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. Biomolecular nanomachines, such as enzymes and molecular motors, are the workhorses behind the synthesis and organization of complex materials in life. Powered by chemical energy, they build, transport and organize biomolecules, allowing living systems to create and maintain highly ordered structures far from thermodynamic equilibrium. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-dynamic-duo-hierarchical-dna-materials.html Bio & Medicine Sat, 22 Aug 2026 15:00:01 EDT news706360039 Now it's the moon's turn to pull a disappearing act. After being shut out of this month's total solar eclipse, the Americas will have the best seats in the celestial house when Earth's shadow briefly envelops the moon. Almost the entire lunar surface will be masked Thursday night into Friday—a whopping 96%—making this an especially deep partial eclipse. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-total-lunar-eclipse-americas-prime.html Space Exploration Sat, 22 Aug 2026 10:38:34 EDT news706613876 In April 1917, the German submarine UC-30 sailed beneath the waves off the coast of Rømø. It had originally been on a mission in Ireland, but after suffering engine trouble, it turned around and was almost home in Germany. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-shipwrecks-wwi-wwii-polluting-north.html Environment Fri, 21 Aug 2026 13:40:13 EDT news706532941 Artificial intelligence chatbots have become the bane of teachers everywhere, but to prepare for the new school year, a group of educators in Charleston, South Carolina, packed into a high school auditorium and talked about inviting AI into the classroom. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-schools-ai-literacy-kids-chatbots.html Education Fri, 21 Aug 2026 04:40:02 EDT news706505115 A paper published in the journal Science lays out a roadmap for broadening access to the process of discovering molecular tools that can benefit society, including medicines, materials and a wide range of everyday consumer products. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-blocc-chemistry-automate-molecular-discovery.html Analytical Chemistry Thu, 20 Aug 2026 14:00:09 EDT news706368781 Before people can mine resources on the moon, asteroids or Mars, they need to answer a few key questions: What is there? How much is there? And where can it be found? A team led by SETI Institute research scientist Pablo Sobron is looking into a new way to answer these questions without having to land, drill or bring samples back to Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-interworld-slingshot-exploring-resources-space.html Space Exploration Wed, 19 Aug 2026 16:30:02 EDT news706374121 Polymers used for light-based 3D printing are very stable because of their chemical structure, but they are typically hard to recycle. A research team led by Professor Dr. Eva Blasco, a researcher at the Institute for Molecular Systems Engineering and Advanced Materials (IMSEAM) at Heidelberg University, has designed a polymer material that can be disassembled into its individual components when needed. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-metastable-3d-ink-enables-loop.html Polymers Wed, 19 Aug 2026 13:00:08 EDT news706357321 Astronomers have captured an unprecedented image of a cosmic recycling project in progress—fragments of a dying star being busted up, stripped and absorbed into interstellar space. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-dying-star-rare-glimpse-universe.html Astronomy Wed, 12 Aug 2026 18:00:07 EDT news705759061 The surface of the moon is a bleak and forbidding place that could be hiding a lot of water ice within its dusty landscape. However, most possible ice deposits don't just stand out in an image. Scientists need specialized mapping to find those deposits, so they have devised another way to find the moon's frosty hidden reserves. They use seismic waves from moonquakes as locator beacons. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-moonquakes-reveal-lunar-ice-future.html Space Exploration Wed, 12 Aug 2026 08:40:05 EDT news705735495 A coalition of farmers, consumer associations and environmental groups is urging Malaysia's National Biosafety Board to reject a proposed field trial of genetically modified rice, warning Tuesday the project could pose risks to food safety, the environment and farmers. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-malaysian-farmers-environmental-groups-gmo.html Agriculture Tue, 11 Aug 2026 17:00:08 EDT news705664015 Researchers at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the University of Tennessee (UT), Knoxville, have made an advance by using a natural substance from fungi called chitin to create hydrogels that are significantly stronger and tougher. This new material could lead to safer medical devices, longer-lasting coatings and other innovations that improve everyday technology and health care. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-fungal-chitin-route-tougher-hydrogels.html Biotechnology Tue, 11 Aug 2026 17:00:05 EDT news705670982 In the early hours of Wednesday morning, Aug. 5, the upper stage of a Falcon 9 rocket crashed into the moon in an uncontrolled collision. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-rocket-debris-moon-threaten-future.html Space Exploration Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:20:09 EDT news705594061 Microplastics, which are plastic particles under 5 millimeters, are a major and growing threat in both soil and water. They damage soil fertility, disrupt nutrient cycling, harm aquatic and terrestrial life, and can move through the food chain. That makes cleaning them up an urgent priority. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-swarms-tiny-robots-microplastics-soil.html Environment Sat, 08 Aug 2026 08:40:01 EDT news705161846 Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory have created a platform that pinpoints genetic triggers that turn microbes into efficient factories for new chemicals and materials. The method enables rapid, precise reprogramming of bacteria as biotechnology tools, supporting domestic production of valuable products and recovery of critical minerals and materials to enhance the nation's supply chains and global competitiveness. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-platform-bacterial-gene-biotech.html Cell & Microbiology Fri, 07 Aug 2026 15:00:01 EDT news705323281 A SpaceX rocket that launched a pair of lunar landers slammed into the moon as predicted on Wednesday after drifting off course for the past year, scientists reported. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-scientists-wayward-spacex-rocket-slammed.html Space Exploration Thu, 06 Aug 2026 03:04:29 EDT news705204228 The processes that capture carbon from the atmosphere and store it on the seabed are crucial for climate balance. However, assessing these mechanisms is often complicated because it requires measurements ranging from the surface to the deep ocean. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-mechanical-shortcut-rapidly-particles-deep.html Earth Sciences Mon, 03 Aug 2026 19:40:01 EDT news704992802 We know Mars has water ice in its polar regions, but astronauts (and their solar-powered equipment!) would much rather experience life closer to Mars' equator. As NASA looks toward landing humans on the red planet, the Planetary Science Institute (PSI) is mapping where water should and shouldn't be found and using statistics to quantify its certainty. Two new papers, led by PSI's Hanna Sizemore and Samuel Courville, highlight new global maps of subsurface water ice and identify the missions and tools needed to increase the certainty of the maps. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-laying-odds-potential-martian-future.html Astrobiology Fri, 31 Jul 2026 17:20:03 EDT news704725321 A drifting SpaceX rocket is on a collision course with the moon after launching a pair of lunar landers more than a year ago. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-discarded-spacex-rocket-high-collision.html Space Exploration Fri, 31 Jul 2026 13:00:06 EDT news704718500 Temporary anxiety can often surface before the first day of school. Sometimes, that can help kids get in the right mindset for a big day. But when anxiety becomes a constant feature of children's and teenagers' days, that stress doesn't switch off when they leave the classroom or finish an exam. It can become the body's norm, staying with learners long after graduation. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-students-anxious.html Education Fri, 31 Jul 2026 11:00:01 EDT news704707862 The creation of fully artificial organs is a sci-fi dream, and researchers in Japan may have brought it one step closer to reality by developing a new photofabrication technique (i.e., a light-controlled synthetic method) for constructing arteriole-scale tubular hydrogels. Their research is published in the journal Advanced Materials. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-closer-artificial-uv-arteriole-scale.html Biotechnology Wed, 29 Jul 2026 16:40:06 EDT news704550301 For decades, scientists have largely relied on painstaking trial and error to coax proteins into crystalline forms. Crystallization enables scientists to determine the molecular structures of proteins, which can provide a blueprint for designing drugs, engineering enzymes and understanding disease. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-flexible-dna-proteins-atomically-crystals.html Biochemistry Wed, 29 Jul 2026 14:00:05 EDT news704473861 Scientists have discovered a previously unknown law of geometry that explains why some growing surfaces, whether in nature or in engineered materials, suddenly stop being able to stay smooth and instead form dimples and folds. Until now, researchers believed they understood the geometric rules behind these shape changes, but this study reveals a new kind of "geometric frustration" that arises even when all the known rules are satisfied. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-wrinkles-suddenly-crumple.html General Physics Wed, 29 Jul 2026 13:20:01 EDT news704540741 A school district in a rural corner of upstate New York is hitting pause on plans to deploy an AI-powered, humanoid robot in the classroom after state education officials, teachers and local residents raised concerns, including the maker's ties to a company that produces hyper realistic sex bots. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-york-school-deploy-humanlike-ai.html Education Wed, 29 Jul 2026 04:30:01 EDT news704517396 The spacecraft rushing to the rescue of an aging and sinking NASA telescope has run into its own problem. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-private-mission-nasa-aging-telescope.html Space Exploration Wed, 29 Jul 2026 04:16:38 EDT news704517371 University of Canterbury (UC) computer science professor Richard Green leads UC Vision, with researcher Dr. Richie Ellingham developing AI and computer vision technology that can identify, measure and track fruit hidden behind dense foliage. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ai-technology-horticulture.html Agriculture Tue, 28 Jul 2026 23:00:01 EDT news704440830 A research team led by Dongwoo Lee, an associate professor in the School of Mechanical Engineering at Sungkyunkwan University (SKKU), and Yanhui Liu of the Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), has developed a new electrical resistivity-based indicator for rapidly screening alloy compositions with high glass-forming ability. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-indicator-metallic-glass-discovery.html Analytical Chemistry Tue, 28 Jul 2026 18:00:06 EDT news704457804 "Shark Week," which kicks off this week, has captivated audiences for decades with stories of these powerful ocean predators. But the secret behind their extraordinary swimming abilities lies far deeper than their impressive teeth or iconic tails—it's hidden inside their spines. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-sharks-spines-hidden-architecture-styles.html Plants & Animals Mon, 27 Jul 2026 11:40:07 EDT news704368926 Microbes in the gut, lungs and biofilms do not simply exist as perfectly mixed populations; instead, they grow in layered and clustered three-dimensional (3D) arrangements. This spatial organization shapes how nutrients and chemical signals move between neighboring cells and how much oxygen different microbes can access. Scientists are increasingly recognizing that the relative spatial arrangement of microbes plays a role in digestion, immunity and overall health. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-colonies-3d-microbial-architectures-liquid.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 22 Jul 2026 09:00:01 EDT news703929421 A two-armed space robot blasted off on a private salvage operation Tuesday to slap life-extending jetpacks on old satellites running low on fuel thousands of miles up. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-private-mission-life-gas-communication.html Space Exploration Wed, 22 Jul 2026 04:10:06 EDT news703911327 Fabrics are made by repeatedly intertwining yarns into characteristic patterns. Many of their properties, such as stretchiness, arise not only from the material itself but also from how the yarns are arranged and entangled. Such properties illustrate how topology—the underlying patterns of connectivity and entanglement within a structure—can shape a material's overall behavior. Understanding these relationships could help researchers design materials with tailored properties through the design of their topology. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-doughnutshaped-topology-reveals-crochet-textiles.html General Physics Wed, 15 Jul 2026 20:40:01 EDT news703340713