Next month, thousands of scientists from around the world will convene to share new research results from across physics at the American Physical Society’s Global Physics Summit. The conference will be held in Denver and online everywhere March 15-20.

Our Milky Way galaxy may not have a supermassive black hole at its centre but rather an enormous clump of mysterious dark matter exerting the same gravitational influence, astronomers say. They believe this invisible substance – which makes up most of the universe's mass – can explain both the violent dance of stars just light-hours (often used to measure distances within our own solar system) away from the galactic centre and the gentle, large-scale rotation of the entire matter in the outskirts of the Milky Way. The new study has been published today in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS).

Some polymers react to their environment with conformational changes: one of these is the polymer PNIPAM, short for poly(N-isopropylacrylamide). It is water-soluble below around 32 degrees Celsius, but above this temperature it precipitates and becomes hydrophobic. This qualifies it for smart sensor applications. But what actually happens between PNIPAM and the solvent water? Researchers at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, and the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign collaborated with sound production specialists from Symbolic Sound Corporation to investigate this question. Using sound representation, they were able to decipher the interaction of water molecules with PNIPAM for the first time. They report their findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences PNAS on February 4, 2026.

Peking University, February 9, 2026: Modern technologies increasingly rely on light sources that can be reconfigured on demand. Think of microlasers that can quickly switch between different operating states—much like a car shifting gears—so that an optical chip can route signals, perform computations, or adapt to changing conditions in real time.

Scientists have identified the molecular interactions that give spider silk its exceptional strength and flexibility, opening the door to new bio-inspired materials for aircraft, protective clothing and medical applications, and even advancing our understanding of neurological conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease.