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. Animals and electronic devices aren't the only things with memory. Materials can retain memories of past deformations in their microscopic structure. A common example is a crease in a sheet of paper that has been folded then unfolded. Understanding this type of memory could benefit the design of materials that respond to changes in their environment in predictable ways. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-chocolate-syrup-fluid-multiple-interacting.html Condensed Matter Thu, 23 Jul 2026 17:50:02 EDT news704043002 Researchers at the University of Tokyo and the Innovation Center of NanoMedicine (iCONM) have developed an artificial intelligence (AI) approach that identifies the morphology of nanoparticles in liquid using data from standard nanoparticle tracking analysis (NTA), a widely used technique for particle sizing. The method achieved classification accuracies exceeding 80% for non-spherical nanoparticles without requiring modification of existing instruments. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-deep-reveals-nanoparticle-routine-tracking.html Nanomaterials Tue, 07 Jul 2026 16:20:06 EDT news702657911 Olive oil and water do not naturally mix. Water molecules are polar, having a net electric dipole moment due to the bend angle of about 104.5° between the two oxygen-hydrogen bonds. Olive oil is nonpolar due to its long hydrocarbon chains, which makes it hydrophobic and insoluble in water. Mixtures of the two are called emulsions, and emulsifiers exist that can stabilize them into a thicker temporary or permanent mixture. Cooks use such a technique to make vinaigrette, a salad dressing consisting primarily of oil and vinegar with emulsifiers such as mustard, honey or mayonnaise. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-nanoscale-droplets-dont-coalesce-microscale.html Bio & Medicine Mon, 29 Jun 2026 09:00:04 EDT news701942376 Can "snow" fall in the ocean and influence the climate of the entire planet? It turns out that it can. Research conducted by scientists from the Faculty of Physics at University of Warsaw, published in the Journal of Fluid Mechanics, helps us understand how microscopic flakes of dead organic matter collide and sink into the deep ocean, transporting vast amounts of carbon and affecting the pace of global warming. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-physics-uncharted-mysteries-marine.html Earth Sciences Thu, 14 May 2026 16:30:48 EDT news697995001 In 2018, an artificial intelligence (AI) program called AlphaFold achieved a major breakthrough by placing first in the critical assessment of structure prediction, a competition for predicting the three-dimensional structures of proteins. It scored close to 90 on a 100-point scale for moderately difficult targets, marking a turning point in the use of AI for understanding protein structure and highlighting its potential applications. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-deepafm-decodes-protein-motion-noisy.html Biochemistry Tue, 12 May 2026 15:00:03 EDT news697807741 Trying to untangle a knot in a mess of strings can be frustrating and time-consuming. But not so for molecular machines—molecules that convert chemical energy into mechanical work and motion. Machines from the AAA+ family, which exist in the cells of all living organisms from bacteria to humans, can, among their many functions, recognize misfolded protein chains and swiftly unravel them. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-revolving-doors-efficient-proteins-molecular.html Biotechnology Wed, 29 Apr 2026 15:00:01 EDT news696682381 Cells are squishy and soft. Tiny nanometer-sized particles such as quantum sensors cannot move freely inside them due to viscous drag, which makes sensing challenging. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have now developed a technique to precisely maneuver quantum sensors through these highly viscous biological environments, such as the interior of living cells, using magnetic microbots. This opens up possibilities for real-time, minimally invasive measurement of parameters like local viscosity and temperature inside cells. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-magnetic-microbots-quantum-sensors-cells.html Bio & Medicine Tue, 24 Mar 2026 12:00:02 EDT news693569359 An international research team reports the discovery of "hidden order" in systems that are disordered in space and time. The paper is published in the journal Nature Materials. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-chaos-emergence-photon-swirling-disordered.html Nanophysics Mon, 15 Dec 2025 15:03:22 EST news685033381 Polydopamine-coated magnetic liposomes offer insight into the lectin–glycan interactions in motion. By observing minute changes in the rotational motion of magnetic nanoparticles under alternating magnetic field, the technique reveals binding patterns, including strong multivalent binding events under natural and physiological conditions. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-magnetic-liposomes-reveal-sugarprotein-patterns.html Biochemistry Tue, 09 Dec 2025 18:00:01 EST news684515603 At European XFEL, researchers have observed in detail how the vital iron protein ferritin makes its way in highly dense environments—with implications for medicine and nanotechnology. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-ray-laser-protein-movement-cells.html Biotechnology Tue, 02 Dec 2025 15:39:21 EST news683912342 Some phenomena in our daily lives are so commonplace that we don't realize there could be some very interesting physics behind them. Take a dripping faucet: why does the continuous stream of water from a faucet eventually break up into individual droplets? A team of physicists studied this question and reached surprising conclusions. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-faucet-jet-breakup-angstrom-scale.html Soft Matter Mon, 01 Dec 2025 16:12:20 EST news683827921 What are the physics of life? That is more than just a philosophical question—it has practical implications for our search for life elsewhere in the galaxy. We know what Earth life looks like, on a number of levels, but finding it on another planet could require us to redefine what we even mean by life itself. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-life.html Astrobiology Wed, 26 Nov 2025 12:06:23 EST news683381162 Stochastic dynamical systems arise in many scientific fields, such as asset prices in financial markets, neural activity in the brain, or the spread of infectious diseases. Petar Jovanovski's Ph.D. thesis focuses on these systems, which evolve in ways that are partly random. Jovanovski will defend his PhD thesis "Simulation-based parameter inference methods based on data-conditional simulation of stochastic dynamical systems" on September 19. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-simulations-accurate-random.html Mathematics Tue, 16 Sep 2025 09:40:01 EDT news677232452 Early scientific theories—such as those explaining basic phenomena like gravity, burning, and the movement of molecules in water—centered on presumed inherent properties rather than external factors, thereby misleading famous philosophers and scientists, from Aristotle to Scottish botanist Robert Brown, in their theorizing. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-inquiry-history-science-early-inherence.html Education Mon, 15 Sep 2025 15:00:04 EDT news677147281 A study published in Physical Review Letters (PRL) details a "Gambling Carnot Engine" that researchers report can attain 100% efficiency while also improving power generation. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-surpasses-classical-thermodynamic-limits.html General Physics Wed, 27 Aug 2025 12:40:01 EDT news675516081 Nanoparticles—the tiniest building blocks of our world—are constantly in motion, bouncing, shifting, and drifting in unpredictable paths shaped by invisible forces and random environmental fluctuations. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-ai-tool-deciphers-mysteries-nanoparticle.html Nanophysics Tue, 15 Jul 2025 08:23:31 EDT news671786606 Laser-cooled atomic gases, gases of atoms chilled to temperatures around absolute zero using laser technologies, have proved to be versatile physical platforms to study and control quantum phenomena. When these atomic gases interact with light inside an optical cavity (i.e., a structure designed to trap and enhance light), they can give rise to effects that can be leveraged to realize quantum sensing or simulate complex quantum systems. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-hours-lasing-laser-cooled-strontium.html Optics & Photonics Mon, 05 May 2025 07:50:01 EDT news665412400 From microscopic robots that can carry and deliver drugs inside the human body to tiny particles that can detect and break down microplastics, an emerging field called active matter is looking toward the microscale to solve some of the world's biggest problems. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-qa-microscopic-traffic-solution-insights.html Nanophysics Tue, 22 Apr 2025 16:07:05 EDT news664556821 A research team from Seoul National University College of Engineering has developed a technology to observe atomic structural changes of nanoparticles in three dimensions. Their study, which resolves a long-standing challenge even past Nobel laureates could not solve, was published online in Nature Communications on January 29. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-3d-imaging-technique-captures-dynamic.html Nanophysics Tue, 04 Mar 2025 13:12:46 EST news660316363 DNA-nanoparticle motors are exactly as they sound: tiny artificial motors that use the structures of DNA and RNA to propel motion through enzymatic RNA degradation. Essentially, chemical energy is converted into mechanical motion by biasing the Brownian motion. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-solution-dna-nanoparticles-motors-motor.html Bio & Medicine Wed, 22 Jan 2025 12:51:21 EST news656772677 Quantum sensing is a rapidly developing field that utilizes the quantum states of particles, such as superposition, entanglement, and spin states, to detect changes in physical, chemical, or biological systems. A promising type of quantum nanosensor is nanodiamonds (NDs) equipped with nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers. These centers are created by replacing a carbon atom with nitrogen near a lattice vacancy in a diamond structure. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-high-quality-nanodiamonds-bioimaging-quantum.html Nanophysics Mon, 23 Dec 2024 12:11:05 EST news654178261 Colloidal gels are complex systems made up of microscopic particles dispersed in a liquid, ultimately producing a semi-solid network. These materials have unique and advantageous properties that can be tuned using external forces, which have been the focus of various physics studies. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-particles-3d-gels-denser-porous.html General Physics Fri, 20 Dec 2024 07:20:01 EST news653815177 Neither gas nor liquid, supercritical fluids exhibit a unique mashup of the properties of both and arise when fluids are pushed to very high temperatures and pressures. Their properties make them ideal for a wide variety of chemical, pharmaceutical and environmental applications. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-molecular-pinball-superfast-collisions-supercritical.html General Physics Thu, 19 Dec 2024 09:33:04 EST news653823182 A team of scientists have invented a technique to determine the dynamics of microscopic interacting particles by using image recognition to count the number of particles in an imaginary box. By changing the size of the observation box, such counting enables the study of the dynamics of the collective system, even for a dense group of particles suspended in a fluid. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-image-recognition-technique-particles-diffusion.html General Physics Tue, 29 Oct 2024 11:20:01 EDT news649415299 Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have managed to enhance the framework of Brownian reservoir computing by recording and transferring hand gestures to the system that then used skyrmions to detect these individual gestures. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-energy-magnetic.html General Physics Mon, 16 Sep 2024 10:57:08 EDT news645703024 Although systems consisting of many interacting small particles can be highly complex and chaotic, some can nonetheless be described using simple theories. Does this also pertain to the world of quantum physics? https://phys.org/news/2024-09-fluctuating-hydrodynamics-theory-chaotic-body.html Quantum Physics Mon, 09 Sep 2024 15:07:06 EDT news645113224 It is hard to protect something if you don't know where it is. Yet many people who study and want to safeguard native plants are faced with this exact problem. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-gaps-biases-biodiversity.html Plants & Animals Mon, 09 Sep 2024 09:36:54 EDT news645093409 The ratchet mechanism is a fascinating energy-conversion system that converts disorderly or random motion into orderly, directed movement through a process known as spontaneous rectification. It is a critical component of mechanical systems, typically consisting of a gear and a pawl, which restricts the movement of the gear in one direction. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-ratchet-mechanism-geometrically-symmetric-gear.html General Physics Tue, 20 Aug 2024 10:34:04 EDT news643368842 Cilia are sensory structures extending from the surface of some cells. These hair-like structures are known to contribute to the sensorimotor capabilities of various living organisms, including humans. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-robotic-platform-complex-ciliary-behavior.html Soft Matter Tue, 13 Aug 2024 08:10:01 EDT news642683025 Checking whether an avocado is hard or soft by looking at it? This would require recognizing how the plant cells behave behind the skin. The same applies to all other cells on our planet: Despite more than 100 years of intensive research, many of their properties remain hidden inside the cell. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-laser-view-avocado-method-reveals.html General Physics Mon, 05 Aug 2024 11:34:12 EDT news642076447