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. When baseball fans watch a batter strike out with runners in scoring position, the reaction is often immediate: Shorten the swing. Put the ball in play. Stop swinging for the fences, they lament. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-mlb-tracking-baseball-debated-approach.html General Physics Mon, 08 Jun 2026 22:40:01 EDT news700151881 Deep beneath the icy waters surrounding Antarctica, a small marine organism may hold clues to a future cancer treatment. Researchers from USF recently returned from a six-week expedition in one of the most remote environments on Earth to study a species of ascidian, or sea squirt, that contains a bacterium capable of killing melanoma cancer cells. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-antarctica-advances-potential-melanoma-treatment.html Plants & Animals Mon, 08 Jun 2026 22:20:02 EDT news700134893 Exciting new research at Tohoku University's Advanced Institute for Materials Research (WPI-AIMR) explains how to transform decades of scattered literature data into computable design rules for catalysts. By using human intelligence, regression models, and AI agents, researchers can accelerate the discovery of efficient, low-cost catalysts for clean energy technologies like fuel cells, water splitting, and CO₂ reduction. By combining these methods, researchers can uncover new discoveries that were hidden in the literature data all along. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-hidden-catalytic-knowledge-literature.html Analytical Chemistry Mon, 08 Jun 2026 22:00:02 EDT news700149661 A national report co-authored by a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa sociologist has found that while the humanities and social sciences continue to produce rigorous and valuable scholarship, some disciplines are experiencing instances where scholarly standards have been compromised as political considerations shape research and academic evaluation. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-politicization-humanities-scholarship-compromise-scholarly.html Education Mon, 08 Jun 2026 21:40:04 EDT news700149362 Protected bike lanes increase Citi Bike ridership in New York City, but painted bike lanes and sharrows do not show a statistically significant causal effect on ridership after accounting for confounding factors, according to a new study from researchers at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering published this week in npj Sustainable Mobility and Transport. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-bike-lanes-nyc-bikeshare-ridership.html Social Sciences Mon, 08 Jun 2026 21:20:02 EDT news700147862 New research from the University of Victoria (UVic) has found that some kelp forests around Vancouver Island were disappearing far earlier than scientists previously thought, highlighting that climate change has been altering ecosystems long before most people were aware anything was wrong. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-years-reveals-true-extent-climate.html Ecology Mon, 08 Jun 2026 21:20:01 EDT news700134815 Since NASA's Artemis II crew members safely splashed down in the Pacific Ocean on April 10 after their record-setting mission around the moon, science teams have been busy collecting more data and combing through observations collected on the test flight. Results from these science investigations will help support safe human exploration of deep space and provide a blueprint for how future missions will conduct science on the lunar surface as NASA builds a moon base and develops an enduring human presence there. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-artemis-ii-moon-mission-earth.html Space Exploration Mon, 08 Jun 2026 21:00:03 EDT news700146841 Teams working on NASA's INCUS (Investigation of Convective Updrafts) mission, the first space-based survey of the dynamics of tropical convective storms, have completed assembly and tested two of the mission's small satellites, or SmallSats. Testing continues on the third SmallSat and is scheduled for completion no earlier than September ahead of a 2027 launch. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-nasa-incus-mission-road-storms.html Space Exploration Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:40:03 EDT news700146782 Water pollution caused by pharmaceuticals, pesticides and other organic contaminants is an increasing global issue, especially in regions with limited wastewater treatment infrastructure. A new doctoral thesis from Umea University in Sweden offers an innovative and sustainable solution by demonstrating how agricultural waste can be converted into effective materials for water purification. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-agricultural-wastewater.html Biotechnology Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:20:01 EDT news700134908 On a blazing hot day in South Africa, female southern pied babblers can't think straight. The medium-sized black-and-white birds are trying to get at tasty mealworms behind a see-through barrier. On cooler days, the birds can quickly figure out that all they have to do is go around the small wall of plastic. But when the mercury goes up, the birds just keep stubbornly pecking at the barrier. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-stupid-hot-animal-brains.html Ecology Mon, 08 Jun 2026 20:00:05 EDT news700146061 Asteroids and planetesimals regularly bombarded Earth between about 4.6 billion and 3.5 billion years ago, during the Hadean and Archean eons. Because few rocks today are more than 4 billion years old, our understanding of the planet's environment during that time is limited. However, samples from the moon and its cratered surface hint at the period's rate of cosmic impacts. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-cosmic-bombardment-earth-crust-prebiotic.html Astrobiology Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:40:04 EDT news700143613 Colors brighten our lives and help define countless items we use daily—from the vibrant clothes we wear to decorative paper and packaging materials. What adds different colors to these things? Dyes, which bind themselves to the structure of the material they are coloring. For example, methylene blue (MB) is a dye used to color paper, leather products, silk and wool, and is also employed as a diagnostic agent and in the rubber and cosmetic industries. But what happens after these dyes have served their purpose? https://phys.org/news/2026-06-super-sponge-toxic-dyes-industrial.html Polymers Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:40:02 EDT news700145283 Similar to the way DNA damage can contribute to human diseases such as cancer, it can also disrupt growth, development and survival in plants. Every day, plants endure environmental stresses such as sunlight, radiation, drought and soil stress—all of which can damage their DNA. However, they cannot move away from danger. How do plants handle all that damage? https://phys.org/news/2026-06-survive-constant-dna-newly-protein.html Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:30:01 EDT news700157401 Over the last decade, podcasts have become big business, with more than a fifth of UK adults listening to podcasts each week. The format particularly resonates with men, who are more likely than women to identify as podcast fans. Men are also overrepresented as podcast hosts. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-toxic-reputation-podcasts-men-mental.html Social Sciences Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:20:04 EDT news700144922 Almost a quarter of all freshwater species are threatened with extinction. The removal of human-made barriers from rivers, such as dams and weirs, is a popular way to restore water flow and sediment transport to its natural state and allow fish and other aquatic wildlife to move more freely. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-river-wildlife-freely-invasive-species.html Ecology Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:20:01 EDT news700148254 Thanks to effective therapies, more and more people are now able to live with or after cancer in the long term. Consequently, the number of patients affected by the long-term effects of their treatment is also increasing. Secondary leukemias are particularly serious. These can develop when cellular stress caused by chemotherapy or radiotherapy triggers DNA breaks in specific regions of the genome. If these breaks are incorrectly repaired by the body's own repair mechanisms, detrimental rearrangements can occur that promote the development of leukemia. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-peptide-blocks-dna-treatment-leukemia.html Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:10:01 EDT news700157281 From the air, you see it only through the constant jolt, tilt, and shudder of the low-flying Cessna aircraft. The landscape of the Llanos de Moxos, northern Bolivia, appears as a disconnected patchwork of open grassland savannahs, forest islands, and lakes. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-great-mysteries-archaeology-ancient-amazonian.html Social Sciences Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:00:04 EDT news700144861 As nations prepare to compete on the global stage this summer, researchers at the University of Reading have created a different kind of scoreboard that shows where each country really stands on climate change. The Real Scoreline compares countries using six climate indicators—including emissions, fossil fuel dependence, heat stress, projected warming and net-zero commitments—producing a single score out of a possible 99 that reveals how nations compare beyond the traditional scoreboard. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-real-scoreline-reveals-nations-climate.html Environment Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:00:03 EDT news700148409 Researchers from the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland, and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have developed a practical, comprehensive noise-modeling framework for a popular class of superconducting quantum processors. Their work, published in the journal PRX Quantum, offers a sevenfold improvement in predictive accuracy over existing approaches. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-cloud-quantum-noise-superconducting-qubit.html Superconductivity Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:00:02 EDT news700147742 For over a century, doctors have used electrocardiograms (EKGs) to render the invisible electrical activity of the human heart visible, using the pulse to diagnose disease before it becomes fatal. Now, scientists have invented a way to do the exact same thing for the places where most of humanity lives: cities. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-satellites-reveal-cities-urban-pulse.html Environment Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:50:01 EDT news700157221 NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon through the Artemis program and ultimately send humans to Mars highlight just how far space exploration has come. Yet while the moon and Mars remain compelling destinations filled with scientific mysteries, looking beyond our solar system raises even deeper questions about the universe itself. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-upcoming-telescopes-dark.html Astronomy Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:40:04 EDT news700144742 A new study from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem challenges a long-held assumption in climate science by showing that aerosols—tiny particles suspended in the atmosphere—can either warm or cool the climate, depending on the time scale considered. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-aerosols-cool-climate.html Environment Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:40:03 EDT news700146910 Plants are undeniably one of nature's most promising sources of new medicines, with monoterpenoid indole alkaloids (MIAs) being a great example. Some intricate compounds are built from multiple-linked chemical units that form highly complex three-dimensional structures. Because of their size and shape, scientists believe such oligomeric MIAs may be able to interfere with specific protein–protein interactions inside cells—a biological target that conventional small-molecule drugs often struggle to reach. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-chemists-total-synthesis-rare-alkaloid.html Biochemistry Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:30:03 EDT news700157041 Every internet search, streamed video and AI-generated response depends on a data center somewhere. Driven by rapid growth in artificial intelligence, cloud computing and cryptocurrency, data centers have become the backbone of the modern digital economy. But though their key role is in enabling virtual and remote experiences, data centers are physical buildings in real communities around the nation and the globe. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ways-centers-endanger-local-communities.html Environment Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:20:06 EDT news700144621 The space industry is surging. In coming years, nearly 10,000 spacecraft are slated to launch into low-Earth orbit for a variety of purposes, such as global surveillance, space tourism, and satellite "megaconstellations" providing internet service. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-rocket-reentries-earth-ozone-layer.html Earth Sciences Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:20:01 EDT news700146754 Rice is a staple food for nearly half the global population and an important dietary source of magnesium, a mineral essential for human health, plant growth and energy metabolism. Although magnesium is known to influence grain quality and taste, the biological mechanism controlling how the mineral reaches rice grains has remained largely unknown. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-magnesium-discovery-rice-nutrition.html Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:10:01 EDT news700156741 A collaboration of scientists from NASA and Brazilian research institutions has produced a detailed picture of groundwater change across Brazil. The images reveal significant declines in some of the aquifers that are critical to one of the world's largest agricultural producers. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-brazilian-breadbasket-aquifers-falling-satellite.html Earth Sciences Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:00:06 EDT news700146661 A Canadian deep-sea mining company may become the first to commercially mine the international seabed under a controversial U.S. executive order that bypasses United Nations regulations. A recent legal analysis suggests that this could place Canada in violation of international law. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-companies-bypass-deep-sea.html Environment Mon, 08 Jun 2026 18:00:05 EDT news700144502 Are two sets of data genuinely different, or is it because of randomness? This question, known as the two-sample testing problem, becomes notoriously difficult in modern datasets, because they are often high-dimensional, complex, and differences between them can take countless subtle forms. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-hidden-geometry-kernel-methods-complex.html Mathematics Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:50:03 EDT news700156321 The last deglaciation (between 11,000 and 20,000 years ago) was a period of dramatic natural warming on Earth. During this time, North America experienced the most extensive ice-sheet melting on the planet, which profoundly reshaped its climate and water cycle. But when scientists look at oxygen isotopes in stalagmites—a key tool for reconstructing past climate—the signals from North America have been hard to interpret. A new study now provides a physical explanation for those puzzling patterns. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-reveals-northsouth-differences-isotopes-north.html Earth Sciences Mon, 08 Jun 2026 17:50:01 EDT news700157641