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. As early humans spread from lush African forests into grasslands, their need for ready sources of energy led them to develop a taste for grassy plants, especially grains and the starchy plant tissue hidden underground. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-diet-drove-physical-evolution-early.html Evolution Thu, 31 Jul 2025 14:00:09 EDT news673106169 About 2.5 billion years ago, free oxygen, or O2, first started to accumulate to meaningful levels in Earth's atmosphere, setting the stage for the rise of complex life on our evolving planet. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-earth-great-oxidation-event-million.html Earth Sciences Wed, 12 Jun 2024 11:00:01 EDT news637403221 In 2015, Gkuthaarn and Kukatj community members of Queensland's Gulf Country invited us to excavate, analyze, and rebury the skeletal remains of eight young Indigenous people who died near the town of Normanton in the late 1800s. https://phys.org/news/2023-05-isotope-analysis-stories-aboriginal-people.html Archaeology Mon, 01 May 2023 13:20:50 EDT news602166047 The recent Fagradalsfjall eruption in the southwest of Iceland has enthralled the whole world, including nature lovers and scientists alike. The eruption was especially important as it provided geologists with a unique opportunity to study magmas that were accumulated in a deep crustal magma reservoir but ultimately derived from the Earth's mantle (below 20 km). https://phys.org/news/2022-06-iceland-volcano-eruption-rare-window.html Earth Sciences Wed, 29 Jun 2022 11:02:03 EDT news575719320 When mineral-rich water drips from a cave's ceiling over centuries and millennia, it forms rocky cones that hold clues to the Earth's past climate. Now, researchers in Australia and the UK have found that these structures can also help trace past wildfires that burned above the cave. Their research is published today (21 July) in Hydrology and Earth System Sciences, an open access journal of the European Geosciences Union (EGU). https://phys.org/news/2016-07-clues-cave-dripwater-wildfire-signatures.html Earth Sciences Thu, 21 Jul 2016 04:22:00 EDT news388293621 (Phys.org)—By studying the origins of different isotope ratios among the elements that make up today's smorgasbord of planets, moons, comets, asteroids, and interplanetary ice and dust, Mark Thiemens and his colleagues hope to learn how our solar system evolved. Thiemens, Dean of the Division of Physical Sciences at the University of California, San Diego, has worked on this problem for over three decades. https://phys.org/news/2013-02-solar-chemical-recipe.html Earth Sciences Wed, 20 Feb 2013 13:12:02 EST news280588310 For the African nation of Niger, the effect of seasonal atmospheric variability on the weather is poorly understood. Because most residents rely on local agriculture, improving the predictability of seasonal weather and precipitation availability is crucial. https://phys.org/news/2012-05-oxygen-isotopes-weather-niger.html Earth Sciences Thu, 17 May 2012 13:31:46 EDT news256480251 There have been instances in Earth history when average temperatures have changed rapidly, as much as 10 degrees Celsius (18 degrees Fahrenheit) over a few decades, and some have speculated the same could happen again as the atmosphere becomes overloaded with carbon dioxide. https://phys.org/news/2011-06-atmospheric-carbon-dioxide-buildup-abrupt.html Earth Sciences Mon, 20 Jun 2011 09:39:48 EDT news227781558 (PhysOrg.com) -- One major threat of planetary warming is the melting of the great polar ice sheets, and the resulting rise in global sea level. Particularly worrisome to researchers is the fragility of the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS), whose bed lies well below sea-level, accelerating the natural flow between the grounded ice sheet itself and the floating ice shelves that make up its boundary. https://phys.org/news/2009-08-documents-history-west-antarctic-ice.html Earth Sciences Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:00:03 EDT news170690352