/ en-us Â鶹ÒùÔº internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Â鶹ÒùÔºics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. We have all been in that situation: The moving boxes are large and heavy, but we are determined to carry them all in one trip, even if that means we can't see where we're going. In the tropics, some leafcutter ants face a similar challenge: carrying a load that is several times their body weight. To make matters even more difficult, carrying oversized weights may create "blind spots" when leafcutter ants transport material on a trail. /news/2025-10-leafcutter-ants-truck-drivers.html Plants & Animals Ecology Tue, 07 Oct 2025 14:27:04 EDT news679066022 Researchers have designed and demonstrated stretchable waveguides that maintain efficient, stable signal transmission of surface plasmon polaritons even when bent, twisted or stretched. These plasmonic waveguides could make it possible to seamlessly embed advanced sensing, communication and health monitoring functions into everyday wearable materials. /news/2025-10-stretchable-waveguides-stable-transmission-bent.html Condensed Matter Optics & Photonics Mon, 06 Oct 2025 14:28:03 EDT news678979681 Imagine tiny machines, smaller than a virus, spinning inside cancer cells and rewiring their behavior from within. No surgery, no harsh chemicals, just precision at the molecular level. /news/2025-10-molecular-motors-invasive-cancer-therapies.html Bio & Medicine Nanomaterials Mon, 06 Oct 2025 13:00:03 EDT news678973439 Scientists at Heriot-Watt University have unlocked the secret behind how female sawflies make specific cuts to plants—a discovery that could revolutionize surgical instruments and dramatically reduce the cutting of healthy tissue during operations. /news/2025-10-smart-female-sawflies-surgery-patient.html Plants & Animals Ecology Mon, 06 Oct 2025 10:08:05 EDT news678964081 New research shows that marine heat waves can reshape ocean food webs, which in turn can slow the transport of carbon to the deep sea and hamper the ocean's ability to buffer against climate change. /news/2025-10-marine-reshape-ocean-food-webs.html Earth Sciences Environment Mon, 06 Oct 2025 05:00:05 EDT news678704462 Trawling restrictions not only benefit fish and shellfish; anemones and corals are also becoming more common, according to a new study from the University of Gothenburg. Twenty-six years of underwater videos from the depths of the Koster Sea also show long-term changes in the ecosystem as the water becomes warmer. /news/2025-10-unique-videos-trawling-restrictions-life.html Plants & Animals Ecology Fri, 03 Oct 2025 09:20:15 EDT news678701997 Though it might seem like science fiction, scientists are working to build nanoscale molecular machines that can be designed for myriad applications, such as "smart" medicines and materials. But like all machines, these tiny devices need a source of power, the way electronic appliances use electricity or living cells use ATP (adenosine triphosphate, the universal biological energy source). /news/2025-10-rechargeable-powers-nanoscale-molecular-machines.html Bio & Medicine Nanophysics Wed, 01 Oct 2025 15:40:04 EDT news678552001 In the 17th century, astronomers Christiaan Huygens and Giovanni Cassini trained their telescopes on Saturn and uncovered a startling truth: the planet's luminous bands were not solid appendages, but vast, separate rings composed of countless nested arcs. /news/2025-09-simulations-saturn-moon-enceladus-ice.html Planetary Sciences Tue, 30 Sep 2025 15:52:04 EDT news678466322 A brand-new engineering approach to generate "designer" biological robots using human lung cells is underway in Carnegie Mellon University's Ren lab. Referred to as AggreBots, these microscale living robots may one day be able to traverse through the body's complex environments to deliver desired therapeutic or mechanical interventions, once greater control is achieved over their motility patterns. In new research published in Science Advances, the group provides a novel tissue engineering platform capable of achieving customizable motility in AggreBots by actively controlling their structural parameters. /news/2025-09-aggrebots-tiny-robots-lung-cells.html Biotechnology Sat, 27 Sep 2025 07:17:40 EDT news678176253 Researchers at Seoul National University and Kyung Hee University report a framework to control collective motions, such as ring, clumps, mill, flock, by training a physics-informed AI to learn the local rules that govern interactions among individuals. /news/2025-09-physics-ai-local-flocking-motion.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Fri, 26 Sep 2025 12:46:03 EDT news678109561 Polymer-based conductive nanocomposites, particularly those incorporating carbon nanotubes, are highly promising for the development of flexible electronics, soft robotics and wearable devices. However, CNTs are difficult to work with as they tend to agglomerate, making it hard to obtain a uniform dispersion. Moreover, conventional methods limit control over CNT distribution and shape. /news/2025-09-3d-carbon-nanotube-sensors-potential.html Bio & Medicine Nanomaterials Fri, 26 Sep 2025 11:43:03 EDT news678105781 Machine-learning models can speed up the discovery of new materials by making predictions and suggesting experiments. But most models today only consider a few specific types of data or variables. Compare that with human scientists who work in a collaborative environment and consider experimental results, the broader scientific literature, imaging and structural analysis, personal experience or intuition, and input from colleagues and peer reviewers. /news/2025-09-ai-driven-blends-literature-robotics.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Thu, 25 Sep 2025 14:34:05 EDT news678029641 Traditionally, chemical reactions have been described as one-line "equations" in which substrates, say A and B, convert purposefully but rigidly into a desired product, say C. Naturally, it has been recognized that byproducts may also form, but these have generally been considered undesirable and unproductive. /news/2025-09-robots-chemical-reaction-hyperspaces-complex.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Wed, 24 Sep 2025 12:50:03 EDT news677936977 Biomedical engineers at Duke University have developed a platform that combines automated wet lab techniques with artificial intelligence (AI) to design nanoparticles for drug delivery. The approach could help researchers deliver difficult-to-encapsulate therapeutics more efficiently and effectively. /news/2025-09-ai-nanoparticles-drug-delivery.html Bio & Medicine Mon, 22 Sep 2025 14:09:29 EDT news677768960 Scientists from Taiwan have developed a new material that can stretch up to 4,600% of its original length before breaking. Even if it does break, gently pressing the pieces together at room temperature allows it to heal, fully restoring its shape and stretchability within 10 minutes. /news/2025-09-organogel-size.html Polymers Materials Science Wed, 17 Sep 2025 06:50:01 EDT news677245863 For many children, the transition from learning to read to reading to learn is a crucial and sometimes nervewracking milestone. Reading aloud in class is intended to foster fluency and confidence, but for many students, it may spark anxiety that can hinder literacy development well into adulthood. /news/2025-09-robots-kids-conquer-anxiety.html Education Wed, 10 Sep 2025 14:00:14 EDT news676653241 A research team has developed a next-generation display core material with excellent stretchability and superior color reproduction. The team developed a high-performance color-conversion layer that is more flexible and vivid than conventional ones. This layer was successfully applied to the development of a stretchable micro-LED display, drawing significant attention. /news/2025-09-quantum-dot-polymer-linking-enables.html Nanomaterials Mon, 08 Sep 2025 15:14:03 EDT news676563241 Researchers have developed a powerful tool capable of scanning thousands of biological samples to detect transfer ribonucleic acid (tRNA) modifications—tiny chemical changes to RNA molecules that help control how cells grow, adapt to stress and respond to diseases such as cancer and antibiotic‑resistant infections. This tool opens up new possibilities for science, health care and industry—from accelerating disease research and enabling more precise diagnostics, to guiding the development of more effective medical treatments for diseases such as cancer and antibiotic‑resistant infections. /news/2025-09-automated-tool-enables-rapid-large.html Cell & Microbiology Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 03 Sep 2025 16:15:04 EDT news676134901 Hydrogels are soft, water-rich polymeric materials that can swell or shrink in response to environmental stimuli. This ability to change shape makes them valuable in miniaturized devices for flexible electronics, microrobotics, intelligent surfaces, and biomedical applications such as drug delivery. For example, hydrogel pores can be engineered to trap and release tiny drug particles on demand. /news/2025-08-origami-strategy-hydrogel-pores-enables.html Polymers Analytical Chemistry Wed, 27 Aug 2025 13:00:01 EDT news675517920 The Southern Ocean plays an important role in global climate and carbon cycling. Understanding carbon export in this region is critical for modeling Earth's changing climate and evaluating potential ocean-based climate interventions. /news/2025-08-ai-approach-sharpens-picture-carbon.html Earth Sciences Environment Wed, 27 Aug 2025 08:23:07 EDT news675501781 Researchers at North Carolina State University have unveiled Rainbow, a first-of-its-kind multi-robot self-driving laboratory that autonomously discovers high-performance quantum dots—semiconductor nanoparticles critical for next-generation displays, solar cells, LEDs and quantum-engineering technologies. /news/2025-08-rainbow-multi-robot-lab-quantum.html Nanomaterials Mon, 25 Aug 2025 10:13:03 EDT news675335581 The ancient Japanese art of paper-folding, or origami, is already inspiring the design of the next generation of space vehicles, but now there's a new family of origami shapes that could make them even more compact and reliable. /news/2025-08-spacecraft-boost-origami-patterns.html Space Exploration Thu, 21 Aug 2025 07:00:01 EDT news674915930 For decades, researchers around the world have searched for alternatives to iridium, an extremely rare, incredibly expensive metal used in the production of clean hydrogen fuels. /news/2025-08-hydrogen-iridium-problem-afternoon-megalibrary.html Analytical Chemistry Materials Science Tue, 19 Aug 2025 13:29:22 EDT news674828952 Solitonic waves—waves that keep their shape and direction of motion for a long time—have intrigued physicists for almost two centuries. In real-world circumstances, these waves eventually die out due to energy loss. A team of UvA physicists have now discovered how a particular type of interaction can be used to create very stable solitons, even in circumstances where energy is not conserved. /news/2025-08-physicists-stable-solitons-energy.html Condensed Matter Tue, 19 Aug 2025 10:33:04 EDT news674818381 Farmers might be able to get help tending and harvesting crops using a new sensing technology from Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute (RI). Researchers have invented a tool called SonicBoom that can find crops like apples based on the sound they make. The novel technology, still in the early stages of development, may someday be used by farm robots for tasks like pruning vines or locating ripe apples hidden among the leaves. /news/2025-08-agricultural-sensor-crops-vibrations-alternative.html Biotechnology Agriculture Thu, 14 Aug 2025 16:23:04 EDT news674407382 Scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and their collaborators have created a new class of programmable soft materials that can absorb impacts like never before, while also changing shape when heated. /news/2025-08-programmable-soft-material-absorbs-energy.html Polymers Analytical Chemistry Thu, 07 Aug 2025 12:30:22 EDT news673788615 How can a horde of active robots be automatically brought to a standstill? By arresting their dynamics in a self-sustained way. This phenomenon was discovered by physicists at Heinrich Heine University Dusseldorf (HHU) and La Sapienza University in Rome. The threshold principle of static friction with the ground plays a decisive role here: it removes the kinetic energy of two robots after a mutual collision so efficiently that they can no longer set themselves in motion. /news/2025-08-friction-cools-threshold-effects-enable.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Soft Matter Wed, 06 Aug 2025 12:10:04 EDT news673700769 Researchers at The University of Manchester's National Graphene Institute have developed a new class of programmable nanofluidic memristors that mimic the memory functions of the human brain, paving the way for next-generation neuromorphic computing. /news/2025-08-programmable-2d-nanochannels-brain-memory.html Bio & Medicine Nanomaterials Mon, 04 Aug 2025 10:00:07 EDT news673518362 School of Â鶹ÒùÔºics Associate Professor Elisabetta Matsumoto is unearthing the secrets of the centuries-old practice of knitting through experiments, models, and simulations. Her goal? Leveraging knitting for breakthroughs in advanced manufacturing—including more sustainable textiles, wearable electronics, and soft robotics. /news/2025-07-strength-physics-stiff-fabrics.html General Â鶹ÒùÔºics Soft Matter Wed, 30 Jul 2025 11:46:04 EDT news673094761 Scientists often seek new materials derived from polymers. Rather than starting a polymer search from scratch, they save time and money by blending existing polymers to achieve desired properties. /news/2025-07-automated-platform-discovery-high-polymer.html Polymers Analytical Chemistry Mon, 28 Jul 2025 11:00:13 EDT news672903707