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. A new approach to producing ammonia using renewable electricity has overcome a fundamental energy limitation of the technology, opening new possibilities for cleaner and potentially more cost-effective production of one of the world's most important chemicals. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-electrode-key-barrier-greener-ammonia.html Analytical Chemistry Thu, 08 Oct 2026 11:00:11 EDT news710605261 The U.S. dairy industry is a major contributor to agricultural greenhouse gas emissions, with manure storage and handling representing a significant source of methane. Anaerobic digestion of cow manure—a biological process in which microorganisms break down biodegradable organic matter—has been widely studied as a strategy to mitigate manure-related emissions while producing renewable energy. That energy comes in the form of biogas that can be used to generate electricity or make renewable natural gas. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-material-manure-key-profitable-biogas.html Agriculture Thu, 08 Oct 2026 10:40:01 EDT news710672402 New research led by the University of Hawai'i Sea Grant College Program (Hawai'i Sea Grant), the UH Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) and the U.S. Geological Survey analyzed a 253-year-old core from a massive coral colony at Olowalu Reef off West Maui to reconstruct how Olowalu has changed over time, what has driven those changes and what restoring healthy connections between land and sea may mean for the reef's future. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-olowalu-reef-maui-glimpse-centuries.html Ecology Thu, 08 Oct 2026 09:20:24 EDT news710666342 Superconductors, materials that can carry electric current with an electrical resistance of zero, have proved to be promising for the development of various technologies, including medical devices, particle accelerators and quantum computers. Studying these materials could help researchers uncover new physical states that could be useful for specific applications. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-electronic-stripes-linked-unusual-vortex.html Condensed Matter Thu, 08 Oct 2026 08:00:11 EDT news710410734 Coral reefs are renowned for their visual beauty, but for the marine life they support, their sounds may be just as enticing. Two new studies led by UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography reveal how underwater acoustic enrichment—the playback of sounds from healthy reefs—can help spur the recovery of degraded coral reefs and their fish communities. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-healthy-reef-boost-coral-fish.html Plants & Animals Thu, 08 Oct 2026 05:00:14 EDT news710587621 The European Space Agency–led Solar Orbiter spacecraft has flown through an S-shaped kink known as a "switchback" in the solar wind's magnetic field. By fingerprinting the elusive particles within the switchback, Solar Orbiter has traced its origin back to the sun's surface and revealed more about solar magnetism—the unruly instigator of dangerous solar storms. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-solar-orbiter-tracks-mysterious-magnetic.html Astronomy Thu, 08 Oct 2026 05:00:10 EDT news710588161 American scientist Margaret Hamilton, who led development of the computer system used by NASA's Apollo lunar program, has died at 90, her former employer said Wednesday. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-margaret-hamilton-scientist-nasa-apollo.html Space Exploration Thu, 08 Oct 2026 04:37:04 EDT news710652952 Crawling through muddy soybean fields to inspect several plant-mounted microphones was not on Emily Sur's graduate school bingo card, but she's not mad about it. Her research offers a unique opportunity to work at the intersection of entomology, agriculture and emerging technologies while still doing what she loves. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-hidden-insects-farmers-early-crop.html Biotechnology Wed, 07 Oct 2026 22:40:01 EDT news710608381 Museums are increasingly using digital technologies to create more interactive and accessible experiences for visitors. Technologies such as three-dimensional (3D) digital models, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) allow visitors to explore artifacts in new ways, both online and during visits to physical museums. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-emotional-cultural-heritage-strongest-link.html Archaeology Wed, 07 Oct 2026 21:40:02 EDT news710600285 A study of almost 1,000 research papers in the field of digital finance has mapped out how technology, investor behavior and financial market risk are connected. The work identified three distinct foundations rather than a single framework, with implications for understanding how psychological factors influence financial decisions and how to develop viable algorithms that provide automated investment guidance. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-digital-psychology-algorithms.html Economics & Business Wed, 07 Oct 2026 21:20:02 EDT news710600207 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 One year after New York City launched its congestion pricing policy, fine particulate pollution inside Manhattan's congestion relief zone was 13% lower, according to a new analysis that accounted for regional pollution trends, weather and normal year-to-year variability. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nyc-congestion-pricing-policy-linked.html Environment Wed, 07 Oct 2026 18:00:10 EDT news710603821 Polystyrene is used in protective packaging for televisions and electronic devices, in decorative boards and baseboards for interior construction, and in petri dishes. It is one of the world's most important plastics, with nearly 20 million tons produced each year. The material is predominantly derived from crude oil and is rarely recycled. Virgin polystyrene is often cheaper than recycled material, meaning that used products are typically incinerated or sent to landfills. Like many other plastics, polystyrene is highly resistant to degradation in the environment. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-polystyrene-based-material-fragments-potential.html Biochemistry Wed, 07 Oct 2026 17:10:06 EDT news710606761 A new type of advanced microscope (wide-field coherent multidimensional microscopy) has been developed. It uses a carefully designed sequence of ultrashort light pulses to study the behavior of high-tech materials, with potential practical applications in the study of innovative materials such as those used to build solar panels. This is the result of work by a research group of physicists from the Faculty of Sciences, Mathematics, Physics, and Natural Sciences at Università Cattolica's Brescia campus who, for the first time, have developed a "multidimensional microscope" that, in a sense, records the behavior of materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ultrashort-laser-pulses-microscope-electron.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 17:10:01 EDT news710610361 Researchers at South China University of Technology, in collaboration with the Dongguan Institute of Materials Science and Technology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, have developed a novel supranano multi-precipitate microstructure in amorphous soft magnetic composites using Ar/O₂ plasma treatment. By facilitating magnetic-moment reversal, this approach significantly reduced coercivity while maintaining excellent overall performance. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-tiny-plasma-grown-particles-enable.html Nanophysics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 16:50:06 EDT news710608682 Two studies on critical topology have recently been published in the journal Nature. These studies were led by the teams of Prof. Baile Zhang at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and Prof. Jianhua Jiang at the University of Science and Technology of China, respectively. Prof. Xue-Jia Yu from the School of Physics at the Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo (EIT), served as a co-corresponding author on both papers and provided key theoretical guidance in the related experimental collaborations. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-acoustic-topology-persist-gapless-critical.html Condensed Matter Wed, 07 Oct 2026 16:40:20 EDT news710599631 A research team led by Professor Jiwoong Yang of the Department of Energy Science and Engineering at DGIST has developed the world's first foundational technology for an ultrahigh-resolution stretchable quantum dot display (QLED) that can stretch freely like skin while maintaining sharp image quality. The findings were published in Nature Nanotechnology. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-display-technology-combines-brightness-pixels.html Nanophysics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 16:30:02 EDT news710605801 A research team has developed a photocatalytic technology that improves the stability of MXene, an emerging material vulnerable to water, to efficiently convert carbon dioxide into methane. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-polymer-coating-tackles-mxene-stability.html Analytical Chemistry Wed, 07 Oct 2026 15:50:01 EDT news710605621 A new engineered gene-editing system, proven in bacteria and showing promise for use in plants, animals and humans, addresses some limitations of current gene-editing tools, with the goal of improving their use in research, crop development and disease treatment. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-compact-crispr-alternative-bacterial-proteins.html Biotechnology Wed, 07 Oct 2026 14:40:01 EDT news710594041 Our oceans are becoming more acidic, which could have major consequences for marine life. Of particular concern is what this could mean for phytoplankton, the microscopic photosynthetic organisms that form the basis of marine food webs and produce roughly half of the oxygen on Earth. Now, a study published in Nature Geoscience has found that the carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere is changing their internal chemistry. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-internal-chemistry-phytoplankton-oceans-acidic.html Earth Sciences Wed, 07 Oct 2026 14:20:22 EDT news710595805 Modern technological breakthroughs like lasers, MRI scanners, semiconductors and quantum computers rest on the study of quantum mechanics. However, the field has predominantly focused on (sub)atomic phenomena far removed from our human senses. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum-shifting-centimeter-scale-lab.html General Physics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 14:00:50 EDT news710514722 A research team led by professor Qian Peiyuan, chair professor in the Department of Ocean Science at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), in collaboration with international partners, has made progress in uncovering how deep-sea chemosynthetic symbioses cope with environmental change. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-deep-sea-clams-adjust-bacterial.html Ecology Wed, 07 Oct 2026 13:20:09 EDT news710593561 The moment Kate Heath saw her 12-year-old pug, Ivy, sitting silently and staring at a wall, she knew something was wrong. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-dogs-dementia-explore-gene-therapy.html Veterinary medicine Wed, 07 Oct 2026 13:00:14 EDT news710584982 Unconventional superconductors can host unusual electronic states, but understanding what drives their superconductivity becomes difficult when different forms of order coexist. The kagome metal CsV3Sb5 has become a particularly debated example. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum-material-superconducting-states-conflicting.html Condensed Matter Wed, 07 Oct 2026 13:00:09 EDT news710593381 Climate change adaptation requires rapid, informed decision-making. Yet the knowledge needed to make those decisions is often hard to find, scattered across online platforms and described using inconsistent terminology. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-climate-taxonomy-reveals-communities.html Environment Wed, 07 Oct 2026 11:40:05 EDT news710582803 For decades, researchers around the world have been working toward this goal—and now major advances are following in rapid succession. Vienna is now home to the world's first nuclear clock that stabilizes itself, as atomic clocks typically do. This system has been shown to remain stable for more than 24 hours without intervention, and the related findings are published in the journal Nature. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nuclear-clock-vienna.html General Physics Wed, 07 Oct 2026 11:00:51 EDT news710523241 The postpandemic push to bring workers back to the office has left many nostalgic for more flexible arrangements, such as hybrid or remote work. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-boss-remote-hybrid-burnout-job.html Economics & Business Wed, 07 Oct 2026 11:00:43 EDT news710582102 A University of Texas at Dallas scientist and her colleagues have discovered an unusual atomic pattern in a uranium-based material that gives it a rare combination of magnetic properties, a finding that could open new pathways for designing advanced electronic and computer memory devices. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-uranium-compound-1960s-reveals-hidden.html Condensed Matter Wed, 07 Oct 2026 11:00:35 EDT news710524081 Employment increases when firms adopt AI, with more people recruited to senior roles at the expense of junior roles, according to a study from King's College London and Stanford University in the U.S. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ai-linked-employment-globally.html Economics & Business Wed, 07 Oct 2026 10:40:28 EDT news710580902 Scientists who believe technology will largely solve the problems caused by climate change are 23% less likely to engage in civic climate action and 18% less likely to make high-impact lifestyle changes compared with scientists who disagree with this belief. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-techno-optimistic-scientists-climate-actions.html Environment Wed, 07 Oct 2026 10:00:05 EDT news710585042