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. Billions of years ago, it rained on Mars. The water collected in valleys and rivers, filled and spilled over the rims of craters, and was funneled into canyons, perhaps even making its way to a large Martian ocean. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-scientists-mars-large-river-drainage.html Astrobiology Mon, 01 Dec 2025 14:50:43 EST news683823007 For Jude Kastens, who grew up on a farm in northwest Kansas, rainfall was always serious business. Although flooding wasn't as big a problem in his hometown as in central and eastern Kansas, it was "always memorable" when heavy rain caused local streams to swell from their banks into surrounding river valleys. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-kansas-dashboard.html Environment Tue, 18 Nov 2025 15:16:04 EST news682701362 Waist-deep in a rain-swollen river, Christer Kristoffersen cast his line, landed it gently on the water, and caught ... nothing. Norway's iconic wild salmon is in dramatic decline, a victim of fish farming and climate change. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-death-norway-wild-salmon.html Ecology Wed, 09 Jul 2025 05:10:18 EDT news671256574 Volcanic islands, such as the islands of Hawaii and the Caribbean, are surrounded by coral reefs that encircle an island in a labyrinthine, living ring. A coral reef is punctured at points by reef passes—wide channels that cut through the coral and serve as conduits for ocean water and nutrients to filter in and out. These watery passageways provide circulation throughout a reef, helping to maintain the health of corals by flushing out freshwater and transporting key nutrients. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-island-rivers-passageways-coral-reefs.html Earth Sciences Fri, 20 Jun 2025 11:28:04 EDT news669637681 Recent scholarship has concluded that Neanderthals made a second major migration from Eastern Europe to Central and Eastern Eurasia between 120,000 and 60,000 years ago. But the routes they took have long been a mystery—primarily because there are few archaeological sites connecting the two regions. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-anthropologists-neanderthals-roads-europe-eurasia.html Archaeology Mon, 09 Jun 2025 14:38:04 EDT news668698682 While the restoration of natural areas is high on political agendas, a comprehensive new study from the University of Copenhagen shows that—after more than two decades—biodiversity growth has stalled in restored Danish wetlands. The results also suggest that time alone will not heal things because the areas are too small and dry, and nitrogen inputs from agriculture continue. According to the researchers, we need to learn from the past. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-years-biodiversity-struggles-root-wetlands.html Ecology Fri, 07 Feb 2025 14:02:05 EST news658159321 A Virginia Tech environmental security expert says there are lessons to learn in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene's disaster that can improve preparedness and community resilience. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-climate-aging-infrastructure-human-decisions.html Environment Tue, 01 Oct 2024 13:06:03 EDT news647006761 The Lauraceae is an important basal angiosperm group, widely distributed in the tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Beilschmiedia is one of the largest genera in the Lauraceae and has a typical pantropical distribution. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-tree-species-xishuangbanna.html Plants & Animals Thu, 01 Aug 2024 11:00:01 EDT news641727124 Titan, Saturn's largest moon, is the only other planetary body in the solar system that currently hosts active rivers, lakes, and seas. These otherworldly river systems are thought to be filled with liquid methane and ethane that flows into wide lakes and seas, some as large as the Great Lakes on Earth. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-titan-strong-erode-coastlines-lakes.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 19 Jun 2024 14:00:01 EDT news638004482 Millions of people dependent on Himalayan snowmelt for water face a "very serious" risk of shortages this year after one of the lowest rates of snowfall, scientists warned Monday. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-himalayas-threatens.html Environment Mon, 17 Jun 2024 04:20:01 EDT news637816470 A research team led by Prof. Zhang Xiaoling from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP), Chinese Academy of Sciences, published a paper entitled "The Earliest Evidence for a Microblade Adaptation in the Remote, High Altitude Regions of the Tibetan Plateau" in Science China Earth Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-earliest-evidence-microblade-tibetan-plateau.html Archaeology Wed, 12 Jun 2024 15:38:02 EDT news637425481 A team of archaeologists affiliated with multiple institutions in Spain has used a new dating technique to more accurately estimate time differences between Paleolithic Age hearth fires. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes how their new dating technique works, its accuracy range and what their findings reveal about Neanderthals living in a river valley in what is now Spain, approximately 50,000 years ago. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-dating-technique-accurately-differences-paleolithic.html Archaeology Thu, 06 Jun 2024 11:30:02 EDT news636890063 Although Mars presents a barren, dusty landscape with no signs of life so far, its geological features such as deltas, lakebeds, and river valleys strongly suggest a past where water once flowed abundantly on its surface. To explore this possibility, scientists examine sediments preserved near these formations. The composition of these sediments holds clues about the early environmental conditions, the processes that shaped the planet over time, and even potential signs of past life. https://phys.org/news/2024-05-martian-sediments.html Astrobiology Mon, 13 May 2024 11:19:04 EDT news634817942 Pitch-black darkness. Crushing squeezes, muddy passages, icy waterfalls. Bats and spiders. Abseiling over ledges into the unknown. How far would you go for a fossil? https://phys.org/news/2024-04-spent-years-deep-underground-caves.html Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 29 Apr 2024 11:51:40 EDT news633610294 Using impact craters as a dating tool, Planetary Science Institute Research Scientist Alexander Morgan has determined maximum timescales for the formation of Martian valley networks shaped by running water. https://phys.org/news/2024-01-intermittently-martian-valleys-hundreds-millions.html Astrobiology Mon, 15 Jan 2024 12:28:18 EST news624544095 Typically, now is the time when creeks along the Sacramento River are filled with young spring-run Chinook salmon preparing to make their journey downstream to the Pacific Ocean, where they will mature, and eventually make their return to California spawning sites. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-salmon-extinction-california-urgent-effort.html Plants & Animals Mon, 16 Oct 2023 15:40:01 EDT news616678793 The oceans are the final destination of weathering products from the land and its transport via rivers, with those in the Himalayan mountains alone moving one billion tons of sediment each year. To understand the storage dynamics of mountain valley systems, it is important to determine the spatial distribution of rivers, their volumes and longevity on seasonal and longer-term timescales. This is especially true given erosion processes widen valleys and therefore expand the spatial distribution of sediment influxes to oceans. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-himalayan-valley-sizes-tectonic-driven-uplift.html Earth Sciences Mon, 04 Sep 2023 11:30:01 EDT news613040737 Researchers at the UCL Institute of Archaeology have discovered some of the largest early prehistoric stone tools in Britain. https://phys.org/news/2023-07-giant-stone-artifacts-rare-ice.html Archaeology Thu, 06 Jul 2023 00:00:01 EDT news607790548 For centuries, nomadic pastoralists have been moving their livestock with the seasons between camps at the headwaters of the Yenisei River in Tuva in Russia and northern Mongolia. In new research, Adjunct Associate Professor of Anthropology at The University of New Mexico Paul Hooper examines the use and informal ownership of these camps depending on season and how they illustrate evolutionary and ecological principles underlying variation in property relations. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-anthropologist-nomadic-pastoralists-russia.html Social Sciences Wed, 28 Jun 2023 17:06:04 EDT news607190761 An international team of researchers who discovered a vast network of stone walls along the River Nile in Egypt and Sudan say these massive "river groins" reveal an exceptionally long-lived form of hydraulic engineering in the Nile Valley, and shed light on connections between ancient Nubia and Egypt. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-walls-river-nile-reveal-ancient.html Archaeology Tue, 13 Jun 2023 06:05:12 EDT news605855105 Mountains are capped with record snowpack, rolling hills are covered in a rainbow of wildflowers, reservoirs are filled to the brim, and rivers are rushing with snowmelt. https://phys.org/news/2023-05-winter-california-drought.html Earth Sciences Thu, 18 May 2023 13:50:02 EDT news603635807 Headlines about California's water situation are awash with numbers. Following the worst drought in 1,200 years, the Sierra Nevada snowpack, which provides 30% of the state's water, is now among the biggest ones in 70 years. State reservoirs are at 73% capacity and more than half of CA is now officially out of drought. What to make of all these statistics? https://phys.org/news/2023-04-drought-deluge-california.html Environment Mon, 10 Apr 2023 11:52:03 EDT news600346321 After a relentless three months of heavy rain and snow, California is facing yet another environmental threat—sunny skies and balmy weather. https://phys.org/news/2023-04-california-snowmelt-months-experts.html Earth Sciences Wed, 05 Apr 2023 13:00:03 EDT news599918071 Matt Kaminski stood on a road scarcely higher than the floodplain, glassy pools on all sides stretched out like something from a dream. In the distance, a storm lumbered over the Coast Ranges. https://phys.org/news/2023-03-winter-swampif-california-funds.html Environment Tue, 28 Mar 2023 17:30:01 EDT news599239799 With torrential rains drenching California, state water regulators have endorsed a plan to divert floodwaters from the San Joaquin River to replenish groundwater that has been depleted by heavy agricultural pumping during three years of record drought. https://phys.org/news/2023-03-flush-california-replenish-drought-depleted-groundwater.html Earth Sciences Mon, 13 Mar 2023 14:30:01 EDT news597935315 East Africa is much drier than other tropical land regions, including the Amazon and Congo rainforests. The geography of East Africa was always thought to make the region dry and susceptible to drought, but the precise mechanism has been elusive until now. This research demonstrates the east to west river valleys are a crucial factor in the low annual rainfall. https://phys.org/news/2023-03-rivers-sky-african-climate.html Earth Sciences Thu, 02 Mar 2023 12:48:03 EST news596983682 Thousands of years ago during the last Ice Age, rivers flowed from giant glaciers in the Sierra Nevada down to the Central Valley, carving into rock and gouging channels at a time when the sea level was about 400 feet lower. When the glaciers retreated, meltwater coursed down and buried the river channels in sediment. https://phys.org/news/2022-11-air-scientists-fast-paths-recharging.html Earth Sciences Fri, 18 Nov 2022 13:16:48 EST news587999703 In the month of October, the Mississippi River has seen record low levels from Illinois to Louisiana. In Baton Rouge, the level is revealing a more than 100-year-old sunken ferry and the underbelly of the USS Kidd. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-river-experts-mississippi.html Environment Fri, 28 Oct 2022 10:19:31 EDT news586171168 Alfonso Benito Calvo, the scientific supervisor at the Digital Mapping and 3D Analysis Laboratory at the Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana (CENIEH), has participated in a paper published in the Journal of Maps on the evolution of the landscape in the Ojo Guareña Valley. The study has furnished the first results on the evolution of the landscape and the formation of this great karstic cave complex in the north of the province of Burgos (Spain), which is one of Europe's largest. https://phys.org/news/2022-10-landscape-ojo-guarea-karst-cave.html Earth Sciences Tue, 18 Oct 2022 12:10:05 EDT news585313801 A UAB study using a Big Data approach to analyze settlement dynamics reveals that communities of the central-eastern Iberian Peninsula existing 4,000 years ago deployed "escape economies," using enrockment and segmentation tactics to protect themselves from the exploitation and conflicts arising from the expansion of the El Argar society, one of the first state societies in Europe. https://phys.org/news/2022-09-social-resistance-bronze-age-response.html Archaeology Wed, 28 Sep 2022 09:27:55 EDT news583576072