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. South Africa endured its worst year of load shedding (scheduled power cuts by the country's utility, Eskom) in 2023. The power went off on 335 of the year's 365 days, often several times a day. Since then, the country has gone more than a year and a half without these planned power cuts. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-power-students-link-anxiety-disrupted.html Social Sciences Fri, 23 Oct 2026 19:40:04 EDT news711972089 Researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS) have developed a new way to make glowing biological reporters more accurate, allowing scientists to track gene activity in living plants over days, weeks and potentially even months and years. The approach could help researchers study how plants respond to disease, pests and environmental stress, while opening the door to similar applications in animal and human disease models. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-reveal-immune-responses-infection-sites.html Plants & Animals Fri, 23 Oct 2026 19:20:01 EDT news711982486 Researchers at AIST have directly observed magnetic flux quanta generated in a superconductor by photon absorption and demonstrated a new principle of photon detection that identifies the number of photons based on the number of these flux quanta. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-magnetic-flux-quanta-photon.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 23 Oct 2026 17:20:02 EDT news711982021 Masculinity content promises young men self-optimization and success, but often delivers health harms, risk-taking, unattainable standards, gender stereotypes and misogyny. The latter is the strongest predictor of violent extremism. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-pretty-toxic-young-men-manosphere.html Social Sciences Fri, 23 Oct 2026 17:00:17 EDT news711972189 The new RFD4-Proteina unified generative model for protein design—created by the Institute for Protein Design (IPD) in collaboration with NVIDIA—uses advanced AI to generate entirely new protein sequences and structures, achieving computational design success rates five to 10 times higher than previous models and generating candidates five to 10 times faster. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-scientists-ai-enzyme-drug-synthesis.html Analytical Chemistry Fri, 23 Oct 2026 17:00:13 EDT news711981643 Researchers at AIST have demonstrated the synthesis of nanoporous carbonaceous materials and carbonaceous materials with layered nanostructures through a simple process involving the chemical modification of common sugars such as sucrose and fructose. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-chemically-sugars-enable-nanostructure-formation.html Nanomaterials Fri, 23 Oct 2026 16:40:08 EDT news711981001 Consumers routinely ignore information when making purchases. They overlook the tax attached to a price, skim past ingredient lists and often fail to process exact numbers with any precision. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-psychology-overpay-cars-left-digit.html Social Sciences Fri, 23 Oct 2026 16:40:01 EDT news711981611 A review by Tohoku University researchers identifies key molecular features that could guide the development of more effective materials for removing PFAS from water. The study is published in the journal ACS Materials Au. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-adsorbents-pfas.html Analytical Chemistry Fri, 23 Oct 2026 16:20:14 EDT news711980702 In 1953, two physicists showed that an electron beam skimming past a grating emits light whose color depends only on the electron's speed and the grating's spacing. Known as Smith-Purcell radiation, this phenomenon has become a useful tool for building compact, tunable light sources and tracking particle beams without touching them. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-plain-silicon-reveals-hidden-electron.html Optics & Photonics Fri, 23 Oct 2026 16:20:08 EDT news711980881 As politics in America become more polarized and each voting cycle seems more fraught than the last, a common narrative in the media is that each election is unique and increasingly unpredictable. But new research shows that congressional elections follow strong statistical patterns, even when individual races produce surprises. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-elections.html Political science Fri, 23 Oct 2026 16:00:05 EDT news711980361 Many of the most potent antibiotics originate from bacteria. A large proportion belong to a class of compounds known as nonribosomal peptides (NRP). They are produced by large bacterial enzyme machineries—the nonribosomal peptide synthetases, or NRPS for short. These function like molecular assembly lines: Similar to the stations in a car factory, where new parts are added to the car at each step, several specialized modules string together amino acid by amino acid to build a peptide. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-bacteria-reinvent-weapons-chance-gene.html Evolution Fri, 23 Oct 2026 16:00:01 EDT news711980821 How can the identity of pluripotent stem cells be determined more reliably during their differentiation? Researchers from the IUF—Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine and Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf have systematically validated marker genes for this purpose and developed a web-based application for the automated classification of early cell fates. The study has been published in Stem Cell Reports. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-marker-panel-free-web-tool.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 23 Oct 2026 15:40:08 EDT news711979921 What if we could predict early in drug development which antibiotics bacteria are most likely to become resistant to? In a review published in Nature Reviews Microbiology, researchers from the HUN-REN Biological Research Centre, Szeged (HUN-REN BRC Szeged) and the Hungarian Centre of Excellence for Molecular Medicine (HCEMM) in Szeged propose a five-step decision-making framework that could help identify resistance risks early, refine promising drug candidates and prevent costly failures. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-antibiotic-resistance-drugs-patients.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 23 Oct 2026 15:40:01 EDT news711979741 Potatoes could hold the key to making better gluten-free plant-based meat, according to a new study. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-potatoes-secret-based-meat-food.html Materials Science Fri, 23 Oct 2026 15:20:11 EDT news711977061 Establishing a long-term presence on the moon will require solving challenges that are easy to overlook on Earth. Lunar temperatures, for instance, can vary from hundreds of degrees below zero to boiling, making effective insulation essential for lunar habitats. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-everyday-mylar-insulator-lunar-habitats.html Space Exploration Fri, 23 Oct 2026 15:20:01 EDT news711979621 Research shows that crises do more than cause financial market volatility and falling share prices—they lead to markets becoming far more interconnected. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-chaos-movements-crisis.html Economics & Business Fri, 23 Oct 2026 15:00:08 EDT news711972362 The Orion Nebula is a large star-forming region visible to the naked eye. Some of the young stars in the nebula are surrounded by disks of gas and dust in which planets form. Radiation from the massive central star, 1 Ori C1 (Theta-1 Orionis C1), gradually strips material from these disks, giving them shapes that resemble tadpoles. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-stellar-collision-orion-nebula-planet.html Astronomy Fri, 23 Oct 2026 15:00:01 EDT news711977761 Mitochondria are the tiny powerpacks that supply most of the energy our cells need. Their ability to generate this energy relies on a distinctive architecture: two membranes, one tucked inside the other, separated by a narrow gap called the intermembrane space (IMS). This tiny space helps sustain the chemistry of energy production, making its organization critical to how these cellular powerpacks function. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-scientists-uncover-molecular-pillars-cells.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:40:05 EDT news711976829 When DNA is damaged, cellular processes respond and repair the DNA. Inhibiting DNA damage repair can be therapeutically beneficial in cancers with genetic vulnerabilities related to DNA damage response. Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital have uncovered a mechanism behind how this process works, which may have implications for cancer treatment. The results were published today in Molecular Cell. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-mechanism-parp1-dna-characterized-insight.html Molecular & Computational biology Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:40:01 EDT news711976582 Whenever anything is written about the Denisovans, the word "mysterious" is almost guaranteed to appear. That is because we just don't know a lot about this extinct human group that may have lived in East Asia from at least 300,000 to 45,000 years ago and was closely related to the Neanderthals. The main reason for that is a sparse fossil record. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-rare-fossils-reveal-ancient-denisovans.html Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:30:01 EDT news711981796 Two black holes can collide and merge into one. But could the opposite happen: could a single black hole split into two smaller ones? That question is explored in a new theoretical study: "When Black Holes Admit Pair-of-pants Topologies," published in the journal Physical Review D. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-black-holes-maximum.html Astronomy Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:20:12 EDT news711976082 Venture capital firms can help young businesses expand internationally by providing funding as well as market knowledge, expertise and access to professional networks, according to a research literature review published in the International Journal of Management and Enterprise Development. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-hoarders-borders-investors-aid-international.html Economics & Business Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:20:07 EDT news711976282 Every egg cell and sperm cell depends on meiosis, a tightly choreographed process in which chromosomes find their partners, exchange genetic material and then divide. When meiosis goes awry in humans, the consequences can include infertility, miscarriage and birth defects. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-sea-anemone-human-fertility-meiosis.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:00:35 EDT news711978482 Humans and chimpanzees share almost all their genes. Despite this, our brains have developed in different ways. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now shown that a viral pandemic dating back several million years is likely to be part of the explanation. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ancient-virus-chimpanzee-dna-gene.html Evolution Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:00:26 EDT news711900901 Climate change is increasing flood risk across the U.K. As floods become more frequent and intense, communities are increasingly encouraged to become resilient and "live with water." Yet in some flood-prone areas, residents are rejecting these calls, concerned that resilience is less about helping communities and more about transferring responsibility from institutions to citizens. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-communities-idea-resilience.html Environment Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:00:17 EDT news711972984 More than 30,000 years ago, people associated with one of Europe's major Paleolithic cultures (the Gravettian) were more interconnected than previously thought. An international research team led by the University of Vienna has uncovered new genetic evidence of long-distance connections between these populations. Published in Science Advances, the study combines genomic data from rare human remains with human DNA preserved in cave sediments. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-paleolithic-human-dna-reveals-east.html Archaeology Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:00:11 EDT news711899701 Scientists have identified the conditions that make it possible to predict some El Niño and La Niña events up to a year in advance, potentially giving communities and decision-makers significantly more time to prepare for weather extremes. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-scientists-key-el-nio-events.html Earth Sciences Fri, 23 Oct 2026 14:00:02 EDT news711899282 A few short years ago, asking AI to add two four-digit numbers together for a third-grade math assignment would have been a bad idea. Over half the time, the answer would be wrong, studies have shown. Long division or a "leaky tank" problem, an algebra class staple? Forget about it. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ai-math-problems-stumped-humans.html Mathematics Fri, 23 Oct 2026 13:40:14 EDT news711975424 Open ecosystems—nonforested landscapes such as grasslands, shrublands and savannas—can store vast amounts of carbon while supporting water supply, biodiversity and other ecosystem services. Yet the potential of open ecosystems to serve as natural climate solutions remains ignored by policies that privilege forests. So reports a team of researchers in a policy brief published today in PLANTS, PEOPLE, PLANET. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-massive-carbon-stocks-grasslands-climate.html Environment Fri, 23 Oct 2026 13:40:01 EDT news711972747 New Northwestern University research aims to shed light on what drives inequalities among men in the aftermath of megadisasters. In such situations, men are often depicted as heroic leaders, and this study finds that many of them experience improved mental and physical health while assisting with recovery efforts. However, for some men, the boost is short-lived once recovery activities are completed, leading to emotional lows and potentially increasing the risk of suicide. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-disaster-recovery-temporarily-boosted-short.html Social Sciences Fri, 23 Oct 2026 13:30:01 EDT news711971971