Science News

Latest science news, discoveries and scientific developments.

A laser can draw superconductivity at the nanoscale
Science News

A laser can draw superconductivity at the nanoscale

Researchers from ICMAB-CSIC, the Politecnico di Milano and Université de Liège have adapted a direct laser writing technique that allows them to "draw" superconducting properties in a material. The result is a new way to locally program the behavior of a superconductor, tuning it from a fully superconducting state to an insulating one with extraordinary precision.

📅 2026-11-03 21:40:02    •    Phys.org
Plant-inspired natural coatings can beat forever chemicals
Science News

Plant-inspired natural coatings can beat forever chemicals

Polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are known as "forever chemicals" because of the impact they make on the environment and human bodies. Much of modern manufacturing relies on these substances for safe packaging, fire protection and waterproof coatings.

📅 2026-11-03 21:20:04    •    Phys.org
A single measurement makes quantum bits more reliable
Science News

A single measurement makes quantum bits more reliable

Researchers at the University of Regensburg and their international partners have found a way to significantly reduce errors in quantum bits. In an experiment, they demonstrated that a single additional measurement before a series of quantum operations can cut the error rate by more than half. The results have been published in Applied Physics Reviews.

📅 2026-11-03 20:40:06    •    Phys.org
Wherever there are people, there is also wildlife—though not necessarily at the same time
Science News

Wherever there are people, there is also wildlife—though not necessarily at the same time

Human-induced global change has reached an unprecedented scale and intensity. Through intensive land use and the associated loss of species, humans are permanently altering the habitats and communities of wild animals. "How do predators manage to find their way in landscapes heavily shaped by humans and establish their niche? It is precisely this question that interested us," says Kathi Kasper, a doctoral student at the MRI PAS, the EBD-CSIC and the Leibniz-IZW and an author of the study.

📅 2026-11-03 20:40:01    •    Phys.org
Reading single vesicles reveals clues to the origin of chronic inflammation
Science News

Reading single vesicles reveals clues to the origin of chronic inflammation

A new technique to diagnose chronic inflammation developed at Nagoya University can read information from the surface and within individual extracellular vesicles in blood and urine. This technique could be used to develop noninvasive tests that can not only detect chronic inflammation but also provide information about the tissues where it occurs.

📅 2026-11-03 20:20:02    •    Phys.org
Researchers target PFAS with lower-temperature destruction method
Science News

Researchers target PFAS with lower-temperature destruction method

Removing harmful chemicals from contaminated water is only one step toward their elimination. Once collected in filtration materials, these chemicals must still be destroyed and detoxified to prevent contamination from moving into another waste stream.

📅 2026-11-03 20:00:07    •    Phys.org
Global accounting reveals economic toll of ecosystem losses from rising seas
Science News

Global accounting reveals economic toll of ecosystem losses from rising seas

A global accounting puts the value of ecosystem services that could be lost to sea level rise at well over 100 billion in 2020 international dollars (Int$2020) per year by 2100, according to a study—and the nations that are likely to lose the most are not the highest emitters.

📅 2026-11-03 20:00:01    •    Phys.org
Silent lakes ahead? Long-term study finds common loon productivity is dropping across North America
Science News

Silent lakes ahead? Long-term study finds common loon productivity is dropping across North America

The eerie call of the common loon has long been the sound of North America's northern lakes, but new research shows it may not be that way in the future. A new study led by Birds Canada analyzed breeding attempts across nine Canadian provinces and seven U.S. states. The researchers found a widespread, long-term plunge in loon chick production across their range.

📅 2026-11-03 19:40:12    •    Phys.org
Microbiome research reveals how bacterial lipids influence liver and muscle health in mice
Science News

Microbiome research reveals how bacterial lipids influence liver and muscle health in mice

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from UConn and the University of Pittsburgh is filling knowledge gaps about the surprising roles that our microbiomes play in our health. The team's recent studies, published in Gastro Hep Advances and The Journal of Physiology, focus on Bacteroidota species that grow in our guts and mouths, where they produce glycine lipids that interact with our metabolism.

📅 2026-11-03 19:40:01    •    Phys.org
Oil-producing yeast reveals two stages of fat accumulation under nitrogen limitation
Science News

Oil-producing yeast reveals two stages of fat accumulation under nitrogen limitation

A research team led by professors Xu Guowang and Liu Xinyu from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with researchers from Dalian University of Technology, has developed a high-coverage lipidomics workflow and integrated it with transcriptomics to investigate lipid accumulation and compositional changes in Rhodosporidium toruloides under nitrogen limitation. The study was recently published in Food Chemistry.

📅 2026-11-03 19:20:10    •    Phys.org
Mapping Kīlauea's magma reservoirs at high resolution
Science News

Mapping Kīlauea's magma reservoirs at high resolution

The Hawaiian volcano Kīlauea is among the most active on Earth. Not only did it erupt almost continuously from 1983 to 2018, but it also began a new series of eruptions in late 2024 that continue as of late 2026. The activity and accessibility of the volcano have enabled scientists to collect a wealth of data.

📅 2026-11-03 19:20:06    •    Phys.org
Pregnant mandrill monkeys are more likely to miscarry when also nursing an infant
Science News

Pregnant mandrill monkeys are more likely to miscarry when also nursing an infant

Female mandrills are more likely to experience pregnancy loss when they are simultaneously nursing an infant, which may reflect a physiological trade-off between current and future offspring, according to a study by Nikolaos Smit at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany, and the University of Turku, Finland, and colleagues, published in PLOS Biology.

📅 2026-11-03 19:00:15    •    Phys.org
Cold without consequences? Short-term climate fluctuations appear to have had less impact on early farmers
Science News

Cold without consequences? Short-term climate fluctuations appear to have had less impact on early farmers

Cold conditions may not have been responsible for the centuries-long pause in the spread of farming across south-eastern Europe during prehistory, according to a new study by the Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA) in Germany, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Researchers found no evidence of extreme cold at the Greek archaeological site of Franchthi, nor any statistically significant link between local temperature fluctuations and changes in how people obtained their food.

📅 2026-11-03 18:40:22    •    Phys.org