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. Deep beneath the Earth's surface, in the pores and crevices of rock, live huge communities of microorganisms. They are invisible to the naked eye—yet they play a central role in the quality of our groundwater and in global cycles of matter. A research team led by Dr. Martin Taubert from the Cluster of Excellence "Balance of the Microverse" at the University of Jena has shown that life in the subsurface follows two fundamentally different strategies—with far-reaching consequences for environmental research and practice. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-microorganisms-surfaces-groundwater.html Ecology Mon, 02 Feb 2026 15:39:40 EST news689269079 Corals obtain energy in two ways: firstly, through photosynthesis by their symbiotic algae, and secondly by taking up small food particles such as plankton directly from the water. In scientific terms, this process is known as "heterotrophy." https://phys.org/news/2025-12-corals-energy-ingested-food-previously.html Plants & Animals Mon, 15 Dec 2025 15:37:38 EST news685035421 Australia's national science agency, CSIRO, together with its Australian National Soil Information System (ANSIS) partners, has launched a new online tool that makes soil data and information easier to access and interpret—helping farmers, land managers and policy makers better manage soil health and sustainability. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-tool-complex-soil-visual-insights.html Biotechnology Thu, 04 Dec 2025 09:58:22 EST news684064682 A team led by LMU researchers shows why CO₂ fluxes from land use are so difficult to quantify—and how they can be estimated more accurately in the future. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-carbon-emissions.html Earth Sciences Fri, 07 Nov 2025 13:00:01 EST news681742694 Just as the human body contains a multitude of symbiotic microbial companions, most plant species also live alongside microbial friends. Among these companions are mycorrhizal fungi, which help plants gather water and nutrients—particularly nitrogen—from the soil. In exchange, plants provide mycorrhizal fungi with an average of 3% to 13% of the carbon they pull from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and sometimes as much as 50%. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-fungi-friendships-soil-co8322.html Plants & Animals Wed, 22 Oct 2025 14:50:03 EDT news680363401 Burning fossil fuels has elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide, causing massive changes in the global climate including extreme temperatures and weather events here in the Midwest. Meanwhile, human activities have increased the amount of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus in grasslands and forests. These are the elements in fertilizer that make lawns greener and farmland more productive. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-croplands-carbon-storage.html Earth Sciences Mon, 20 Oct 2025 13:14:03 EDT news680184841 When farmland is abandoned and allowed to return to nature, forests and grasslands naturally regrow and absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere—helping fight climate change. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-forest-regeneration-climate-benefits-wont.html Earth Sciences Mon, 20 Oct 2025 12:20:04 EDT news680178894 Companies that are more sensitive to temperature changes are consistently overvalued and deliver lower-than-expected returns. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-firms-sensitive-temperatures-stock.html Economics & Business Mon, 20 Oct 2025 11:36:03 EDT news680178961 A new study has challenged the long-standing assumption that global warming will inevitably turn humid subtropical forests into carbon sources, revealing these ecosystems may instead continue accumulating soil carbon under moderate temperature rises. The study was published in One Earth on Oct. 6. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-moderate-doom-humid-subtropical-forests.html Earth Sciences Mon, 13 Oct 2025 11:52:03 EDT news679575121 Carbon is the chemical element found in the greenhouse gas CO₂ emitted from fossil fuels burned in cars, factories and other sources. When carbon is stored in the ocean instead of remaining in the atmosphere, it helps to reduce climate change on land. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-fish-affect-carbon-storage-ocean.html Ecology Tue, 07 Oct 2025 12:33:03 EDT news679059181 A research team from the Institute of Applied Ecology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has developed a novel framework to evaluate the soil microbial carbon pump (MCP), offering new insights into long-term carbon sequestration and sustainable soil management. The study, led by Drs. Liang Chao and Zhu Xuefeng, was published in Soil Biology and Biochemistry. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-scientists-framework-soil-microbial-carbon.html Ecology Thu, 25 Sep 2025 08:50:04 EDT news678009002 When we walk into a forest, we often think less about the shade or the silence and more about the invisible work trees do—pulling carbon dioxide out of the air and storing it in their trunks, roots and soils. Forests are our oldest, most reliable carbon banks. Yet, when we dove into the data, we realized something unsettling: The financial systems designed to reward forests for this service often undervalue them. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-global-forests-vast-carbon-wealth.html Environment Wed, 27 Aug 2025 08:00:01 EDT news675428785 Researchers at the University of Sharjah have developed an innovative method to transform shrimp waste, which is typically discarded in large quantities by the seafood industry, into a valuable carbon product capable of capturing carbon dioxide (CO₂). https://phys.org/news/2025-08-scientists-sustainable-carbon-capture-shrimp.html Materials Science Tue, 26 Aug 2025 04:28:15 EDT news675401284 Human activities, such as deforestation and the expansion of agricultural areas, have a massive impact on the natural state of ecosystems. As a result, large amounts of carbon are released into the atmosphere, contributing substantially to anthropogenic climate change. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-human-natural-carbon-stocks.html Earth Sciences Mon, 18 Aug 2025 14:01:09 EDT news674744466 Forests cover about 40% of the EU's land area. Between 1990 and 2022, they absorbed around 10% of the continent's man-made carbon emissions. However, the carbon dioxide absorption capacity of forests, also known as carbon sinks, is becoming increasingly weaker. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-climate-carbon-eu-forests-declining.html Earth Sciences Fri, 01 Aug 2025 09:30:01 EDT news673258490 Methane is a potent greenhouse gas with a much stronger short-term effect on warming than carbon dioxide. Over the near-term (20 years), 1 ton of methane has the warming effect of up to 84 tons of carbon dioxide, while over a hundred years, 1 ton of methane has the warming effect of about 28 tons of carbon dioxide. For this reason, controlling methane emissions is a high priority in limiting warming. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-high-resolution-satellite-remote-reveals.html Earth Sciences Wed, 30 Jul 2025 09:24:03 EDT news673086241 A new study led by Teagasc has highlighted the critical relationship between the drainage status of peat soils and localized rainfall in water table management. These findings will be critical in identifying and targeting suitable sites for water table management, and ultimately maximizing carbon storage potential in agricultural grassland peat soils. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-bogs-fens-nature-carbon-vaults.html Environment Tue, 29 Jul 2025 09:32:24 EDT news673000339 A new study delivers a stark warning that Central Asia has overshot its environmental safety limits concerning land footprint and biosphere integrity. The study, led by Prof. Duan Weili from the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, provides a comprehensive sustainability assessment and identifies Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan as priority areas for environmental management. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-central-asia-extreme-unsustainability-biosphere.html Earth Sciences Tue, 01 Jul 2025 16:49:03 EDT news670607341 Scientists have discovered that changes in climate and water levels are reducing the ability of some ecosystems in the Everglades to sequester carbon, while the environmental shifts are enhancing the potential for carbon uptake by scrub mangroves. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-everglades-ecosystems-reactions-sea.html Earth Sciences Mon, 30 Jun 2025 16:37:03 EDT news670520221 Years after wildfires burn forests and watersheds, the contaminants left behind continue to poison rivers and streams across the Western U.S.—much longer than scientists estimated. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-wildfires-threaten-quality-years.html Earth Sciences Mon, 23 Jun 2025 09:10:07 EDT news669888601 Ecosystem responses to global change are often nonlinear. Ecological thresholds are tipping points beyond which small changes in environmental conditions can have disproportionate effects on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning. Such changes in climate—drought, rising temperatures, etc.—are caused by human activities, including land use intensification. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-grassland-ecosystems-abrupt-nitrogen-fertilization.html Plants & Animals Mon, 16 Jun 2025 15:18:03 EDT news669305881 Forests once hailed as reliable carbon sinks are rapidly becoming "super‑emitters" as record‑breaking wildfires sweep boreal, Amazonian, and Australian landscapes. Today's climate policies and voluntary carbon markets seldom account for the sharp rise in fire‑driven emissions. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-frequent-large-scale-wildfires-forests.html Earth Sciences Thu, 22 May 2025 13:22:10 EDT news667138924 A conversation between a Tasmanian farmer and a researcher at the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture (TIA) about the real cost of achieving net-zero emissions led to a multi-year study. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-real-net-emissions-australia-livestock.html Agriculture Tue, 13 May 2025 10:24:04 EDT news666350641 As the new Biomass satellite settles into life in orbit following its launch on April 29, ESA has released its most extensive satellite-based maps of above-ground forest carbon to date. Spanning nearly two decades, the dataset offers the clearest global picture yet of how forest carbon stocks have changed over time. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-esa-unveils-longest-dataset-forest.html Earth Sciences Mon, 05 May 2025 15:57:04 EDT news665679421 Snowfall in Asia's Hindu Kush-Himalayan mountain range has reached a 23-year low, threatening nearly two billion people dependent on snowmelt for water, scientists warned in a report on Monday. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-himalayan-year-threatening-billion-people.html Environment Mon, 21 Apr 2025 12:40:01 EDT news664457573 A century of fire suppression, combined with global warming and drought, has led to increasingly destructive wildfires in the Western United States. Forest managers use tools like prescribed burns, thinning, mastication, and piling and burning to reduce fuel—live and dead trees, needles and leaves, and downed branches—that can feed intense wildfires. These methods aim to lower fuel levels, reduce crown density, and protect fire-resistant trees, fostering healthier, more resilient forests. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-harvesting-dead-wood-wildfires-carbon.html Earth Sciences Wed, 26 Feb 2025 10:20:04 EST news659787601 As wildfires relentlessly sweep across Southern California and other parts of the world, Manzhu Yu, an assistant professor of geography at Penn State, offered insights into the ongoing crisis in Los Angeles (LA). Her expertise lies in atmospheric modeling, environmental analytics, big data and cloud computing—fields that intersect closely with wildfire behavior, smoke prediction and exposure analysis. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-qa-solutions-california-wildfire-crisis.html Environment Mon, 20 Jan 2025 14:22:04 EST news656605321 A study explores how natural photochemical reactions can help degrade emerging contaminants in freshwater systems, specifically focusing on clofibric acid and diclofenac. The research highlights the contrasting effects of triplet sensitization and direct photolysis, providing new insights into how these processes can mitigate pollutant levels in lakes. The findings underscore the potential of photochemical reactions in supporting global efforts for water management and pollution control. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-sunlight-power-global-lake-pollution.html Environment Tue, 07 Jan 2025 16:49:04 EST news655490942 Researchers working in Africa warn against consultants promoting a single veld-burning strategy for carbon credits, urging caution for stakeholders. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-carbon-revenues-fuel-misguided-policies.html Environment Tue, 07 Jan 2025 11:02:40 EST news655470145 Extreme weather and record-breaking heat waves are becoming the new normal. Most people have begun to accept the seriousness of grim reports from the UN's climate panel and that climate change is a result of human activity. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-boardroom-diversity-affects-carbon-emissions.html Economics & Business Fri, 27 Dec 2024 09:00:01 EST news654512198