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. Rising day and night temperatures are threatening rice, wheat, and maize production by disrupting plant growth, grain filling, and grain quality, putting global food security at risk. Precision breeding and genome editing offer ways to reprogram plant clocks, optimize flowering and panicle architecture, and protect grain quality under heat stress. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-tolerant-high-yield-rice-planet.html Biotechnology Fri, 06 Feb 2026 09:58:01 EST news689594222 Magnetism on the moon has always been a bit confusing. Remote sensing probes have noted there is some magnetic signature, but far from the strong cocoon that surrounds Earth itself. Previous attempts to detect it in returned regolith samples blended together all of the rocks in those samples, leading to confusion about the source—whether they were caused by a strong inner dynamo in ages past, or by powerful asteroid impacts that magnetized the rocks they hit. A new study from Yibo Yang of Zhejiang University and Lin Xing of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, published recently in the journal Fundamental Research, shows that the right answer seems to be—a little of both. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-moon-diary-speck.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 03 Feb 2026 20:00:01 EST news689342155 Rare-earth magnets are essential for electric motors in vehicles, drones, and trains, forming the backbone of modern, environmentally friendly mobility. These are not simple blocks of metal, but carefully engineered materials with a complex internal nanostructure composed of tiny building blocks called phases, each with its own crystal structure, chemistry, and physical properties. How magnetization behaves at the interfaces between these tiny building blocks and how well it resists demagnetizing forces ultimately determines the strength and stability of the magnet, and therefore the efficiency and reliability of the motor or generator. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-defects-permanent-magnets-efficient.html Nanophysics Tue, 27 Jan 2026 12:52:26 EST news688740721 Martian winds can have quite an impact. ESA's Mars Express has spotted them whipping up sand grains and acting as a cosmic sandblaster, carving out intriguing grooves near Mars's equator. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-sandblasting-mars-camera-reveals-prevailing.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 07 Jan 2026 11:57:06 EST news687009389 Starlight and stardust are not enough to drive the powerful winds of giant stars, transporting the building blocks of life through our galaxy. That's the conclusion of a new study from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, of red giant star R Doradus. The result overturns a long-held idea about how the atoms needed for life are spread. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-stardust-resets-life-atoms-space.html Astrobiology Mon, 22 Dec 2025 09:23:07 EST news685617762 A team from the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH) has collaborated with researchers from the University of Málaga (UMA) and the University of Córdoba (UCO) on an article published in the Journal of Sedimentary Research, which examines the relationship between the shape of sand grains and the distance traveled in the Arlanzón River (Burgos) and the Guadalhorce River (Málaga). https://phys.org/news/2025-12-sand-grains-reveals-distance-rivers.html Earth Sciences Thu, 11 Dec 2025 16:24:16 EST news684692641 Sydney, like many other Australian cities, has a long history of urban farming. Market gardens, oyster fisheries and wineries on urban fringe once supplied fresh food to city markets. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-smart-greenhouses-food-production-cities.html Biotechnology Wed, 10 Dec 2025 20:30:02 EST news684592822 What if it were possible to take a very slow geological process, one that takes thousands of years in nature, and speed it up so that it happens within hours, in order to slow the rate of global warming? https://phys.org/news/2025-12-fast-tracking-natural-climate-solution.html Earth Sciences Tue, 09 Dec 2025 15:20:01 EST news684515490 Observations with the instrument SPHERE at ESO's Very Large Telescope have produced an unprecedented gallery of "debris disks" in exoplanetary systems. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-debris-disk-gallery-tale-asteroids.html Astronomy Wed, 03 Dec 2025 03:00:02 EST news683911862 Plants absorb not only nutrients but also toxic metals such as cadmium through their roots. It was previously unclear whether the toxic metals came from the soil or the fertilizers applied. Under the leadership of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, a research team has examined wheat grains to clarify the question. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-mineral-fertilizer-soil-toxic-cadmium.html Agriculture Mon, 01 Dec 2025 17:50:03 EST news683826029 Globalization, migration, climate change and war—nation states are currently under huge pressure on many fronts. Understanding the forces that initially drove the emergence of states across the world may help explain why. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-real-states-emerged-thousands-years.html Archaeology Tue, 25 Nov 2025 13:23:04 EST news683299381 Researchers with the Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station have identified genetic mechanisms in rice that can help counteract the negative effects of higher nighttime temperatures. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-rice-important-high-nighttime-temp.html Molecular & Computational biology Tue, 25 Nov 2025 05:14:05 EST news683270042 India's push to blend ethanol with gasoline shows the benefits and challenges of the sustainable fuel efforts being showcased at global climate talks this week. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-biofuel-pledge-climate-summit-highlights.html Environment Fri, 07 Nov 2025 10:17:32 EST news681733045 In Arizona's Willcox Basin, just over an hour east of Tucson, fissures are tearing through the earth, wells are running dry, and strange areas are flooding when it rains. The cause is clear. As large agricultural producers pump more and more groundwater for irrigation, the water table is falling, and the land surface itself is sinking. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-arizona-willcox-basin-fast-due.html Earth Sciences Thu, 06 Nov 2025 12:40:01 EST news681654875 This shimmering view of interstellar gas and dust was captured by the European Space Agency's Euclid space telescope. The nebula is part of a so-called dark cloud, named LDN 1641. It sits at about 1,300 light-years from Earth, within a sprawling complex of dusty gas clouds where stars are being formed, in the constellation of Orion. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-euclid-peers-dark-cloud-ldn.html Astronomy Wed, 05 Nov 2025 15:10:01 EST news681576782 Researchers have successfully developed a rapid and scalable evaporation-induced method to create continuous, uniform thin films of mesoporous amorphous metal-organic frameworks (aMOFs). https://phys.org/news/2025-10-method-uniform-mesoporous-amorphous-mof.html Materials Science Wed, 29 Oct 2025 14:00:06 EDT news680964326 Haozhe "Harry" Wang's electrical and computer engineering lab at Duke welcomed an unusual new lab member this fall: artificial intelligence. Using publicly available AI foundation models such as OpenAI's ChatGPT and Meta's Segment Anything Model (SAM), Wang's team built ATOMIC (Autonomous Technology for Optical Microscopy & Intelligent Characterization)—an AI microscope platform that can analyze materials as accurately as a trained graduate student in a fraction of the time. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-ai-optical-microscope-2d-materials.html Nanomaterials Mon, 27 Oct 2025 09:16:05 EDT news680775362 New research has found that amino acids, the building blocks of life, may have traveled to Earth on interstellar dust grains, potentially helping kickstart biology as we know it. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-cosmic-life-earth.html Astrobiology Mon, 13 Oct 2025 12:15:04 EDT news679576502 Rothamsted scientists, together with partners at the University of Olomouc, Czechia, have uncovered how a family of genes in wheat fine-tunes the plant's growth and grain development, a breakthrough that could help breeders produce bigger harvests. The research is published in the Journal of Experimental Botany. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-key-wheat-genes-height-grain.html Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 06 Oct 2025 12:50:03 EDT news678973399 Microplastics and nanoplastics in soils are a growing environmental problem. The extent to which agricultural crops absorb these particles and whether they end up in food has so far been difficult to prove. This is because they are hard to distinguish from plant components and mineral particles, even with high-resolution microscopes. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-cereal-absorb-nanoplastics-lab-trials.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 01 Oct 2025 12:22:03 EDT news678540122 Scientists digging through data collected by the Cassini spacecraft have found new complex organic molecules spewing from Saturn's moon Enceladus. This is a clear sign that complex chemical reactions are taking place within its underground ocean. Some of these reactions could be part of chains that lead to even more complex, potentially biologically relevant molecules. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-cassini-complex-chemistry-enceladus-ocean.html Astrobiology Wed, 01 Oct 2025 05:00:02 EDT news678441061 If breakfast is the most important meal of the day, then cereal grains are America's morning MVPs. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-america-cereal-bowl-full-optimizing.html Other Tue, 09 Sep 2025 11:10:09 EDT news676634703 What looks like ordinary sand, rocks or snow flowing in one direction can actually hide swirling currents that move in multiple directions beneath the surface. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-scientists-hidden-swirls-affect-sand.html General Physics Sat, 30 Aug 2025 12:30:01 EDT news675430059 For this new Picture of the Month feature, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope has provided a fantastic new view of IRAS 04302+2247, a planet-forming disk located about 525 light-years away in a dark cloud within the Taurus star-forming region. With Webb, researchers can study the properties and growth of dust grains within protoplanetary disks like this one, shedding light on the earliest stages of planet formation. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-webb-captures-dusty-wisps-planet.html Astronomy Fri, 29 Aug 2025 12:30:01 EDT news675687375 Small grains researcher Juan David Arbelaez-Velez knows the secret to making perfect rice—and it's not about how you cook it. Arbelaez and his team are investigating the genetic blueprint that determines different grain attributes such as appearance, cooking time, and texture. Their paper, published in The Plant Genome, offers a strategy that will help breeders improve grain quality holistically, while cutting costs and saving time. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-genomic-techniques-grain-quality.html Plants & Animals Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:37:28 EDT news673789041 A new report reveals that Australian grain and cotton growers are achieving productivity gains by investing in smarter, long-term weed management strategies, proving weeds can be beaten. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-growers-war-weeds.html Agriculture Wed, 06 Aug 2025 09:35:12 EDT news673691701 Researchers have developed a novel laser-assisted synthesis method to fabricate platinum (Pt) colloidosomes (Cs) with promising applications in near-infrared (NIR) photocatalytic and enzyme-mimicking cancer therapy. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-laser-platinum-colloidosomes-enable-efficient.html Bio & Medicine Wed, 30 Jul 2025 09:47:18 EDT news673087631 The mechanical strength and toughness of engineering materials are often mutually exclusive, posing challenges for material design and selection. To address this, a research team from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) has uncovered an innovative strategy: by simply twisting the layers of 2D materials, they can enhance toughness without compromising material's strength. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-2d-materials-material-strength-toughness.html Nanomaterials Tue, 15 Jul 2025 13:00:01 EDT news671801132 Magnetic hysteresis loss (iron loss) is an important magnetic property that determines the efficiency of electric motors and is therefore critical for electric vehicles. It occurs when the magnetic field within the motor core, made up of soft magnetic materials, is repeatedly reversed due to the changing flow of current in the windings. This reversal forces tiny magnetic regions called magnetic domains to repeatedly change their magnetization direction. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-feature-analysis-energy-loss-electrical.html Condensed Matter Tue, 15 Jul 2025 05:00:01 EDT news671728534 Wheat contains many valuable nutrients—and can help to make a diet with bread even healthier. However, the nutrient content depends on the type of wheat. A rapid test method could help to increase the nutrient content of wheat along the entire value chain. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-bread-future-wheat-nutritious.html Agriculture Tue, 01 Jul 2025 14:32:04 EDT news670599121