Maybe there's just a hell of a lot of new words blasting out of the science cannon these days, this seems like a lot.
100 years of menus show how food can be used as a diplomatic tool to make and break political alliances
Nov 2025, phys.org
Gastronationalism - using food to create specific psychological effects and convey symbolic messages, to facilitate diplomatic negotiations, cultural exchange, and political messaging
via Basque Culinary Center: Power for dinner. Culinary diplomacy and geopolitical aspects in Portuguese diplomatic tables (1910-2023), Frontiers in Political Science (2025). DOI: 10.3389/fpos.2025.1669350
Sugars, ‘Gum,’ Stardust Found in NASA's Asteroid Bennu Samples
Dec 2025, NASA
Space Gum - polymer-like material rich in nitrogen and oxygen and never seen before in space rocks; could have helped set the stage on Earth for the ingredients of life to emerge; the same kinds of chemical groups that occur in polyurethane on Earth, making this material from Bennu something akin to a ‘space plastic.’
via NASA and NASA’s OSIRIS-REx: Furukawa, Y., Sunami, S., Takano, Y. et al. Bio-essential sugars in samples from asteroid Bennu. Nat. Geosci. 19, 19–24 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-025-01838-6
Pleasant-sounding words are easier to remember, pseudoword experiment shows
Dec 2025, phys.org
Artificial Pseudowords - non-words with no meaning (e.g., clisious, smanious, drikious); used in a scientific study about whether words have aesthetic qualities or not
via University of Vienna: Theresa Matzinger et al, Phonemic composition influences words' aesthetic appeal and memorability, PLOS One (2025). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0336597
The hexatic phase: Ultra-thin 2D materials in a state between solid and liquid observed for the first time
Dec 2025, phys.org
Hexatic Phase - When a material becomes so thin that it is practically two-dimensional, the rules of melting change dramatically. Between the solid and liquid phases, a new, exotic intermediate phase of matter can arise, known as the "hexatic phase." Ultra-thin, two-dimensional materials enabled researchers to directly observe atomic-scale melting processes. Surprisingly, the observations contradict previous predictions.
via University of Vienna: Thuy An Bui et al, Hexatic phase in covalent two-dimensional silver iodide, Science (2025). DOI: 10.1126/science.adv7915.
Urban birds' beak shape rapidly changed during COVID-19 lockdowns, suggesting human-driven transformations
Dec 2025, phys.org
Anthropause - The period of global slowdown caused by COVID-19 lockdowns; it gave scientists a rare chance to see how animals physically changed when human activity suddenly decreased. (This isn't exactly new but I'm making sure you have it on your list)
via UCLA: Eleanor S. Diamant et al, Rapid morphological change in an urban bird due to COVID-19 restrictions, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2520996122
Feral AI gossip with the potential to spread damage and shame will become more frequent, researchers warn
Dec 2025, phys.org
Feral AI Gossip AKA Bot-to-Bot Gossip - After publishing an article about how emotionally manipulative chatbots can be, the New York Times reporter Kevin Roose found out chatbots were describing his writing as sensational and accusing him of poor journalistic ethics and being unscrupulous. Other AI bots have falsely detailed people's involvement in bribery, embezzlement, and sexual harassment. These gossipy AI-generated outputs cause real-world harms - reputational damage, shame, and social unrest. It's particularly dangerous, because it operates unconstrained by the social norms that moderate human gossip. (In the actual article, they define "feral" as being unconstrained by the communicative norms and evaluative standards of human-to-human gossip.)
via University of Exeter: Joel Krueger et al, AI gossip, Ethics and Information Technology (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s10676-025-09871-0 [personal note these authors use the word bullshit a little to informally for an academic paper, "these bullshit generators"
First breathing 'lung-on-chip' developed using genetically identical cells
Dec 2025, phys.org
Lung on a Chip - Shit is moving fast; not only is it a lung on a chip, it's a breathing lung on a chip.
via The Francis Crick Institute: Chak Hon Luk et al, Autologous human iPSC-derived Alveolus-on-Chip reveals early pathological events of M. tuberculosis infection, Science Advances (2026). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aea9874.
How a miniature womb on a chip can help women struggling to conceive
Jan 2026, phys.org
Womb on a Chip - you heard it boys; AKA "endometrioids" (via "organ-oids"), human uterine cells embedded into layers of a special gel, then placed in a microfluidic chip that circulates nutrients and mimics the complex environment of the human uterus
via Chinese Academy of Sciences: Qian Li et al, A 3D in vitro model for studying human implantation and implantation failure, Cell (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2025.10.026
How AI is distorting online research, from polls to public policy
Feb 2026, phys.org
Paradata - typing speed, keystrokes and copy–paste behavior; can be analyzed as response patterns and behavioral patterns to identify non-human poll-response aka poll fraud, and which compromises much scientific data, like for example where some researchers hire Mechanical Turkers to complete a survey, but because Mechanical Turk was bought by Amazon, and they don't give a shit about either their products or their users, they let it go to shit and be overtaken by robots, Moldovan-bankrolled robots, or whatever. Bottom line is we can't tell the difference anymore and "all the data is contaminated"
via IMT School for Advanced Studies Lucca and University of Cambridge: Folco Panizza et al, How to deal with the survey-taking AI agents that threaten to upend social science, Nature (2026). DOI: 10.1038/d41586-026-00386-2
Space mining without heavy machines? Microbes harvest metals from meteorites aboard space station
Feb 2026, phys.org
Biomining - Microorganisms such as bacteria and fungi can harvest crucial minerals from rocks and could provide a sustainable alternative to transporting much-needed resources from Earth; an experiment conducted aboard the International Space Station found "biomining" fungi particularly adept at extracting palladium from a meteorite in microgravity
via Cornell and University of Edinburgh: Rosa Santomartino et al, Microbial biomining from asteroidal material onboard the international space station, npj Microgravity (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41526-026-00567-3
Increase of AI bots on the Internet sparks arms race
Feb 2026, Ars Technica
GEO - generative engine optimization (the new SEO)
Light-guided 'optovolution' evolves proteins that switch states on schedule
Mar 2026, phys.org
Optovolution - uses light to guide the evolution of proteins with dynamic, multi‑state, and computational functions - making yes-or-no decisions based on specific rules
via EPFL Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne Laboratory of the Physics of Biological Systems: Light-directed evolution of dynamic, multi-state, and computational protein functionalities., Cell (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2026.02.002
Forest soil on doormats rebalances urban homes' indoor microbiome, study suggests
Mar 2026, phys.org
FaRMI Farm-home Resembling Microbiota Index - previously associated with lower asthma risk, and bacterial diversity increased, and the proportion of human-associated bacteria decreased.
via University of Eastern Finland: Martin Täubel et al, Environmental microbiota transfer from forest soil into urban homes: a proof-of-principle study, Microbiome (2026). DOI: 10.1186/s40168-026-02352-6
Lab-grown pineal gland organoids produce melatonin, offering a new sleep model
Apr 2026, phys.org
Assembloid - two or more types of organoids linked together, via the new Pineal organoids you see floating around these days
via Yale University: Ferdi Ridvan Kiral et al, Generation of human pineal gland organoids with melatonin production for disease modeling, Cell Stem Cell (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2025.12.004
Post Script:
What do we call fingerprints for robots? Like "these words have 'robot' written all over them"?
The telltale words that could identify generative AI text
Jan 2026, Ars Technica
Researchers were inspired by the way we can measure excess deaths from COVID, in this case measuring excess words that shouldn't be there. Here's a few from the list:
- delves
- showcasing
- underscores
(They don't mention it here, but I heard "nestled" is found in prpoperty listings.)
The rest are overwhelmingly “style words” like verbs, adjectives, and adverbs:
- across
- additionally
- comprehensive
- crucial
- enhancing
- exhibited
- insights
- notably
- particularly
- within
via University of Tubingen and Northwestern University; preprint: Delving into LLM-assisted writing in biomedical publications through excess vocabulary. Dmitry Kobak. [Submitted on 11 Jun 2024 (v1), last revised 3 Jul 2025 (this version, v5)] https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2406.07016
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