A team at the University of Basel, Switzerland, has developed a versatile nanorobot with propulsion and payload modules. The two reusable modules autonomously self-assemble and could be used in medicine or industry.

Research led by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai along with Professor Subir Sarkar from the University of Oxford questions the widely accepted argument that the expansion rate of the universe is accelerating and that this is driven by ‘dark energy’ arising from the quantum vacuum. Their letter has been published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The findings divide opinion; in the same journal issue, a paper co-authored by Professor Maria Vincenzi also from the University of Oxford maintains that evidence does indeed point to the universe still accelerating.

Scientists at the Simon Foundation’s Flatiron Institute have modeled the strange dynamics of supersize fruit fly sperm, which swim about in a storage organ one-tenth the length of a single sperm. A new paper published June 22 in the journal Nature Physics shows how researchers combined mathematical models with more traditional biological approaches to find that, unlike human sperm, fruit fly sperm propel themselves off each other to create a slow collective churn.

A new study has uncovered a previously overlooked pathway linking road traffic pollution and cultivated crops. While plant uptake of tire wear-derived contaminants was already known, this study is among the first to show under environmentally realistic conditions that tire wear particles themselves act as short- and long-term sources of contamination, gradually released into soil. The research demonstrates that tire particles released due to tire abortion do not simply accumulate in the environment as microplastics; they also serve as reservoirs of toxic additives that may be released into the agricultural systems and potentially enter the food chain. The findings, published in Environmental Research, provide new insight into how everyday road traffic may contribute to contaminant exposure through food production.

SAN ANTONIO — June 22, 2026 —Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) scientists are using a solar wind forecasting method combined with analytic and numerical heliosphere models to find out where the first plasma boundary of the outer heliosphere lies as NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft hurtles toward this mysterious region of space.

Structural biology relies on advanced crystallographic platforms to obtain high-quality diffraction data from challenging samples. The BL18U1 microcrystallography beamline at the Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility (SSRF) demonstrates strong capability in beamline optics, microbeam delivery, multi-energy operation, integrated instrumentation, and anomalous diffraction experiments. Supporting protein crystals, small-molecule crystals, and other demanding samples, BL18U1 provides users with an efficient platform for high-quality data collection and has enabled the determination of a large number of high-quality crystal structures.