All News

Phys.org / Poo emoji, earthworm castings and pasta all obey the same coiling theory, physicists find

Ask a child to draw some poo, and the shape will invariably be the same: a coil, broad at the base and pointy at the top, similar to a spiral swirl of soft-serve ice cream. In fact, the often-used poo emoji has this exact ...

Jun 22, 2026
Phys.org / Self-driving chemistry lab discovers catalysts that can switch products on demand

Researchers have developed a self-driving chemistry lab that can autonomously search through hundreds of catalyst recipes and reaction conditions to identify faster, more selective and more programmable ways to make important ...

Jun 23, 2026
Medical Xpress / Coordinated brainstem slow waves may determine when it's time for REM sleep

Sleep is one of the most widely studied states of consciousness, known to play a role in physical recovery, the processing of memories and the regulation of immune functions. During sleep, the brain transitions between light ...

Jun 22, 2026
Phys.org / New energy-boosting quantum mechanism discovered in photosynthetic bacteria

Researchers have discovered how certain photosynthetic bacteria use a sophisticated quantum mechanism to increase their efficiency when capturing sunlight. The study, published today in the journal Nature Chemistry and led ...

Jun 23, 2026
Phys.org / Hidden dark force may slow cosmic structure growth, not speed it up

Dark matter is often portrayed as a cosmic loner, interacting with itself and the rest of the universe only through gravity. But what if dark matter particles also exert a hidden force on one another?

Jun 23, 2026
Medical Xpress / What one sleepless night does to brain connections and why sleep may reset them

A night without sleep produced increased markers of connections between brain cells, showing that sleep in humans may be important for restoring cellular balance in the brain, according to a study published in PLOS Biology ...

Jun 23, 2026
Phys.org / Discovery of how cells maintain their DNA could shield key healthy cells from chemotherapy side effects

A new study conducted by scientists at the University of Sheffield in collaboration with researchers from UT Southwestern Medical Center in the U.S. has found a protein that could help guide which cells chemotherapies target. ...

Jun 23, 2026
Phys.org / How continental shelf seiches triggered flooding following New York and New Jersey hurricanes

In 1938 and 1944, two major hurricanes struck Long Island, and after the initial winds subsided, the surges came back unexpectedly hours later, leading observers to wonder whether this was a tsunami. In a study appearing ...

Jun 23, 2026
Phys.org / Espresso 'pucks' stop behaving predictably above certain pressures

When a physics student asked baristas at the Warsaw Coffee Conference what their biggest question for scientists was, the baristas said they wanted to know how to stop channeling during brewing.

Jun 23, 2026
Phys.org / Looking at AI startups to predict which jobs AI will affect

A study of funded AI startups provides a glimpse of which jobs may be most affected by AI. As AI tools are embraced by industry after industry, the impacts of these tools on jobs remain unclear. Previous analyses have focused ...

Jun 23, 2026
Medical Xpress / Fat tissue could explain triple negative breast cancer spread—and point to treatments

Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) is aggressive and hard to treat. But the role of fat tissue in how the cancer spreads may help point toward new understanding and treatments, according to a new paper from scientists at ...

Jun 23, 2026
Phys.org / Controlling ice crystal growth using polymer nanoparticles

Ice formation can damage biological samples, tissues and materials during freezing and thawing. In nature, specialized molecules known as ice-binding proteins prevent ice crystals from growing too large, helping organisms ...

Jun 23, 2026