms should be positioned. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-scans-million-compounds-hours.html Analytical Chemistry Wed, 23 Sep 2026 05:00:02 EDT news709220221 Engineers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have designed a new type of quantum nanostructure that could enable optical neural networks. This emerging technology has the potential to make artificial intelligence systems, like large language models and image generation, faster and significantly more energy efficient. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-tiny-quantum-nanostructures-ai-energy.html Nanophysics Tue, 22 Sep 2026 15:40:06 EDT news709307761 During the production of fermented products such as kefir, Parmesan, or mountain cheese, as well as in the production of protein powders, bitter-tasting peptides can form, which impair the taste and thus the acceptability of the products. A research team led by the Leibniz Institute for Food Systems Biology at the Technical University of Munich has now developed and successfully tested an AI-based method that can predict the bitterness of peptides. It also makes it possible to design new, bitter-tasting peptides from scratch. This is another important step forward in taste and food research. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-peptide-bitterness-enables-flavor.html Biotechnology Tue, 22 Sep 2026 14:20:03 EDT news709303622 Perfection is overrated—at least when it comes to complex systems like the power grid, food webs and advanced materials. For decades, scientists generally assumed that networks function most reliably when their individual components are as similar as possible. But real-world networks are rarely uniform. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-finely-tuned-mess-disorder-networks.html Mathematics Thu, 17 Sep 2026 19:40:04 EDT news708874381 In recent years, numerous attempts have been made to use artificial intelligence to decipher the communication of bats, whales, birds and other animals. However, a new study led by a team of researchers from Tel Aviv University points to a fundamental problem with this approach: AI models focus on the physical properties of a sound, but this does not mean they understand the meaning attributed to it by the animal receiving it. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-ai-struggles-decipher-animal-language.html Ecology Wed, 16 Sep 2026 17:40:05 EDT news708786001 Artificial intelligence is transforming how information is generated, processed and stored, but its rapid expansion is also driving unprecedented demand for computing power and electricity. Developing hardware that can process information more efficiently is therefore becoming one of the major technological challenges of the AI era. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-room-temperature-skyrmion-based-synapses.html Nanophysics Mon, 14 Sep 2026 19:20:01 EDT news708620821