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. El Niño, characterized by warmer-than-normal water temperatures in parts of the equatorial Pacific, made its return in June 2026. Observations of sea surface height from the Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite that month indicated that the 2026 event was continuing to strengthen. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-el-nio-underway-satellite.html Earth Sciences Sun, 21 Jun 2026 19:00:01 EDT news700998177 A remarkable quality of bioengineering is that scientists can take biological processes honed by millions of years of evolution and use them to efficiently create drugs, chemicals and other products to improve our lives. Now Tufts researchers have found new ways to expand the potential for using bacterial spores as catalysts for chemical reactions, biofuel production or breaking down pollutants. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-bacterial-spores-reveal-protein-enzymes.html Cell & Microbiology Sun, 21 Jun 2026 17:00:03 EDT news700740116 The implementation of reflective white roofs and new urban parks can significantly reduce temperatures in cities and decrease population vulnerability to heat waves, although these measures are not sufficient to counteract the projected increase of more than 6°C (11°F) by 2100, according to a recent study led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), Spain. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-white-roofs-urban-cities-offset.html Environment Sun, 21 Jun 2026 14:30:01 EDT news700921583 In recent years, marine heat waves have been taking an ever-greater toll on the world's oceans and their ecosystems. Amplified by increasing global warming, these events are occurring more frequently and lasting longer. The Arctic is not spared from this trend, as it is warming faster than any other region on our planet. However, due to local processes and conditions, marine heat waves in the Arctic differ fundamentally from those in nonpolar oceans. A recent study led by the Alfred Wegener Institute, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, summarizes how these events have developed over recent decades and what science knows about the driving forces behind them. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-arctic-marine-surge-1980s-event.html Environment Sun, 21 Jun 2026 10:40:01 EDT news701079048 With the release of "Disclosure Day," Steven Spielberg's new film about aliens, a question as old as science fiction itself resurfaces: If aliens were to arrive on Earth, would they come to conquer us, to study us ... or perhaps to eat? https://phys.org/news/2026-06-aliens-earth-tomorrow.html Astrobiology Sun, 21 Jun 2026 10:00:01 EDT news700914658 As humans, we live out our lives on a planet that is constantly sweeping through a cosmic ocean littered with ancient debris from the formation of the solar system. For the most part, our world glides silently through space, shielded by Earth's thin atmosphere. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-sonic-booms-meteors-energy-hundreds.html Planetary Sciences Sat, 20 Jun 2026 17:30:01 EDT news700747537 When temperatures rise, sleep often suffers. Hot nights can make it harder to fall asleep, increase waking during the night and leave people feeling less rested the next day. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ways-hot-weather.html Environment Sat, 20 Jun 2026 14:30:01 EDT news701074986 For months, a flood of mice has engulfed Western Australia's agricultural regions. For people living through it, this latest mouse plague is all-consuming. Houses, sheds, paddocks and roads are blanketed with mice. And the smell of mice, both dead and alive, is impossible to escape. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-australian-farmers-desperate-latest-mouse.html Ecology Sat, 20 Jun 2026 10:30:01 EDT news701010648 More than half of France's population was dealing with scorching temperatures on Friday, according to AFP's calculations, with hundreds of schools adapting their timetables to keep students out of broiling classrooms. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-heatwave-people-france.html Environment Fri, 19 Jun 2026 20:40:01 EDT news701088195 The Australian government has agreed to invest almost $53 million in a north Tasmanian company that will upgrade its coal-fired kiln to burn wood "waste" and used tires for cement manufacturing. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-forest-cement-climate-pursue-cleaner.html Environment Fri, 19 Jun 2026 19:00:01 EDT news701074951 Like humans, wildlife is increasingly vulnerable as climate change fuels longer and more intense heat waves, disrupting feeding and breeding and, in extreme cases, proving fatal. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-birds-fish-extreme-wildlife.html Environment Fri, 19 Jun 2026 17:40:01 EDT news701084918 Much of Western Europe was sweltering in a grueling heat wave on Friday, with the mercury expected to continue rising in the coming days, likely shattering yet more temperature records. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-europe-swelters.html Environment Fri, 19 Jun 2026 17:00:01 EDT news701105158 Can tiny aerosol particles make tropical convective clouds grow stronger? For decades, scientists have debated this question because aerosols can change how cloud droplets form, grow and release latent heat. One proposed pathway, known as condensational aerosol convective invigoration, requires clouds to contain high water-vapor supersaturation. Under such conditions, adding aerosol particles can create many new droplets, enhance condensation, release additional latent heat and potentially strengthen convective updrafts. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-high-vapor-supersaturation-crucial-evidence.html Earth Sciences Fri, 19 Jun 2026 15:00:01 EDT news701086692 Companies working at the frontier of aerospace, energy and computing are constantly looking for new materials to improve performance. But in order to understand how those materials will actually behave once they're inside rockets or on computer chips, companies first have to make the material and then test it. That's because even the most powerful simulation techniques struggle to model the complex chemical arrangements in most of today's solid materials. The problem adds cost and time to materials innovation. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-technique-sharpens-metal-alloy-behavior.html Analytical Chemistry Fri, 19 Jun 2026 14:00:01 EDT news701085478 New research suggests the microbiome near the surface of a plant's roots, known as the rhizosphere microbiome, may play a role in helping crops respond to heat stress. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-microbial-partners-maize-sorghum-higher.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 19 Jun 2026 12:40:02 EDT news701088411 Scientists have demonstrated a noninvasive technique that uses light to reveal the hidden contents of chicken eggs, potentially helping to curb the meat industry's practice of killing billions of male chicks at birth. The study, published in Newton, found that when light enters an intact bird eggshell, it bounces back and forth many times, with photons traveling as far as 2 meters (6.6 feet) within a chicken egg's tiny, 4-centimeter (1.6-inch) interior. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-unhatched-eggs-chicken-gender-reveals.html Biotechnology Fri, 19 Jun 2026 11:00:01 EDT news700990332 The Bullet Cluster has so far been considered evidence of the existence of dark matter. An international team of researchers has now analyzed new data and current images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). According to the team, the observations are also consistent with an alternative explanation that does not involve dark matter. If the latter is, in fact, present, it is likely to be in smaller quantities than postulated so far. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-bullet-cluster-reopen-dark-debate.html Astronomy Fri, 19 Jun 2026 10:20:06 EDT news701083021 Excavations in Nijmegen-West have uncovered large sections of a Roman bathhouse. It is the largest bathhouse complex from the Roman period in the Netherlands. Radboud researcher Stephan Mols can often be found at the excavation site. "The new finds show that the Romans did not regard this city as a backwater. The buildings were even larger and more imposing than we had previously thought." https://phys.org/news/2026-06-unearthed-bathhouse-reveals-roman-nijmegen.html Archaeology Fri, 19 Jun 2026 09:40:02 EDT news701079428 How does light turn into motion within a metal? A team of researchers from European XFEL, the University of Potsdam and other participating institutions has shown that ultrashort optical laser pulses can trigger extremely rapid lattice vibrations in periodically layered metal structures—not primarily by heating the atomic lattice, but through the pressure exerted by hot electrons. The results are published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-laser-pulses-layered-metals-vibrating.html Condensed Matter Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:10:03 EDT news701018641 Imagine returning to a favorite hiking trail 15 years after your first visit and discovering that many of the plants and animals that once lived there are gone. While these species may still exist elsewhere, these disappearances—known as local extinctions—are among the clearest signs that climate change is already transforming ecosystems and threatening species across the globe. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-climate-local-extinction-temperate-regions.html Plants & Animals Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:00:06 EDT news701013034 Researchers from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research (WSL) have proposed a warning tool that predicts, up to three weeks in advance, when river fish in Switzerland will be at risk from heat. As heat waves become more frequent with climate change, this early warning system gives people time to act and protect fish populations from future heat waves. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-early-tool-river-fish.html Ecology Thu, 18 Jun 2026 17:00:01 EDT news700995393 Mosses are survivors. They can dry into what looks like green dust, only to spring back to life minutes after rain. They can grow on rocks, in deserts, and there's talk of using them to terraform Mars someday. According to new research, mosses have also been hiding something. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-hidden-fungus-moss-rewrite-million.html Evolution Thu, 18 Jun 2026 16:40:03 EDT news701012881 Soils that are exposed to prolonged drought often develop desiccation cracks, which impact soil properties and exacerbate moisture loss through evapotranspiration. Now, a study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign examines the evolution of soil cracking and how cracks interact with storage and movement of water in the soil. The findings can help improve hydrological models essential for water management. The research is published in the journal Soil and Tillage Research. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-dry-soil-impact-moisture-evaporation.html Earth Sciences Thu, 18 Jun 2026 16:20:06 EDT news701016361 Compostable plastics could be part of a solution to the world's plastic waste problem. But currently these materials need industrial composting facilities to break down. In a step toward making a home-compostable plastic, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have augmented polylactide (PLA)—a widely used biobased and compostable polymer—with a small amount of an additive. Tests show it helps the material degrade substantially faster without sacrificing critical qualities like strength or transparency. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-additive-faster-bioplastic-biodegradation-transparency.html Biochemistry Thu, 18 Jun 2026 16:10:01 EDT news701016961 When heat waves hit the Western United States, the risk of wildfires quickly rises. The prolonged heat dries out vegetation, but that's only part of the cause—heat waves also play other roles in spreading wildfires. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-wildfire-small.html Environment Thu, 18 Jun 2026 15:40:06 EDT news701010874 Billions of years ago, environmental conditions on Mars were significantly more hospitable than they are today. Our neighboring planet was likely warm, humid and surrounded by a dense atmosphere. Whether simple microorganisms could have evolved at that time remains an open question. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-mars-life-boost-rover-distinguishes.html Astrobiology Thu, 18 Jun 2026 14:20:05 EDT news701007901 University of Notre Dame researchers analyzed 42 years of biological records from the Great Lakes, unveiling how per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), or "forever chemicals," have moved across the region, contaminating a variety of wildlife. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-year-tracks-chemicals-great-lakes.html Environment Thu, 18 Jun 2026 14:00:05 EDT news701004422 Heat stress on dairy cows affects more than just the quantity of milk produced—warming temperatures also reduce the fat and protein content of the milk, new research finds. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-climate-quality-quantity.html Agriculture Thu, 18 Jun 2026 12:40:03 EDT news701002982 In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, a team from the Nägerl group, together with theory collaborator Alvise Bastianello from the CNRS and the Université Paris-Dauphine, demonstrates that highly unusual quantum states known as "fractional Fermi seas" can be quantum engineered. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-equilibrium-cesium-atoms-reveal-fractional.html Quantum Physics Thu, 18 Jun 2026 12:20:01 EDT news700999737 Scientists can learn a lot about a quantum material by watching how it responds to light. In magnetic semiconductors, one especially useful messenger is the exciton: a pairing of a negatively charged electron and the positively charged "hole" it leaves behind. Until now, excitons in magnetic materials have mostly been used as reporters. They could reveal how spins were arranged or how magnetic waves moved through a material. But Cornell researchers have shown that excitons can do more than observe magnetism. They can actively steer it. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-magnet-excitons-knob-magnetic.html Condensed Matter Thu, 18 Jun 2026 12:00:04 EDT news700995121