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. Cement manufacturing is one of the largest sources of CO₂ emissions in the construction industry. At the Department of Architecture, Karen Antorveza Paez, who has just completed her doctorate at ETH Zurich, is researching an alternative that works in a different way: instead of firing rocks at over 1,000°C, she is getting bacteria to bond grains of sand together into solid architectural elements. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-bacteria-3d-sand-solid-elements.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 14 Oct 2026 13:20:24 EDT news711194941 Like the folds in crumpled sheets or the footprints on recently trodden sand, certain materials mark their histories. Now, Yale researchers show that networks of flowing water and other fluids can store their own memories—similar to how a computer chip does—an innovation that could steer robots and provide insight into some simple organisms. The results are published in Physical Review X. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-memory-chip.html General Physics Wed, 14 Oct 2026 12:00:27 EDT news711190396 Scientists have developed a material that can grow and coordinate its own movement until the entire structure pulses in unison, paving the way for versatile robots that behave more like living systems. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-robotic-crystal-rhythm-random-disturbances.html Condensed Matter Wed, 14 Oct 2026 11:01:11 EDT news711125641 When Belgian American particle physicist Francis Halzen was awarded the 2026 Nobel Prize in physics "for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin," it was a reminder that for more than a century, scientists have treated Antarctica's environments as windows onto worlds beyond Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-physics-nobel-highlights-antarctica-role.html Astronomy Mon, 12 Oct 2026 13:20:01 EDT news711018902 A newly released panorama captured by NASA's Curiosity rover offers the most detailed view yet of distant, wind-carved Martian cliffs, highlighting features the mission's scientists have long been waiting to see up close. The scene was snapped at 8:30 a.m. local Mars time, showing striking blue hues in the foreground as bright morning light illuminates crags known as yardangs on the horizon. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nasa-curiosity-rover-stunning-martian.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 06 Oct 2026 16:00:07 EDT news710515681 Farshid Alambeigi refers to one of his most ambitious research efforts as "the sci-fi project." The idea lives up to the name. He is developing robotic technology that could one day help manufacture living tissue—potentially even functioning organs—for transplantation. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-surgineering-mindset-future-medicine.html Biotechnology Thu, 01 Oct 2026 17:00:06 EDT news710086382 The robotic spacecraft that failed to rescue an aging NASA telescope plunged back to Earth on Friday less than three months after launching on the bold mission. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-private-spacecraft-falls-earth-aging.html Space Exploration Fri, 25 Sep 2026 12:30:01 EDT news709556168 Developing new functional materials often requires testing numerous material combinations. Conventional experiments reach their limits quickly when many variants must be compared. To overcome this bottleneck, the new Energy Materials Acceleration Platform (E-MAP) at KIT automates key lab steps. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-lab-automates-semiconductor-ink-synthesis.html Analytical Chemistry Wed, 23 Sep 2026 21:00:02 EDT news709399501 Every new generation of phone display, television screen and solar panel is the result of precision optics experiments, which use lasers and other light sources to measure the optical properties of candidate materials. These experiments can take months to run, requiring scientists to meticulously angle and adjust delicate light sources, mirrors, cameras and other components in a process of careful, constant tuning that can be physically tedious and time-consuming. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-robotic-lab-optics-demand.html Optics & Photonics Thu, 17 Sep 2026 10:40:27 EDT news708854343 Cephalopods are a group of soft-bodied marine mollusks that include cuttlefish, octopuses, squid and nautiluses. Many of these mollusks have muscular suckers on their arms that allow them to seize prey or grip other surfaces in their surroundings. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-cuttlefish-suckers-reveal-rough-prey.html Plants & Animals Thu, 17 Sep 2026 07:40:04 EDT news708600523 Forty-four years ago, Nadrian Seeman published his groundbreaking ideas on using DNA as a structural material, expanding DNA's significance far beyond its role as a carrier of genetic information. Since then, the steadily growing field of DNA nanotechnology has seen numerous innovations. One was the DNA origami technique, which enables researchers to fold a single long strand of DNA into a desired 2D or 3D shape. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-big-dna-software.html Bio & Medicine Wed, 16 Sep 2026 19:30:01 EDT news708795841 Chemical reactions are often written as simple equations: Starting materials go in, and a product comes out. In reality, the same substrates can follow many different pathways depending on their concentrations, temperature, catalysts and other conditions. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-robots-ai-uncover-unexpected-pathway.html Analytical Chemistry Tue, 15 Sep 2026 10:00:01 EDT news708683881 High school student Khushi Khurana creates and leads coding and artificial intelligence (AI) summer camps for K–12 students in her community outside Philadelphia. Priya Kumar, PNC Technologies Career Development Professor in Penn State's College of Information Sciences and Technology (IST), studies how young people navigate the digital world. Their shared interests led to a research collaboration exploring a youth-led STEM learning model that puts children's voices at the center of the learning experience. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-peer-engage-children.html Education Thu, 10 Sep 2026 11:00:09 EDT news708243662 From targeted cancer treatments to self-healing materials and microscopic robots, many emerging technologies depend on molecules that can be controlled with light. Researchers at Tohoku University have now developed a way to make these light-responsive molecules much more sensitive to visible light by using a molecular antenna. The breakthrough gives scientists better control over molecular photoswitches remotely and potentially expands their use in medicine and advanced materials. The findings are published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-molecular-antennae-sensitive.html Biochemistry Wed, 09 Sep 2026 17:40:01 EDT news708183301 Material properties such as sound insulation, resistance to extreme heat and thermal expansion originate from how the zillions of microscopic building blocks (nuclei and electrons) interact at equilibrium and respond to perturbations. Atoms are typically about one ten-billionth of a meter across, so there can be a lot of parts to keep track of—a task that is complicated at the quantum-mechanical level, where particles are neither here nor there until observed. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-physics-aware-benchmark-reveals-similar.html Condensed Matter Wed, 09 Sep 2026 11:20:07 EDT news708165703 A private spacecraft that was supposed to provide a lifeline to NASA's Swift Observatory managed to get close to the sinking telescope and even snap photos two weeks after the rescue was abandoned. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-satellite-nasa-doomed-telescope.html Space Exploration Fri, 04 Sep 2026 10:52:33 EDT news707737920 When Blue Origin's New Glenn launch vehicle accidentally exploded during a static test fire in May 2026, the explosion generated low frequency soundwaves below the range of human hearing. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-blue-explosion-infrasound.html Space Exploration Wed, 02 Sep 2026 07:40:03 EDT news707543821 For too long, the United States has relied on foreign sources for most of the raw materials powering its technological future: the essential minerals in every smartphone, battery pack and semiconductor. What if one answer to the supply crisis isn't buried in a mine shaft but growing quietly in a field? Scientists are betting on a resource-efficient, highly effective strategy: using engineered plants and symbiotic microbes to absorb critical minerals directly from the Earth in a process called phytomining. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-agentic-ai-crops-harvest-critical.html Biotechnology Tue, 01 Sep 2026 21:00:05 EDT news707499181 While sorting through animal bones in a rock shelter in Queensland, Australia, archaeologists came across a tooth where something was "not quite right." Stuck to the tip of its root was a blackish-brown ball of glue-like resin. Eleven more teeth with the same sticky substance were found, making them the only known instance of this type of tooth ornament found outside burials in northeastern Australia and the first in the Cape York Peninsula (CYP), the new study published in Australian Archaeology reports. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-resin-mounted-wallaby-teeth-reveal.html Archaeology Tue, 01 Sep 2026 10:20:10 EDT news707473162 NASA's newest crown jewel blasted off Sunday to hunt for planets around other stars, explore secret dark energy and survey the cosmos like never before. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-nasa-roman-space-telescope-quest.html Astronomy Sun, 30 Aug 2026 11:26:54 EDT news707307976 Lights blink on as I enter the Rover Operations Center at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, at 7:30 a.m. I'm the first to arrive, even though I already feel late. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-mars-rovers-scientists-groundlevel-view.html Astrobiology Thu, 27 Aug 2026 10:40:03 EDT news707042402 Scientists have been hard at work for more than 20 years to instruct biological systems, such as E. coli cells, to produce proteins they don't naturally produce. Success could mean faster, cheaper, more innovative solutions for medicine, agriculture, materials science, environmental remediation and other industries. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-reworked-trnas-enable-protein-amino.html Biotechnology Wed, 26 Aug 2026 19:20:03 EDT news706973702 The famous quote by Cicero, "If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need," reminds us that the beauty of life lies in the harmony between nature and knowledge. More than 2,000 years later, this idea still resonates, particularly with a group of European researchers who have created a unique type of "garden": one that grows from chemistry itself. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-chemical-gardens-simple-reactions-complex.html Analytical Chemistry Wed, 26 Aug 2026 04:10:01 EDT news706935220 Researchers from Skoltech and their colleagues from Harbin Institute of Technology in China and ITMO University in Russia have devised a way to deposit elaborate geometric patterns of carbon nanotubes without wasting material. Such patterns are used in advanced optical devices and mechanical strain sensors for structural integrity monitoring. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-reusable-stencils-carbon-nanotube-patterns.html Nanophysics Tue, 25 Aug 2026 23:20:01 EDT news706880285 Roses are known for their thorns, the sharp structures that can sting and prickle the skin. Thorns, botanically known as prickles, are thought to discourage animals from feeding on plants and may also help climbing roses grip other vegetation. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-hidden-physics-rose-thorns.html Evolution Tue, 25 Aug 2026 10:00:07 EDT news706868441 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