https://phys.org/ en-us Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine. A team of marine biologists, environmental researchers and land management specialists affiliated with several institutions in Australia, working with a colleague from Canada, has conducted a study of the ecological impact of a huge rise in the population of saltwater crocodiles in Australia's Northern Territories. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-rapidly-population-crocs-impacting-australia.html Plants & Animals Fri, 14 Mar 2025 12:23:05 EDT news661173781 Before heading out to do their fieldwork, Dr. Stephanie Collins, Jing Lu and their team would scan the horizon, get tips from local residents and check a whiteboard at the research station in Churchill, Manitoba, where they had settled in to do their research. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-polar-poop-future-vulnerable-northern.html Plants & Animals Mon, 02 Dec 2024 12:24:53 EST news652364689 A new study has revealed alarming gaps in the implementation of conservation interventions for thousands of the world's most threatened species. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-world-threatened-species-lack-evidence.html Ecology Wed, 05 Jun 2024 11:35:04 EDT news636806102 Plant life first emerged on land about 550 million years ago, and an international research team co-led by University of Nebraska–Lincoln computational biologist Yanbin Yin has cracked the genomic code of its humble beginnings, which made possible all other terrestrial life on Earth, including humans. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-international-team-genomic-code-earliest.html Evolution Thu, 02 May 2024 12:53:20 EDT news633873196 Many animals, including apex predators, move in groups. We know this collective behavior is fundamental to the animal's ability to move in complex environments, but less is known about what drives the behavior because many factors underlie its evolution. Scientists wonder, though, if all these animals share a fundamental drive, such as for mating, safety, or perhaps even to save energy. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-energetic-secrets-animal-movement-group.html Ecology Tue, 20 Feb 2024 15:05:03 EST news627663901 For millions of years, a variety of large herbivores, or megafauna, influenced terrestrial ecosystems. Among many others, these included elephants in Europe, giant wombats in Australia, and ground sloths in South America. However, these animals experienced a wave of extinctions coinciding with the worldwide expansion of humans, leading to dramatic but still not fully understood changes in ecosystems. Even the survivors of these extinctions strongly declined, and many are currently threatened with extinction. https://phys.org/news/2024-02-global-wild-megafauna-ecosystem-properties.html Plants & Animals Fri, 09 Feb 2024 05:00:02 EST news626630775 The devastating tsunami that hit Japan in March 2011 set off a series of events which have long fascinated scientists like me. It was so powerful that it caused 5 million tons of debris to wash into the Pacific—1.5 million tons remained afloat and started drifting with the currents. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-animal-traits-journey-species-globe.html Plants & Animals Wed, 18 Oct 2023 12:30:01 EDT news616850658 A trio of biologists and environmental scientists, two with the University of Fribourg and the third with the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, has found that fully aquatic mammals, such as whales and porpoises, are very unlikely to evolve back into land animals. In their study, reported in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, B. M. Farina, S. Faurby and D. Silvestro conducted phylogenetic analyses of more than 5,000 mammalian species. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-phylogenetic-analysis-fully-aquatic-mammals.html Evolution Tue, 18 Jul 2023 10:10:09 EDT news608893804 Islands are "laboratories of evolution" and home to animal species with many unique features, including dwarfs that evolved to very small sizes compared to their mainland relatives, and giants that evolved to large sizes. https://phys.org/news/2023-03-insular-dwarfs-giants-extinct-islands.html Evolution Thu, 09 Mar 2023 14:00:08 EST news597579272 The rise of tetrapods (four-limbed vertebrates) is one of the iconic evolutionary transitions preserved in the fossil record. These animals, which lived about 385 to 320 million years ago during the Devonian and Carboniferous periods of Earth's history, set the stage for the evolution and diversification of all other terrestrial vertebrates as we know them today, including amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals like humans. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-fossil-bone-reveals-rapid-juvenile.html Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 28 Nov 2022 05:00:01 EST news588831852 When tadpoles become frogs, their body shape isn't all that changes. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-frog-lenses-differently-environment-adults.html Plants & Animals Wed, 16 Nov 2022 09:52:26 EST news587814740 An extinct reptile's oddly shaped chompers, fingers, and ear bones may tell us quite a bit about the resilience of life on Earth, according to a new study. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-reptile-bones-earth-perilous.html Paleontology & Fossils Sat, 01 Oct 2022 02:20:04 EDT news583809564 An international study led by the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) and the Department of Prehistory at the UAB has reconstructed the diets of pre-Columbian groups on the Amazon coast of Brazil, showing that tropical agroforestry was regionally variable. https://phys.org/news/2020-10-diet-pre-columbian-societies-brazilian-amazon.html Archaeology Tue, 06 Oct 2020 13:43:36 EDT news521210614 Imagine taking a hike through a forest or a stroll through a zoo and not a sound fills the air, other than the occasional chirp from a cricket. No birds singing, no tigers roaring, no monkeys chattering, and no human voices, either. Acoustic communication among vertebrate animals is such a familiar experience that it seems impossible to imagine a world shrouded in silence. https://phys.org/news/2020-01-evolution-acoustic.html Evolution Fri, 17 Jan 2020 05:00:02 EST news498456429 The protection of Australia's threatened species could be improved by a factor of seven, if more efficient 'umbrella' species were prioritized for protection, according to University of Queensland research. https://phys.org/news/2020-01-umbrella-species-massively.html Plants & Animals Tue, 07 Jan 2020 07:39:43 EST news497605181 In what is likely the first study to look at how dietary preferences evolved across the animal kingdom, UA researchers looked at more than a million species, going back 800 million years. The team reports several unexpected discoveries, including that the first animal likely was a carnivore and that humans, along with other omnivores, belong to a rare breed. https://phys.org/news/2019-08-paleozoic-diet-animals.html Plants & Animals Thu, 22 Aug 2019 09:34:44 EDT news485685274 Researchers for the first time have documented the killing of millions of animals in Brazil's Amazon Basin for their hides following the collapse of the Rubber Boom in the 20th century, causing the collapse of some aquatic species. https://phys.org/news/2016-10-documents-staggering-loss-wildlife-amazon.html Ecology Wed, 12 Oct 2016 17:15:28 EDT news395511318 An international team led by researchers from the Evolutionary Studies Institute (ESI) at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, has obtained an age from rocks of the Great Karoo that shed light on the timing of a mass extinction event that occurred around 260 million years ago. https://phys.org/news/2015-07-mass-extinction-event-south-africa.html Archaeology Tue, 07 Jul 2015 20:00:01 EDT news355486101 A 350-million-year-old fossilised scorpion discovered in South Africa is the oldest known land animal to have lived on Gondwana, part of Earth's former supercontinent, a university said Monday. https://phys.org/news/2013-09-oldest-gondwana-creature.html Archaeology Mon, 02 Sep 2013 16:08:25 EDT news297356889 The planet is undergoing one of the largest changes in climate since the dinosaurs went extinct. But what might be even more troubling for humans, plants and animals is the speed of the change. Stanford climate scientists warn that the likely rate of change over the next century will be at least 10 times quicker than any climate shift in the past 65 million years. https://phys.org/news/2013-08-climate-faster-million-years.html Environment Thu, 01 Aug 2013 14:00:19 EDT news294576508 With sea ice at its lowest point in 1,500 years, how might ecological communities in the Arctic be affected by its continued and even accelerated melting over the next decades? In a review article in the journal Science, to be published on 2 August 2013, Eric Post, a Penn State University professor of biology, and an international team of scientists tackle this question by examining relationships among algae, plankton, whales, and terrestrial animals such as caribou, arctic foxes, and walrus; as well as the effects of human exploration of previously inaccessible parts of the region. https://phys.org/news/2013-08-arctic-sea-ice-loss-widespread-effects.html Ecology Thu, 01 Aug 2013 14:00:05 EDT news294575939 New research has revealed that the evolution of the complex, weight-bearing hips of walking animals from the basic hips of fish was a much simpler process than previously thought. https://phys.org/news/2013-05-ocean-fishy-hips.html Evolution Tue, 14 May 2013 06:32:27 EDT news287731936 More than 200 million years ago, a massive extinction decimated 76 percent of marine and terrestrial species, marking the end of the Triassic period and the onset of the Jurassic. This devastating event cleared the way for dinosaurs to dominate Earth for the next 135 million years, taking over ecological niches formerly occupied by other marine and terrestrial species. https://phys.org/news/2013-03-huge-widespread-volcanic-eruptions-triggered.html Earth Sciences Fri, 22 Mar 2013 10:30:01 EDT news283165172 A new fossil discovered in Tunisia represents the oldest known ancestor of modern-day sea cows, supporting the African origins of these marine mammals. The find is described in research published January 16 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Julien Benoit and colleagues from the University of Science and Technology in Montpellier, France. https://phys.org/news/2013-01-earliest-sea-cow-ancestors-africa.html Archaeology Wed, 16 Jan 2013 17:00:05 EST news277577856 The climate after the largest mass extinction so far 252 million years ago was cool, later very warm and then cool again. Thanks to the cooler temperatures, the diversity of marine fauna ballooned, as paleontologists from the University of Zurich have reconstructed. The warmer climate, coupled with a high CO2 level in the atmosphere, initially gave rise to new, short-lived species. In the longer term, however, this climate change had an adverse effect on biodiversi-ty and caused species to become extinct. https://phys.org/news/2012-12-ups-downs-biodiversity-mass-extinction.html Earth Sciences Fri, 21 Dec 2012 12:51:27 EST news275316651 (Phys.org)—Small mammal populations across Europe were wiped out multiple times during the last Ice Age, due to an inability to deal with rapid climate change, according the research published today in the journal Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2012-11-lemmings-ice-age-climate.html Plants & Animals Tue, 27 Nov 2012 08:50:03 EST news273227668 A study into the muscle development of several different fish has given insights into the genetic leap that set the scene for the evolution of hind legs in terrestrial animals. This innovation gave rise to the tetrapods—four-legged creatures, and our distant ancestors—that made the first small steps on land some 400 million years ago. https://phys.org/news/2011-10-lungfish-insight-life.html Plants & Animals Tue, 04 Oct 2011 17:27:47 EDT news236968057 (PhysOrg.com) -- A University of Florida study demonstrates extinction's ripple effect through the animal kingdom, including how the demise of large mammals 20,000 years ago led to the disappearance of one species of cowbird. https://phys.org/news/2011-03-fossil-bird-ripple-effect-extinction.html Archaeology Mon, 07 Mar 2011 13:20:01 EST news218724544 (PhysOrg.com) -- The world's rivers, the single largest renewable water resource for humans and a crucible of aquatic biodiversity, are in a crisis of ominous proportions, according to a new global analysis. https://phys.org/news/2010-09-world-rivers-crisis-state.html Environment Wed, 29 Sep 2010 13:19:05 EDT news204985121 Evidence for life on Earth stretches back billions of years, with simple single-celled organisms like bacteria dominating the record. When multi-celled animal life appeared on the planet after 3 billion years of single cell organisms, animals diversified rapidly. https://phys.org/news/2009-07-earliest-animals-lake-environment.html Archaeology Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:10:03 EDT news167934327