EurekAlert! News by Subject: Chemistry & Physics

Chemistry & Physics

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 1-Nov-2026 22:15 ET (2-Nov-2026 03:15 GMT/UTC)

21-Jul-2026

2026 Optica Fellow: It’s a good look for electrical and computer engineering professor Andreas Beling

University of Virginia School of Engineering and Applied Science
Grant and Award Announcement

America’s optics community has honored the speedy, powerful contributions of a UVA electrical and computer engineer.

21-Jul-2026

New technique enables LIGO to peer farther into the distant universe

University of California - Riverside
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Scientists at the University of California, Riverside have developed a new way to help gravitational-wave observatories see farther into the universe by solving one of their biggest challenges: tiny heat-induced distortions in the massive mirrors at the heart of the detectors.

Journal: Classical and Quantum Gravity

21-Jul-2026

New research sheds light on Texas hill country floods

American Meteorological Society
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Two papers published in AMS journals find that experimental models skillfully predict 2025’s disastrous Texas floods, and detail why flooding was so extreme near Camp Mystic.

Journal: Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society

21-Jul-2026

SwRI, UT San Antonio-led experiment designated ready to fly by NASA

Southwest Research Institute
Business Announcement

SAN ANTONIO — July 21, 2026 — A Southwest Research Institute and University of Texas at San Antonio experiment has passed a critical NASA review, designating it ready for parabolic flight testing. The two institutions will evaluate the performance of a patent-pending electrolyzer, the Mars Atmospheric Reactor for Synthesis of Consumables (MARS-C), in partial gravity environments.

21-Jul-2026

Diffuse puffs of “missing” matter surround most galaxies

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers with the CHIME/FRB Collaboration found that diffuse “puffs” of ordinary matter fill the vast spaces between galaxies. The findings help explain why physicists’ estimates of the amount of visible matter in the universe are much larger than what we know exists within stars and galaxies.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

21-Jul-2026

Nanoplastics found in Antarctic soils for the first time

Lancaster University
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Sampling by an international team of researchers led by scientists at Lancaster University uncovered the presence of nanoplastics (less than a micrometer in diameter) in the soils of the McMurdo Dry Valleys – a particularly remote and ice-free region of Antarctica.

Journal: Scientific Reports

21-Jul-2026

Baccarella wins $750,000 NASA Early Career Faculty Award

University of Tennessee at Knoxville
Grant and Award Announcement

Damiano Baccarella, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has received a $750,000 NASA Early Career Faculty Award to further his research on the extreme environments that hypersonic spacecraft and missiles encounter during atmospheric re-entry.

21-Jul-2026

Shaking atoms to bring black-hole quantum chaos into the lab

Université libre de Bruxelles
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Physicists have discovered a surprisingly simple way to reproduce one of the most fascinating models in modern physics—linked to black holes, quantum chaos, and exotic electronic materials—using ultracold atoms trapped in light.

Journal: Physical Review Letters

21-Jul-2026

Just and public alternatives exist in the Basque Country for advancing towards energy self-sufficiency

University of the Basque Country
Peer-Reviewed Publication

According to the research published in the journal Utilities Policy, for the Basque Country to achieve energy self-sufficiency by 2050, in a just, public and independent manner, it would have to reduce energy consumption by 51% and increase regional generation of renewable energy by 386%. The research, carried out by Ortzi Akizu and Erlantz Lizundia of the LCTG group at the EHU, Martin Lallana at LAB and Unai Pascual at BC3, aims to promote debate on the current energy model.

Journal: Utilities Policy