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. 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 NASA scientists have developed an artificial intelligence tool to take on a longstanding challenge in ocean waters. In a study recently published in the Earth and Space Science journal, researchers reported the tool was able to fuse data from multiple satellites and detect harmful algal blooms that occurred in western Florida and Southern California. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ai-tool-fuses-satellite-datasets.html Earth Sciences Wed, 20 May 2026 18:00:05 EDT news698513041 Fentanyl is one of the most effective drugs for managing severe pain, yet it carries substantial risks of addiction and respiratory depression, the dangerous and sometimes fatal slowed breathing. These safety concerns have limited the use of the drug despite how well it works. Meanwhile, the ease and low cost of manufacturing have enabled widespread illegal production, fueling an overdose epidemic that claimed more than 70,000 U.S. lives in 2023. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-fentanyl-makeover-core-redesign-safer.html Biochemistry Thu, 12 Feb 2026 10:39:39 EST news690114721 Many organizations are taking actions to shrink their carbon footprint, such as purchasing electricity from renewable sources or reducing air travel. Both actions would cut greenhouse gas emissions, but which offers greater societal benefits? https://phys.org/news/2025-12-companies-green-air-quality-impacts.html Environment Mon, 08 Dec 2025 10:37:39 EST news684412562 Despite rapid advances in reading the genetic code of living organisms, scientists still face a major challenge today—knowing a gene's sequence does not automatically reveal what it does. Even in simple, well-studied bacteria like Escherichia coli (better known as E. coli), about one-quarter of the genes have no known function. Traditional approaches—turning off one gene at a time and studying the effects—are slow, laborious, and sometimes inconclusive due to gene redundancy. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-bacterial-gene-interactions-uncovers-future.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 06 Oct 2025 14:23:04 EDT news678979381 Tuberculosis (TB) is the world's deadliest infectious disease—and one of the hardest to cure. Standard treatment requires a cocktail of multiple drugs over at least six months, and one in five patients have a type of TB that resists these first-line medications. Now, a new study offers a powerful AI-assisted method for uncovering exactly how TB drugs kill the bacteria, opening the door to smarter treatment combinations that could work faster. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-ai-powered-analysis-reveals-drugs.html Biotechnology Mon, 25 Aug 2025 13:10:01 EDT news675345629 A new study has revealed for the first time the vital role carbon dioxide (CO2) plays in determining the lifespan of airborne viruses—namely SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. It clearly showed keeping CO2 levels in check helps to reduce virus survival, and therefore the risk of infection. https://phys.org/news/2024-04-scientists-higher-survival-viruses-air.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 26 Apr 2024 11:22:52 EDT news633349365 Researchers from Michigan State University and the University of British Columbia have invented a system that can quickly and inexpensively detect airborne viruses using the same technology that enables high-speed trains. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-magnetic-levitation-enables-early-airborne.html Bio & Medicine Fri, 04 Aug 2023 06:39:42 EDT news610349977 An article published in the International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction discusses Amazon Rainforest wildfire governance with local community participation in the so-called tri-national border region between Madre de Dios in Peru, Acre state in North Brazil, and Pando, one of Bolivia's nine departments (subnational administrative divisions). The region is sometimes referred to as MAP. https://phys.org/news/2023-04-undermining-lack-local-policies-hinder.html Environment Wed, 05 Apr 2023 11:12:56 EDT news599911971 Scientists have developed a world-first diagnostic test, powered by artificial intelligence, that can identify known respiratory viruses within five minutes from just one nasal or throat swab. The new diagnostic test could replace current methods that are limited to testing for only one infection—such as a lateral flow test for COVID-19—or otherwise are either lab-based and time-consuming or fast and less accurate. https://phys.org/news/2023-02-scientists-respiratory-viruses-minutes.html Bio & Medicine Fri, 10 Feb 2023 12:17:38 EST news595253853 University of Queensland researchers have identified a pathway in cells that could be used to reprogram the body's immune system to fight back against both chronic inflammatory and infectious diseases. https://phys.org/news/2023-01-harnessing-power-cells.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 18 Jan 2023 16:31:03 EST news593281861 A Brazilian study shows that the number of fires detected in the entire Amazon region between 2003 and 2020 was influenced more by uncontrolled human use of fire than by drought. According to the researchers, burning of vegetation to prepare areas for pasture and deforestation rather than extreme water deficits were the main cause of fire in most years with large numbers of fires. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-amazon-agricultural-deforestation-drought.html Earth Sciences Fri, 04 Nov 2022 13:34:05 EDT news586787642 Many different types of bacteria and viruses can cause pneumonia, but there is no easy way to determine which microbe is causing a particular patient's illness. This uncertainty makes it harder for doctors to choose effective treatments because the antibiotics commonly used to treat bacterial pneumonia won't help patients with viral pneumonia. In addition, limiting the use of antibiotics is an important step toward curbing antibiotic resistance. https://phys.org/news/2022-06-nanoparticle-sensor-distinguish-viral-bacterial.html Biochemistry Mon, 13 Jun 2022 15:00:06 EDT news574324739 Researchers have developed an automated method that predicts the effectiveness of viral diagnostic tests and designs optimized ones. https://phys.org/news/2022-03-machine-scientists-viral-diagnostics.html Biotechnology Fri, 04 Mar 2022 10:39:44 EST news565612779 When viruses infect a cell, changes in the cell nucleus occur, and these can be observed through fluorescence microscopy. Using fluoresence images made in live cells, researchers at the University of Zurich have trained an artificial neural network to reliably recognize cells that are infected by adenoviruses or herpes viruses. The procedure also identifies severe acute infections at an early stage. https://phys.org/news/2021-06-microscopy-deep-viral-infections.html Cell & Microbiology Mon, 21 Jun 2021 10:37:48 EDT news543490665 As the opioid epidemic raged on with an even greater force during COVID-19, the Scripps Research laboratory of chemist Kim Janda, Ph.D., has been working on new therapeutic interventions that may be able to prevent the bulk of deaths from opioid overdose. https://phys.org/news/2021-02-experimental-vaccine-blunts-deadliest-synthetic.html Biochemistry Thu, 04 Feb 2021 17:11:21 EST news531681077 Nanoengineers at the University of California San Diego have developed new and improved probes, known as positive controls, that could make it easier to validate rapid, point-of-care diagnostic tests for COVID-19 across the globe. https://phys.org/news/2020-12-virus-like-probes-rapid-covid-accurate.html Bio & Medicine Tue, 01 Dec 2020 10:19:11 EST news526040346 The ongoing global pandemic has created an urgent need for rapid tests that can diagnose the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the pathogen that causes COVID-19, and distinguish it from other respiratory viruses. Now, researchers from Japan have demonstrated a new system for single-virion identification of common respiratory pathogens using a machine learning algorithm trained on changes in current across silicon nanopores. This work may lead to fast and accurate screening tests for diseases like COVID-19 and influenza. https://phys.org/news/2020-11-viruses-machine.html Biochemistry Wed, 11 Nov 2020 09:13:53 EST news524308425 In Salt Lake City schools, absences rise when the air quality worsens, and it's not just in times of high pollution or 'red' air quality days—even days following lower levels of pollutions saw increased absences. https://phys.org/news/2020-10-school-absences-impaired-air-quality.html Environment Fri, 09 Oct 2020 13:38:20 EDT news521469495 Benchtop tools for studying the respiratory system misrepresent the interdependence between the diaphragm, abdomen and lungs. Meanwhile, computational models often hide the mechanisms in a black box computation, without a clear picture of what transpires in the process. https://phys.org/news/2020-06-biohybrid-lungs-synthetic-muscles-re-create.html Biotechnology Tue, 09 Jun 2020 11:00:05 EDT news510903495 What does flying in a commercial airliner have in common with working at the office or relaxing at home? https://phys.org/news/2018-06-aircraft-microbiome-homes-offices.html Ecology Thu, 07 Jun 2018 10:31:58 EDT news447586302 According to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 90 percent of the 4.5 million workers in the Los Angeles area spend an average of 60 minutes each day commuting on a roadway or railway. When USC researchers from the Viterbi School of Engineering set out to study the environmental benefits of different modes of public transit in LA, they found some unexpected results: certain SoCal public transit routes that were entirely underground exposed passengers to greater concentrations of carcinogens in the air. The research was published in Aerosol and Air Quality Research on November 29, 2017. https://phys.org/news/2017-11-underground-transit-worse-health.html Environment Wed, 29 Nov 2017 16:39:58 EST news431195984 New research is calling for immediate safeguards and the study of a widely used method for repairing sewer, stormwater and drinking water pipes to understand the potential health and environmental concerns for workers and the public. https://phys.org/news/2017-07-materials-emitted-pipe-method-pose.html Environment Fri, 28 Jul 2017 05:52:58 EDT news420439971 School of Medicine researchers working with the U.S. Navy's Marine Mammal Program in San Diego have discovered a startling variety of newly-recognized bacteria living inside the trained dolphins that the Navy uses to find submerged sea mines and detect underwater intruders. They found similar types of bacteria in wild dolphins as well. https://phys.org/news/2016-02-previously-unknown-bacterial-species-dolphins.html Plants & Animals Thu, 18 Feb 2016 07:30:01 EST news375001226 Using technology invented at MIT, doctors may one day be able to monitor patients' vital signs by having them swallow an ingestible electronic device that measures heart rate and breathing rate from within the gastrointestinal tract. https://phys.org/news/2015-11-ingestible-sensor-heart-digestive-tract.html Engineering Wed, 18 Nov 2015 14:00:01 EST news367069115 The current Ebola outbreak shows how quickly diseases can spread with global jet travel. Yet knowing how to predict the spread of these epidemics is still uncertain, because the complicated models used are not fully understood, says a UC Berkeley biophysicist. https://phys.org/news/2014-11-important-long-distance-epidemics.html General Physics Wed, 05 Nov 2014 06:19:31 EST news334390755 Crystal meth (methamphetamine) is a highly addictive drug that seduces victims by increasing self-esteem and sexual pleasure, and inducing euphoria. But once hooked, addicts find the habit hard to break. Barbara Sorg from Washington State University, USA, explains that amphetamines enhance memory. 'In addiction we talk about the "drug memory" as a "pathological memory". It is so potent as to not be easily forgotten,' she explains. As memory plays an important role in addiction, Sorg wondered whether it might be possible to find out more about the effects of meth on memory by looking at the effect it has on a humble mollusc: the pond snail Lymnaea stagnalis. https://phys.org/news/2010-05-snails-methamphetamine.html Plants & Animals Fri, 28 May 2010 04:49:04 EDT news194240928 (AP) -- Volcanic ash sifted down on parts of northern Europe on Friday and thousands of planes stayed on the tarmac to avoid the hazardous cloud. Travel chaos engulfed major European cities and the U.N. warned of possible health risks from falling ash. https://phys.org/news/2010-04-chaos-cloud-ash-drifts-europe.html Earth Sciences Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:29:46 EDT news190608825 (PhysOrg.com) -- As Olympic records are being broken left and right by Michael Phelps, questions have been raised do we have a performance enhancing water issue. Some attribute the gold hanging around Olympiad Phelps is the result of a Superman fabric developed by Speedo. In fact, aside from a truly phenomenal performances by the swimmers, it could be the water. ProMinent, the brainchild of Professor h.c. Viktor Dulger in Heidelberg developed the first electronic solenoid driven dosing pump known as the Ozone Technology system for sanitizing pools in 1971. The system does not rely on chlorine which is viewed as harmful to swimmer's lungs, eyes and may cause skin rashes. ProMinent is a leader world-wide with operations in China, Germany, Hungary and South America. https://phys.org/news/2008-08-beijing-olympic-swimmer-state-of-art-prominent.html Other Tue, 12 Aug 2008 16:19:36 EDT news137776778 Biologists at the University of California, San Diego have discovered that the skin of mice can sense low levels of oxygen and regulate the production of erythropoietin, or EPO, the hormone that stimulates our bodies to produce red blood cells and allows us to adapt to high-altitude, low-oxygen environments. https://phys.org/news/2008-04-mice-oxygen-skin.html Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:16:09 EDT news127653369