Phys.org news

Phys.org / Sometimes less is more: Messier nanoparticles may actually deliver drugs more effectively than tightly packed ones

The tiny fatty capsules that deliver COVID-19 mRNA vaccines into billions of arms may work better when they're a little disorganized. That's the surprising finding from researchers who developed a new way to examine these ...

Feb 21, 2026 in Nanotechnology
Phys.org / A low-cost microscope to study living cells in zero gravity

As space agencies prepare for human missions to the moon and Mars, scientists need to understand how the absence of gravity affects living cells. Now, a team of researchers has built a rugged, affordable microscope that can ...

Feb 21, 2026 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Engineered nanoparticles could deliver better targeted cancer treatment to lymph nodes

Scientists at McGill University and the Rosalind and Morris Goodman Cancer Institute have developed a new way to deliver cancer immunotherapy that caused fewer side effects compared to standard treatment in a preclinical ...

Feb 21, 2026 in Nanotechnology
Phys.org / Mirror image pheromones help beetles 'swipe right' to find mates

There are many ways to communicate with prospective romantic partners. If you are a Japanese scarab beetle, it's a matter of distinguishing left from right. New work from U.S. and Chinese scientists, published this week in ...

Feb 21, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / Chemists synthesize first stable copper metallocene complex, closing a 70-year gap

Almost half a century ago, a remarkable molecule called metallocene took center stage in chemistry, earning Geoffrey Wilkinson and Ernst Otto Fischer the Nobel Prize. These organic compounds, made of a transition metal "sandwiched" ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Chemistry
Phys.org / The persistence of gravitational wave memory

Neutron stars are ultra-dense remnants of massive stars that collapsed after supernova explosions and are made up mostly of subatomic particles with no electric charge (i.e., neutrons). When two neutron stars collide, they ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Can a chatbot be a co-author? AI helps crack a long-stalled gluon amplitude proof

Like many scientists, theoretical physicist Andrew Strominger was unimpressed with early attempts at probing ChatGPT, receiving clever-sounding answers that didn't stand up to scrutiny. So he was skeptical when a talented ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Physics
Phys.org / Living tissues are shaped by self-propelled topological defects, biophysicists find

With a new mathematical model, a team of biophysicists has revealed fresh insights into how biological tissues are shaped by the active motion of structural imperfections known as "topological defects." Published in Physical ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Physics
Phys.org / Symbiotic bacteria in planthoppers break record for smallest non-organelle genome ever found

Many insects rely on heritable bacterial endosymbionts for essential nutrients that they cannot get through their diet. A new study, published in Nature Communications, indicates that the genomes of these symbiotic bacteria ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / The bouba-kiki effect: Baby chicks match sounds to shapes just like humans

When we hear certain sounds, our brains often pair them with specific shapes. For example, most people will associate a sharp-sounding word with a jagged, pointed shape, while a soft, rolling word is linked to something smooth ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Biology
Phys.org / Near-infrared study finds no clear counterpart to mysterious gamma-ray source

Spanish astronomers have conducted a near-infrared study of an ultra-high energy gamma-ray source designated LHAASO J2108+5157. The new study, published February 11 on the arXiv preprint server, tries to unravel the mysterious ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Astronomy & Space
Phys.org / Quantum entanglement could link distant telescopes for sharper images

To capture higher-definition and sharper images of cosmological objects, astronomers sometimes combine the data collected by several telescopes. This approach, known as long-baseline interferometry, entails comparing the ...

Feb 20, 2026 in Physics