Physical Review X · 29 July 2026 · From issue 14

One photo of a drop breaking apart can reveal a liquid's thickness and stickiness.

Jingtao Wang, Qiwei Chen et al., Predicting Liquid Properties and Behavior via Droplet Pinch-off and Machine Learning, Physical Review X.

Integrity screen: passed (3 checks) Checked 13 August 2026. Read the source

The plain-language reading of this paper is in the full issue, for subscribers.

Read the full issue

Get it free, every two days

Five papers free every issue, about 15 emails a month. No spam. Leave in one click.

Also in issue 14 15 papers

Fat filled immune cells inside liver tumors help cancer resist a common immunotherapy drug.
Nature Communications
Counting mutated gene copies, not just their presence, predicts cancer survival and spread patterns.
Nature Genetics
Parents pay 60% more for teen AI tools when they think peers already use them.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Air and river heatwaves now strike together nearly three times more often than in the 1980s.
Nature Geoscience
In lab tests, redesigned fungus-fighting drugs worked better and harmed cells less.
Nature
Giant African herbivores declined mainly because new species stopped forming, not from faster dying out.
Nature Communications
People decide by checking if their current choice is still good enough, not by comparing all options.
Nature Communications
In lab experiments, a cell pump held its fuel molecule for about 300 milliseconds, longer than expected.
eLife
In mice, boosting one brain cell type stopped seizures and fixed social problems together.
Science Advances
In yeast, a modified energy sensor kept aging cells fit instead of declining.
eLife
Two neighboring supernova remnants, not a mystery object, produce a puzzling burst of gamma rays.
The Astrophysical Journal
In lab whiteflies, one cell protein controls both insecticide resistance and egg production.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
In mice and rats, helper proteins limit how much a stretched muscle grows longer.
eLife
Blocking antibodies in myasthenia gravis patients raised the risk of severe COVID pneumonia up to 12 times.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences