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Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine.

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Surveying the genetic battlefield to uncover the rules of rapid evolution

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-surveying-genetic-battlefield-uncover-rapid.html

Published: October 23, 2026 23:20

The Malik Lab thrives on competition. But for HHMI investigator Harmit Malik and his team at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, it's the genomesā€”not the peopleā€”that are in conflict. The lab studies rapid evolutionā€”the genetic changes that happen in aā€¦

Child-led citizen science helps Ecuadorian community tackle beach pollution and shape environmental decisions

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-child-citizen-science-ecuadorian-community.html

Published: October 23, 2026 22:20

Pollution from human-generated waste in marine ecosystems has reached critical levels, with cigarette butts (CBs) among the most persistent and harmful pollutants. Globally, an estimated 4.5 trillion cigarette butts are discarded annually, making them theā€¦

Habitat explains Finnish animal distributions better than climate, study finds

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-habitat-finnish-animal-climate.html

Published: October 23, 2026 21:00

Researchers at the University of Helsinki wanted to understand which is the dominant factor for species occurrence and abundance: the climate or habitat-related variables, such as their natural state and the share of land shaped by human activity.ā€¦

Power cuts and sleep: Students link load shedding to anxiety, disrupted rest and lower grades

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-power-students-link-anxiety-disrupted.html

Published: October 23, 2026 19:40

South Africa endured its worst year of load shedding (scheduled power cuts by the country's utility, Eskom) in 2023. The power went off on 335 of the year's 365 days, often several times a day. Since then, the country has gone more than a year and a halfā€¦

Glowing plants reveal immune responses around infection sites via two colors

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-reveal-immune-responses-infection-sites.html

Published: October 23, 2026 19:20

Researchers at the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS) have developed a new way to make glowing biological reporters more accurate, allowing scientists to track gene activity in living plants over days, weeks and potentially even months and years. Theā€¦

Study maps the human side of flood risk

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-human-side.html

Published: October 23, 2026 18:20

When heavy rain hits a city, knowing where water will accumulate is only part of the picture. Who lives in the affected buildings? How might flooding disrupt their lives? And where could additional support make the greatest difference?

Counting magnetic flux quanta offers new way to measure photon numbers

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-magnetic-flux-quanta-photon.html

Published: October 23, 2026 17:20

Researchers at AIST have directly observed magnetic flux quanta generated in a superconductor by photon absorption and demonstrated a new principle of photon detection that identifies the number of photons based on the number of these flux quanta.

'It's pretty toxicā€¦ but just a little, I want to be like that': What young men think of manosphere content

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-pretty-toxic-young-men-manosphere.html

Published: October 23, 2026 17:00

Masculinity content promises young men self-optimization and success, but often delivers health harms, risk-taking, unattainable standards, gender stereotypes and misogyny. The latter is the strongest predictor of violent extremism.

Scientists demonstrate AI-designed enzyme for drug synthesis

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-scientists-ai-enzyme-drug-synthesis.html

Published: October 23, 2026 17:00

The new RFD4-Proteina unified generative model for protein designā€”created by the Institute for Protein Design (IPD) in collaboration with NVIDIAā€”uses advanced AI to generate entirely new protein sequences and structures, achieving computational designā€¦

Chemically modified sugars enable direct nanostructure formation

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-chemically-sugars-enable-nanostructure-formation.html

Published: October 23, 2026 16:40

Researchers at AIST have demonstrated the synthesis of nanoporous carbonaceous materials and carbonaceous materials with layered nanostructures through a simple process involving the chemical modification of common sugars such as sucrose and fructose.

The psychology of why we overpay for used carsā€”study points to left-digit bias

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-psychology-overpay-cars-left-digit.html

Published: October 23, 2026 16:40

Consumers routinely ignore information when making purchases. They overlook the tax attached to a price, skim past ingredient lists and often fail to process exact numbers with any precision.

Designing better adsorbents to remove PFAS from water

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-adsorbents-pfas.html

Published: October 23, 2026 16:20

A review by Tohoku University researchers identifies key molecular features that could guide the development of more effective materials for removing PFAS from water. The study is published in the journal ACS Materials Au.

Plain silicon grating reveals a hidden 'twist' in light from electron beams

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-plain-silicon-reveals-hidden-electron.html

Published: October 23, 2026 16:20

In 1953, two physicists showed that an electron beam skimming past a grating emits light whose color depends only on the electron's speed and the grating's spacing. Known as Smith-Purcell radiation, this phenomenon has become a useful tool for buildingā€¦

Elections are more predictable than they look

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-elections.html

Published: October 23, 2026 16:00

As politics in America become more polarized and each voting cycle seems more fraught than the last, a common narrative in the media is that each election is unique and increasingly unpredictable. But new research shows that congressional elections followā€¦

Bacteria reinvent their weapons through selection, chance and gene swapping

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-bacteria-reinvent-weapons-chance-gene.html

Published: October 23, 2026 16:00

Many of the most potent antibiotics originate from bacteria. A large proportion belong to a class of compounds known as nonribosomal peptides (NRP). They are produced by large bacterial enzyme machineriesā€”the nonribosomal peptide synthetases, or NRPS forā€¦

New marker panel and free web tool help track stem cells as they develop

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-marker-panel-free-web-tool.html

Published: October 23, 2026 15:40

How can the identity of pluripotent stem cells be determined more reliably during their differentiation? Researchers from the IUFā€”Leibniz Research Institute for Environmental Medicine and Heinrich Heine University Duesseldorf have systematically validatedā€¦

Can we stop antibiotic resistance from ruining promising drugs before they reach patients?

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-antibiotic-resistance-drugs-patients.html

Published: October 23, 2026 15:40

What if we could predict early in drug development which antibiotics bacteria are most likely to become resistant to? In a review published in Nature Reviews Microbiology, researchers from the HUN-REN Biological Research Centre, Szeged (HUN-REN BRC Szeged)ā€¦

Everyday Mylar turned into a promising insulator for lunar habitats

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-everyday-mylar-insulator-lunar-habitats.html

Published: October 23, 2026 15:20

Establishing a long-term presence on the moon will require solving challenges that are easy to overlook on Earth. Lunar temperatures, for instance, can vary from hundreds of degrees below zero to boiling, making effective insulation essential for lunarā€¦

Chaos makes sense of market movements in a crisis

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-chaos-movements-crisis.html

Published: October 23, 2026 15:00

Research shows that crises do more than cause financial market volatility and falling share pricesā€”they lead to markets becoming far more interconnected.

Stellar collision may explain why Orion Nebula's planet-forming disks appear younger than its stars

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-stellar-collision-orion-nebula-planet.html

Published: October 23, 2026 15:00

The Orion Nebula is a large star-forming region visible to the naked eye. Some of the young stars in the nebula are surrounded by disks of gas and dust in which planets form. Radiation from the massive central star, 1 Ori C1 (Theta-1 Orionis C1), graduallyā€¦

Scientists uncover the molecular pillars that shape our cells' powerpacks

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-scientists-uncover-molecular-pillars-cells.html

Published: October 23, 2026 14:40

Mitochondria are the tiny powerpacks that supply most of the energy our cells need. Their ability to generate this energy relies on a distinctive architecture: two membranes, one tucked inside the other, separated by a narrow gap called the intermembraneā€¦

Mechanism behind PARP1-mediated DNA repair characterized, offering insight into targeted cancer therapy

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-mechanism-parp1-dna-characterized-insight.html

Published: October 23, 2026 14:40

When DNA is damaged, cellular processes respond and repair the DNA. Inhibiting DNA damage repair can be therapeutically beneficial in cancers with genetic vulnerabilities related to DNA damage response. Scientists at St. Jude Children's Research Hospitalā€¦

Rare fossils reveal what ancient Denisovans may have looked like

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-rare-fossils-reveal-ancient-denisovans.html

Published: October 23, 2026 14:30

Whenever anything is written about the Denisovans, the word "mysterious" is almost guaranteed to appear. That is because we just don't know a lot about this extinct human group that may have lived in East Asia from at least 300,000 to 45,000 years ago andā€¦

Black holes spinning near maximum rate could split in two, calculations suggest

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-black-holes-maximum.html

Published: October 23, 2026 14:20

Two black holes can collide and merge into one. But could the opposite happen: could a single black hole split into two smaller ones? That question is explored in a new theoretical study: "When Black Holes Admit Pair-of-pants Topologies," published in theā€¦

Hoarders without borders: Study suggests investors aid international expansion

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-hoarders-borders-investors-aid-international.html

Published: October 23, 2026 14:20

Venture capital firms can help young businesses expand internationally by providing funding as well as market knowledge, expertise and access to professional networks, according to a research literature review published in the International Journal ofā€¦

From sea anemone to human fertility: A new research organism for understanding meiosis

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-sea-anemone-human-fertility-meiosis.html

Published: October 23, 2026 14:00

Every egg cell and sperm cell depends on meiosis, a tightly choreographed process in which chromosomes find their partners, exchange genetic material and then divide. When meiosis goes awry in humans, the consequences can include infertility, miscarriageā€¦

An ancient virus in chimpanzee DNA switches off a gene that is active in humans

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ancient-virus-chimpanzee-dna-gene.html

Published: October 23, 2026 14:00

Humans and chimpanzees share almost all their genes. Despite this, our brains have developed in different ways. Researchers at Lund University in Sweden have now shown that a viral pandemic dating back several million years is likely to be part of theā€¦

As flood risk rises, some communities question the idea of resilience

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-communities-idea-resilience.html

Published: October 23, 2026 14:00

Climate change is increasing flood risk across the U.K. As floods become more frequent and intense, communities are increasingly encouraged to become resilient and "live with water." Yet in some flood-prone areas, residents are rejecting these calls,ā€¦

Paleolithic human DNA reveals east-west connections across Ice Age Europe

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-paleolithic-human-dna-reveals-east.html

Published: October 23, 2026 14:00

More than 30,000 years ago, people associated with one of Europe's major Paleolithic cultures (the Gravettian) were more interconnected than previously thought. An international research team led by the University of Vienna has uncovered new geneticā€¦

Scientists find key to predicting some El NiƱo events 12 months ahead

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-scientists-key-el-nio-events.html

Published: October 23, 2026 14:00

Scientists have identified the conditions that make it possible to predict some El NiƱo and La NiƱa events up to a year in advance, potentially giving communities and decision-makers significantly more time to prepare for weather extremes.

AI is solving math problems that stumped humans. What comes next?

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ai-math-problems-stumped-humans.html

Published: October 23, 2026 13:40

A few short years ago, asking AI to add two four-digit numbers together for a third-grade math assignment would have been a bad idea. Over half the time, the answer would be wrong, studies have shown. Long division or a "leaky tank" problem, an algebraā€¦

Massive carbon stocks in grasslands are ignored by climate finance

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-massive-carbon-stocks-grasslands-climate.html

Published: October 23, 2026 13:40

Open ecosystemsā€”nonforested landscapes such as grasslands, shrublands and savannasā€”can store vast amounts of carbon while supporting water supply, biodiversity and other ecosystem services. Yet the potential of open ecosystems to serve as natural climateā€¦

Disaster recovery work temporarily boosted short-term physical and mental benefits for men

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-disaster-recovery-temporarily-boosted-short.html

Published: October 23, 2026 13:30

New Northwestern University research aims to shed light on what drives inequalities among men in the aftermath of megadisasters. In such situations, men are often depicted as heroic leaders, and this study finds that many of them experience improved mentalā€¦

Marine heat waves suppress nutrient use, reproductive flexibility in humpback whales

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-marine-suppress-nutrient-reproductive-flexibility.html

Published: October 23, 2026 13:20

A new study led by University of Hawai'i (UH) at Mānoa researchers reveals how extreme ocean warming disrupts whale metabolism, nutrition and reproductive success and what the developing 2026ā€“2027 El NiƱo could mean next. As climate change drivesā€¦

Fearā€‘based campaign ads can grab attention, but whether they win votes is less clear

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-fearbased-campaign-ads-attention-votes.html

Published: October 23, 2026 13:00

On a Monday night in September 1964, television viewers watched a little girl counting petals on a flower. Her voice gave way to a man counting down, and then a nuclear blast filled the screen.

Strategic new protections could link 13 Pacific deep-sea reserves into connected network

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-strategic-link-pacific-deep-sea.html

Published: October 23, 2026 13:00

Protected areas have been set up to shield deep-sea life from the impacts of seabed mining in the Pacific Ocean. However, new research led by scientists at Plymouth Marine Laboratory (PML) and published in Nature Ecology & Evolution highlights anā€¦

ALMA spots 'dragon egg' that may represent the earliest stages of massive star formation

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-alma-dragon-egg-earliest-stages.html

Published: October 23, 2026 12:50

Astronomers identified an exceptionally tiny core that may represent an early stage in the formation of a massive star. Located in an infrared-dark area called Dragon Cloud, the core is nicknamed the "dragon egg." The paper, accepted for publication inā€¦

Gold nanoparticles unexpectedly alter process that controls electrical conductivity in organic devices

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-gold-nanoparticles-unexpectedly-electrical-devices.html

Published: October 23, 2026 12:40

Researchers at Umea university thought gold particles would make electronic components emit more light. Instead, they discovered an unexpected effect that could be important for the future of organic electronics.

Archimedes screw inspires single-molecule motor powered by electric current

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-archimedes-molecule-motor-powered-electric.html

Published: October 23, 2026 12:40

Molecular machines are regarded as the next step in miniaturization. Their models can be found in living cells, where molecular motors convert energy and generate movement. Scientists have been working for decades to artificially replicate such systems.ā€¦

Open-source workflow makes spatial proteomics easier to use

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-source-workflow-spatial-proteomics-easier.html

Published: October 23, 2026 12:20

Fabian Coscia and his team have published in Nature Methods an open-source workflow that makes Deep Visual Proteomics easier to use, adapt and scale. OpenDVP enables scientists to spatially map thousands of proteins inside cells and their cellularā€¦

Summer 2026 heat toll exceeded 50,000 deaths in European cities, analysis estimates

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-summer-toll-exceeded-deaths-european.html

Published: October 23, 2026 12:20

More than 50,000 heat-related deaths are estimated to have occurred in urban areas across Europe during summer 2026, with around two-thirds attributed to human-induced climate change, according to new research led by the London School of Hygiene & Tropicalā€¦

How autumn changes animal sexual behaviorā€”including that of humans

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-autumn-animal-sexual-behavior-humans.html

Published: October 23, 2026 12:00

In the Northern Hemisphere, days are getting shorter and temperatures are droppingā€”autumn has arrived. A common sign that winter is coming is trees losing their leaves. But did you know that autumn also sparks changes in animals' sexual behaviorā€”includingā€¦

Elusive uranium 'sandwich' molecule isolated after more than 50 years

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-elusive-uranium-sandwich-molecule-isolated.html

Published: October 23, 2026 12:00

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers from The University of Manchester and Lancaster University have isolated and characterized uranocenium, the positively charged form of a landmark uranium compound called uranocene. The work showsā€¦

More than just the thrill: What are 'sensation seekers' looking for?

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-thrill-sensation-seekers.html

Published: October 23, 2026 11:50

Why are some people more drawn to new and exciting experiences than others? This phenomenon is usually explained by the fact that so-called "sensation seekers" experience stimuli less intensely than other people and therefore need intense experiences toā€¦

Artemis I: Crystals of experimental detectors record radiation doses near the moon

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-artemis-crystals-experimental-detectors-doses.html

Published: October 23, 2026 11:40

Do cosmic radiation doses near the moon differ significantly from those received by astronauts in low Earth orbit? Experimental lithium fluoride detectors, installed aboard the Orion spacecraft during the Artemis I mission, have now made it possible toā€¦

DNA programs a cell-free material to build its own motors and move

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-dna-cell-free-material-motors.html

Published: October 23, 2026 11:20

Researchers have created a material that manufactures the proteins responsible for cell movement, without needing intact living cells. By embedding cell-free gene expression into a thin sheet of protein filaments, they were able to make the materialā€¦

Mapping the cell: International research team investigates the endoplasmic reticulum

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-cell-international-team-endoplasmic-reticulum.html

Published: October 23, 2026 11:20

Human cells contain billions of molecules. To prevent complete chaos, these molecules and the reactions between them are organized within structures known as organelles. One of the cell's most important organelles is the endoplasmic reticulum, a dynamicā€¦

Pedal to the metal: NASA's Psyche heads toward asteroid belt

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-metal-nasa-psyche-asteroid-belt.html

Published: October 23, 2026 11:10

With a successful Mars gravity assist in its rearview mirror, NASA's Psyche spacecraft has fired up its thrusters and is accelerating toward the metal-rich asteroid of the same name. During the first leg of its journey, following an October 2023 launch,ā€¦

US drinking water could contain double the reported PFAS levels, model estimates

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-pfas.html

Published: October 23, 2026 11:00

Common ways of reporting perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)ā€”the man-made, so-called forever chemicals that pose environmental and health threatsā€”could underestimate the concentration of PFAS in U.S. drinking water by as much as half,ā€¦

NASA's Hubble charts path for Roman with gravitational lenses

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nasa-hubble-path-roman-gravitational.html

Published: October 23, 2026 10:50

A sweeping barred spiral galaxy marks the spot in this image, but the real treasure is the gravitational lens in the lower-right corner, where a distant background galaxy is being magnified and distorted by the gravity of a closer galaxy.

When computer science meets the alpaca immune system

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-science-alpaca-immune.html

Published: October 23, 2026 10:40

After earning bachelor's and Ph.D. degrees in bioengineering with a focus on molecular biology, Will White, a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Computer Science at Tufts, was pretty certain his future research would involve things like DNA andā€¦

What makes glass good at conducting heat? Sound holds the key

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-glass-good-key.html

Published: October 23, 2026 10:20

Glass can keep a drink safely contained, protect a smartphone screen, or serve as a foundation for electronic components. But when it comes to controlling heat, this familiar material still holds some scientific mysteries. Now, researchers have identifiedā€¦

How to speak whale: AI uses eight to ten click sequences to predict sperm whales' feeding dives

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-whale-ai-ten-click-sequences.html

Published: October 23, 2026 10:20

Arriving on the Caribbean island of Dominica for the first time "feels a little bit like stepping into Jurassic Park," said Giovanni Petri, a professor in the Network Science Institute at Northeastern University London.

From 'gentle' and 'graceful' to the 'cane toad of the sky': How Australia turned on the common myna

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-gentle-graceful-cane-toad-sky.html

Published: October 23, 2026 10:10

The common myna is sometimes referred to as "Australia's most hated bird." Originally from South and Central Asia, the introduced species from the starling family is abundant, raucous and bold.

Sinking Antarctic ice reveals a hidden lake's massive water loss

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-antarctic-ice-reveals-hidden-lake.html

Published: October 23, 2026 10:00

The Kronshtadskiy subglacial lake near East Antarctica's Amery Ice Shelf was hidden beneath Antarctica's ice, but its drainage left a mark visible from space as a broad depression that deepened by more than 6 meters (20 feet) at its center.

What does voter suppression have to do with health?

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-voter-suppression-health.html

Published: October 23, 2026 09:40

Public health researchers have long examined how societal forces can shape health outcomes. Decades after redlining was outlawed, for example, researchers continue to document its lasting effects on life expectancy, chronic disease and access to healthā€¦

El NiƱo then and now

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-el-nio-1.html

Published: October 23, 2026 09:40

El NiƱo is part of a natural climate pattern that occurs roughly every two to seven years, bringing warmer-than-normal water to parts of the equatorial Pacific. The most recent very strong El NiƱo events, in 1997ā€“98 and 2015ā€“16, upended weather patterns.ā€¦

A quick squeeze helps CRISPR turn skin cells into neurons more efficiently

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quick-crispr-skin-cells-neurons.html

Published: October 23, 2026 09:20

Human cells hold about two meters (6.6 feet) of DNA, folded and compacted to fit inside a nucleus. That packing is essential for life, but it creates a problem for scientists. Some of the genes that control a cell's identity are buried so deep in tightlyā€¦

Youth protests across Europe: The overlapping crises facing Gen Z

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-youth-protests-europe-overlapping-crises.html

Published: October 23, 2026 09:20

Young people are facing a future that feels increasingly uncertain. Although every generation experiences turbulence while navigating adolescence, the pressures experienced by Gen Zā€”those born between 1997 and 2012ā€”are different and seem more pervasive.

East Asia's summer rain belt has shifted north over decades, reshaping rain and heat risks

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-east-asia-summer-belt-shifted.html

Published: October 23, 2026 09:00

A joint research team from KAIST and the APEC Climate Center has found that the East Asian summer front has migrated north over the past half century, with the shift exceeding 200 km (124 miles) in late summer. This raises the risk that the Koreanā€¦

Time to tap into agriculture's hidden genetic potential

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-agriculture-hidden-genetic-potential.html

Published: October 23, 2026 08:50

Modern agriculture's selective breeding of crops for particular requirements may now be a roadblock to further gains, prompting a trio of senior University of Queensland plant scientists to call for a new way forward.

Experiment shows when quantum 'cat' states stop bouncing back

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-quantum-cat-states.html

Published: October 23, 2026 08:40

Quantum systems can occupy superpositions, quantum states that combine different possibilities. For instance, a microwave field can be prepared in a superposition of an empty state and a state that contains microwave light.

Study finds lower rates of overweight among vegan-fed cats

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-overweight-vegan-fed-cats.html

Published: October 23, 2026 08:30

A large-scale survey has found cats fed vegan diets had lower rates of obesity and related health problems than those fed conventional meat-based diets.

The world's most expensive spice could provide a lifeline to Colorado farmers

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-world-expensive-spice-lifeline-colorado.html

Published: October 23, 2026 08:10

Alexander the Great, king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon, reportedly bathed in saffron to heal his battle wounds. Doctors once prescribed this rare plant as a treatment for the bubonic plague. Cleopatra even used it as a fragrance to enticeā€¦

Hide-and-seek for treats offers a new window into cognitive decline in dogs

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-window-cognitive-decline-dogs.html

Published: October 23, 2026 07:40

It is tough to watch a dog deal with issues associated with aging. A senior dog that gets lost at home or starts showing more anxiety may be exhibiting signs of dementia. But by the time these signs show up, the decline may have been underway for years.

Study highlights gender gap in AI media coverage in Spain

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-highlights-gender-gap-ai-media.html

Published: October 23, 2026 07:20

A media "glass ceiling" exists in news stories on artificial intelligence (AI) published in Spanish media in recent years: men are the main subjects in 41% of news reports, compared to just 5% featuring women. This is one of the findings of the reportā€¦

AI agents can form political campsā€”and changing their conversation partners does little to soften their views

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ai-agents-political-conversation-partners.html

Published: October 23, 2026 07:20

Give AI agents political positions, ask them to defend their views and persuade one another, and let them decide which contacts to keep. This recent experiment, published in Nature Communications, found that over repeated exchanges, something familiarā€¦

What is red crown rot? Expert explains emerging soybean pathogen

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-red-crown-expert-emerging-soybean.html

Published: October 23, 2026 07:10

Red crown rot, a fungal disease of soybean, is not new to the Midwest. First reported in Illinois in 2018, the disease is now surging across the state and the region. Boris Camiletti, a plant pathologist at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, isā€¦

Just 3% of the world's glaciers account for over half of glacier ice loss

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-world-glaciers-account-glacier-ice.html

Published: October 23, 2026 05:00

Glaciers ending in lakes, oceans or ice shelves make up 3.2% of the world's glaciers, but lost 134 billion metric tons (148 billion tons) of ice each year between 2000 and 2019, accounting for more than half of all glacier ice loss, a new study shows.

Europe's killer heat this summer claims 50,000 lives. Climate change blamed for two-thirds of deaths

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-europe-killer-summer-climate-blamed.html

Published: October 23, 2026 04:20

Blistering record heat in Europe this summer helped kill more than 50,000 people, with nearly two-thirds of that death toll blamed on human-caused climate change, a new study found.

Light-based method enables precise control of ultrafast electron flow in a scanning tunneling microscope

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-based-method-enables-precise-ultrafast.html

Published: October 23, 2026 04:10

What would it take to watch an electron move through a material? Researchers would need to see individual atoms and capture an electron's motion at incredibly short timescales. A Technion-led team has brought those two capabilities together in a scanningā€¦

Costly dead-tissue disorder in apples caused by faster growth rates

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-dead-tissue-disorder-apples-faster.html

Published: October 23, 2026 04:00

New research reveals that faster growth rates in Honeycrisp apples increase both the incidence and severity of the "bitter pit" disorder, which is responsible for large-scale fruit yield losses and avoidable economic impacts for apple producers andā€¦

Iris patterns offer a noninvasive way to recognize individual Amazonian treefrogs

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-iris-patterns-noninvasive-individual-amazonian.html

Published: October 23, 2026 04:00

Identifying individual animals in the wild has long meant tagging, branding or clipping. For amphibians, the standard approach has often been toe-clipping, a procedure that can affect survival, physiology and behavior. A new study suggests that, for atā€¦

A mineral from the inside of planets reveals a surprising lesson: How you push matters

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-mineral-planets-reveals-lesson.html

Published: October 23, 2026 03:42

In the deepest region of the Earth's mantle, just above the core, much of the material consists of crystals of magnesium oxide. In larger rocky exoplanets called super-Earths, the higher pressures in the lower mantle may drive magnesium oxide to transformā€¦

Mother bats' hearts beat faster at the sound of their own babies' cries

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-mother-hearts-faster-babies-cries.html

Published: October 23, 2026 00:00

A mother bat has one crucial challenge: find her own babies among hundreds of other bats in the colony. Making sure she cares for and nurses only her own offspring is important to ensuring their survival. Among Japanese house bats, mothers keep track ofā€¦

How we mark our ballot can affect how we feel about voting. Here's why

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ballot-affect-voting.html

Published: October 22, 2026 23:00

Have you ever left a polling place feeling that your mark on the ballot didn't quite say what you wanted it to? Perhaps you liked two candidates but had to drop one, or backed the one who might actually win over the one you preferred.

New test measures potentially harmful metals in cellulose food packaging

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-potentially-metals-cellulose-food-packaging.html

Published: October 22, 2026 21:00

A technique for detecting potentially harmful metals in regenerated cellulose food packaging is discussed in the International Journal of Environment and Pollution. The new tool can be used for safety assessments of materials increasingly used asā€¦

Autonomous triangular modules could build tomorrow's mega-observatories

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-autonomous-triangular-modules-tomorrow-mega.html

Published: October 22, 2026 20:40

Private companies are getting better at launching more mass into space with larger rockets. But there is still a major constraint on the size of objects we can get into orbitā€”fairing size. This places physical constraints on the overall shape of what weā€¦

Researchers develop AI tool to map microRNA binding sites on circular RNAs

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ai-tool-microrna-sites-circular.html

Published: October 22, 2026 20:20

Circular RNAs (circRNAs) are loop-shaped molecules that can influence gene regulation through interactions with microRNAs (miRNAs). This matters because circRNAs can exist as different full-length isoforms, and their back-splice junction (BSJ) connects theā€¦

Acupuncture and mutual exchange in Chinese and Soviet science

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-acupuncture-mutual-exchange-chinese-soviet.html

Published: October 22, 2026 20:00

Previous accounts of the scientific relationship between communist China and the Soviet Union have depicted it as one of subordination, with the Russians exporting knowledge to the Chinese or scavenging from their bodies of knowledge. A new article inā€¦

Light-activated catalyst makes sustainable production of hydrogen peroxide more efficient

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-catalyst-sustainable-production-hydrogen-peroxide.html

Published: October 22, 2026 19:40

Hydrogen peroxide (Hā‚‚Oā‚‚) is a versatile chemical feedstock whose industrial production relies predominantly on an energy-intensive process with a substantial environmental footprint. One alternative is to produce it using a catalyst activated by light. Inā€¦

What is a neutrino anyway? A look at the science behind this year's Nobel Prize in Physics

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-neutrino-science-year-nobel-prize.html

Published: October 22, 2026 19:30

If you wanted a Nobel Prize, you would do well to study neutrinos. To date, the Nobel Prize in Physics has been awarded five times to research related to neutrino detection and discovery. This year, Francis Halzen earned the Nobel "for decisiveā€¦

With climate-resilient crops in mind, study tackles flaw in photosynthesis

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-climate-resilient-crops-mind-tackles.html

Published: October 22, 2026 19:20

Rising temperatures and increasing drought are shortening crop-growing seasons in many parts of the world. Now scientists in Sweden report new advances toward engineering more efficient photosynthesis, work that could eventually contribute to efforts toā€¦

Ultrafast light pulses track molecular motion with three-femtosecond resolution

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ultrafast-pulses-track-molecular-motion.html

Published: October 22, 2026 19:00

Researchers have observed a molecule in the first instants after it has absorbed light and tracked the coordinated motion of electrons and nuclei with a temporal resolution of three femtoseconds. This is the result achieved by an international researchā€¦

Shrinking iron films strengthens laser-driven demagnetization

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-iron-laser-driven-demagnetization.html

Published: October 22, 2026 18:40

From photos and videos to documents, vast amounts of data are stored on hard drives in large data centers. These devices use tiny magnetic regions whose orientation determines the information stored. But how could data be stored even faster in the future?ā€¦

Researcher tackles impact of a CMO's life events on businesses' bottom line

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-tackles-impact-cmo-life-events.html

Published: October 22, 2026 18:40

When a major company's CEO goes through a messy divorce or is arrested for drunk driving, investors often get nervous, worried that the executive's personal struggles will dent their returns. But most people hardly notice when a chief marketing officer hasā€¦

Global database provides a fuller picture of the elements that make up plant life

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-global-database-fuller-picture-elements.html

Published: October 22, 2026 18:20

What, exactly, is a plant made of? Scientists have a good understanding of the essential nutrients plants need to grow. But what plants need and what they contain are not necessarily the same.

Brazil's presidential elections linked to decades of fluctuating environmental destructionā€”study

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-brazil-presidential-elections-linked-decades.html

Published: October 22, 2026 18:20

A University of Cambridgeā€“led analysis of maps made from satellite imagery covering over three decades and seven presidents shows how the winner of Brazil's national elections since 1990 directly affected the preservation of its globally vital ecosystems.

Supramolecular assembly opens a new route to building quantum materials

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-supramolecular-route-quantum-materials.html

Published: October 22, 2026 18:00

A joint research team fabricated a two-dimensional structure that exhibits properties of both the honeycomb and Kagome lattices using organic molecules. They discovered that edge states specific to topological materials (states that exist only at the edgesā€¦

How farming helped cause two medieval tsunamis in an Italian lakeā€”and why the danger has returned

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-farming-medieval-tsunamis-italian-lake.html

Published: October 22, 2026 18:00

On Jan. 3, 1117, a strong earthquake shook northern Italy. A manuscript of the 12th century, kept today in the Vatican Library, recorded what came next: "The lakes also rose so much that very few of those living in the villages nearby escaped this danger."

Helping microgreens pack even more of a nutritional punch

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-microgreens-nutritional.html

Published: October 22, 2026 17:50

Microgreens are nutritional powerhouses. A team of plant scientists at Penn State conducting research on multiple aspects of microgreens recently published three studies reporting progress on multiple fronts, including iron enrichment, productive indoorā€¦

Amino acid stabilizes material's quantum state above room temperature

https://phys.org/news/2026-10-amino-acid-stabilizes-material-quantum.html

Published: October 22, 2026 17:40

New research started with a special material that behaves unusually when it's extremely coldā€”135 degrees below zero Fahrenheit (minus 93 degrees Celsius), close to the most frigid temperature ever recorded in Antarcticaā€”and showed that the unusual behaviorā€¦

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