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. Imagine a glossy sustainability report from a global food giant. Green fields, smiling farmers, promises of climate neutrality. It looks great. But behind the façade lies an uncomfortable truth: the biggest environmental problems are hardly mentioned. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-food-companies-overlook-key-environmental.html Environment Thu, 18 Dec 2025 18:10:02 EST news685293614 One of the oldest unsolved riddles in planetary science concerns the origin of the moon. Over a century ago, George Darwin proposed that tidal and centrifugal forces on a rapidly rotating proto-Earth caused the moon to be spun off into an Earth orbit. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-moon-event-explosive-ejection-giant.html Astronomy Mon, 15 Dec 2025 09:00:32 EST news685011600 Food systems make up roughly 30% of total greenhouse gas emissions globally. But transforming them could cut these emissions by more than half, according to a report released Oct. 3 from a commission of global experts from more than 35 countries across six continents. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-sustainable-food-emissions.html Environment Sun, 12 Oct 2025 12:50:01 EDT news678973383 255 grams per week. That's the short answer to how much meat you can eat without harming the planet. And that only applies to poultry and pork. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-sustainable-diet-room-chicken-breasts.html Environment Tue, 22 Apr 2025 11:47:03 EDT news664541222 Planting fast-growing crops, burning them, capturing the released CO2 and storing it: this is being discussed as a way to remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and limit global heating to 1.5 degrees in the long term. But if this is done on land beyond existing agriculture, it endangers the stability of the biosphere. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-climate-plantations-strategy-hurdles-reveals.html Environment Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:23:15 EST news658599782 With eight billion people, we use a lot of the Earth's resources in ways that are likely unsustainable. Klaus Hubacek, Professor of Science, Technology and Society at the University of Groningen, the Netherlands, takes stock of the situation. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-planet-destroying-planetary-boundaries.html Environment Wed, 13 Nov 2024 12:36:48 EST news650723802 The Planetary Boundaries (PB) framework is a pivotal tool for tackling the climate crisis and safeguarding humanity's future on Earth. For the first time, the full story of the Planetary Boundaries is now being told from its beginning. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-planetary-boundaries-framework-gains-traction.html Environment Fri, 08 Nov 2024 11:48:59 EST news650288932 Today, humanity is not treating the Earth sustainably. Global warming, deforestation and a decline in biodiversity are causing problems for our planet. For many, this status quo leads to pessimism: Is it even possible to create an ecological and good life for all people on Earth? Empa researchers say yes. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-doughnut-good-ecological-life.html Environment Mon, 08 Jul 2024 14:34:04 EDT news639668041 Six of our nine planetary boundaries have now been crossed—and industrial agriculture are the main culprit. That is what a team of scientists under Johan Rockström reported in an article published in September.. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-industrial-agriculture-disturbing-nitrogen-undermining.html Ecology Thu, 04 Jan 2024 12:28:05 EST news623593681 Just as snow crystals form in the upper atmosphere, then fall to lower, warmer elevations and melt, scientists believe a phenomenon called iron snow happens in the molten iron cores of some planetary bodies. Cooling near the core-mantle boundary creates crystals of iron, which melt as they fall deeper into the hot core. This movement may create magnetic fields in some smaller bodies like Mercury and Jupiter's moon Ganymede, but its dynamics are not well known. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-iron-ebb-magnetic-fields.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 03 Jan 2024 09:43:03 EST news623497381 If you ever wondered what the weather might look like should global average temperatures rise 2C degrees above pre-industrial levels—the critical warming threshold the Paris Agreement seeks to prevent us from reaching—take your mind's eye back to Friday 17 November. That day, for the first time since records began, global surface air temperature briefly reached 2.07C above pre-industrial levels. While this does not mean that we have breached the global climate agreement's target, the frequency at which the mercury jumps over that line raises serious concern. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-sustainability-schemes-deployed-business-ineffective.html Economics & Business Mon, 04 Dec 2023 12:48:05 EST news620916481 As far as we know, there is exactly one planet in our solar system—and the galaxy—which hosts life. And you're on it. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-planetary-boundaries-important.html Earth Sciences Tue, 19 Sep 2023 12:08:04 EDT news614344082 Human activity and appetites have weakened Earth's resilience, pushing it far beyond the "safe operating space" that keeps the world livable for most species, including our own, a landmark study said Wednesday. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-humanity-deep-danger-zone-planetary.html Environment Sun, 17 Sep 2023 16:30:01 EDT news613841436 A new study updates the planetary boundary framework and shows human activities are increasingly impacting the planet and, thereby, increasing the risk of triggering dramatic changes in overall Earth conditions. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-planetary-boundaries-exceeded.html Earth Sciences Wed, 13 Sep 2023 14:00:01 EDT news613813091 Dunes, the mounds of sand formed by the wind that vary from ripples on the beach to towering behemoths in the desert, are incarnations of surface processes, climate change, and the surrounding atmosphere. For decades, scientists have puzzled over why they form different patterns. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-dune-patterns-reveal-environmental-earth.html Earth Sciences Wed, 02 Aug 2023 11:39:11 EDT news610195128 We have crossed six of the nine boundaries within which human life on Earth will still be possible for future generations. That is not good news. Can the tide still be turned? https://phys.org/news/2023-05-earth-unlivable-tide.html Environment Wed, 17 May 2023 15:35:03 EDT news603556501 Two geoscientists, one with Princeton University, the other with Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, have developed a theory to explain how helium-3 leaks from the Earth's core into the mantle. In their study, reported in the journal Nature Geoscience, Jie Deng and Zhixue Du used first-principle calculations to show that helium-3 could enter magnesium oxide at the core-mantle boundary, allowing its entry into the mantle. https://phys.org/news/2023-05-theory-helium-leaking-earth-core.html Earth Sciences Thu, 11 May 2023 09:32:51 EDT news603016366 Without phosphorus food cannot be produced, since all plants and animals need it to grow. Put simply: if there is no phosphorus, there is no life. As such, phosphorus-based fertilisers—it is the "P" in "NPK" fertiliser—have become critical to the global food system. https://phys.org/news/2022-12-phosphorus-disruptedwe-sleepwalking-global-food.html Agriculture Mon, 19 Dec 2022 15:39:58 EST news590686789 It has long been known that humanity is exceeding planetary boundaries for nitrogen use. Scientists have now mapped those exceedances regionally for the first time. Whereas countries in north-western Europe and parts of India and China are emitting far too much nitrogen, there is actually room for intensification of nitrogen use across much of Africa and South America. The research was published today in Nature. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-nitrogen-boundaries-exceeded-world-regions.html Earth Sciences Wed, 19 Oct 2022 11:56:21 EDT news585399375 For the first time, an international team of researchers has assessed the impact on the stability of the Earth system of the cocktail of synthetic chemicals and other "novel entities" flooding the environment. The 14 scientists conclude in the scientific journal Environmental Science and Technology that humanity has exceeded a planetary boundary related to environmental pollutants including plastics. https://phys.org/news/2022-01-safe-planetary-boundary-pollutants-plastics.html Environment Tue, 18 Jan 2022 11:00:35 EST news561726031 For at least the last 30 years, not a single country has met the basic needs of its residents without overconsuming natural resources, according to new research led by the University of Leeds. https://phys.org/news/2021-11-nations-overusing-natural-resources-faster.html Environment Thu, 18 Nov 2021 11:59:07 EST news556459138 Transgressing one planetary boundary can amplify human impacts on another one. For the first time, an international team of scientists has quantified some of the planetary-scale interactions in the Earth system. These biophysical interactions have, in fact, almost doubled direct human impacts on the nine planetary boundaries, from climate change to freshwater use. This insight can now be applied in policy design for safeguarding the livelihoods of generations to come. https://phys.org/news/2019-12-planetary-boundaries-interactions-earth-amplify.html Environment Tue, 17 Dec 2019 07:04:39 EST news495788676 Thanks to the efforts of climate activists, the climate and ecological emergency has never been more prominent. But acknowledging the problem is just a starting point. Now this momentum must be harnessed to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and reverse habitat destruction. https://phys.org/news/2019-10-techno-fix-futures-climate-chaosdont-hype.html Environment Thu, 31 Oct 2019 10:55:19 EDT news491738113 Resistance to antibiotics and pesticides is rising at alarming rates. Yet, currently, there is no global framework to track the threat to human health and crops. Researchers have now published the first estimates of antibiotic and pesticide "planetary boundaries" in the journal Nature Sustainability. The researchers suggest that if resistance to antibiotics and pesticides goes beyond these boundaries, societies risk large-scale health and agricultural crises. https://phys.org/news/2018-11-planetary-boundaries-antibiotic-pesticide-resistance.html Environment Tue, 13 Nov 2018 07:20:02 EST news461315726 The climate is changing before our eyes. News articles about imminent species extinctions have become the norm. Images of oceans full of plastic are littering social media. These issues are made even more daunting by the fact that they are literally global in scale. https://phys.org/news/2018-10-actions-planet-planetary-accounting.html Environment Thu, 25 Oct 2018 10:10:01 EDT news459677577 A global shift toward healthy and more plant-based diets, halving food loss and waste, and improving farming practices and technologies are required to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050, a new study finds. Adopting these options reduces the risk of crossing global environmental limits related to climate change, the use of agricultural land, the extraction of freshwater resources, and the pollution of ecosystems through overapplication of fertilizers, according to the researchers. https://phys.org/news/2018-10-billion-people-planetary-limits.html Environment Wed, 10 Oct 2018 13:00:02 EDT news458376955 A study led by the University of Leeds has found that no country currently meets its citizens' basic needs at a globally sustainable level of resource use. https://phys.org/news/2018-02-good-life-planet.html Environment Mon, 05 Feb 2018 11:00:03 EST news437035764 Almost half of the processes that are crucial to maintaining the stability of the planet have become dangerously compromised by human activity. That is the view of an international team of 18 researchers who provide new evidence of significant changes in four of the nine systems which regulate the resilience of the Earth. One of the systems which has been seriously affected is the nitrogen-phosphorus cycle which is essential to all life, and is particularly important to both food production and the maintenance of clean water. https://phys.org/news/2015-01-crucial-stability-planet-compromised.html Environment Thu, 15 Jan 2015 16:00:08 EST news340559994 With the successful retrieval of a string of instruments from deep beneath the seafloor, an international team of scientists has completed an unprecedented series of operations to obtain crucial temperature measurements of the fault that caused the devastating Tohoku earthquake and tsunami in March 2011. https://phys.org/news/2013-05-temperature-reveal-frictional-fault-tohoku.html Earth Sciences Wed, 01 May 2013 09:10:01 EDT news286617576 (Phys.org)—A US scientist has proposed that a new planetary boundary be used to analyze the effects of human activities on the planet. He warns that there are definite biophysical limits to growth in human population, economies and consumption, and that limits in some variables might already have been reached. https://phys.org/news/2012-09-planetary-boundary-effects-human.html Environment Fri, 21 Sep 2012 05:29:42 EDT news267424171