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. Look up at the clouds. What do you see? A sailboat? A seahorse? Your great-aunt Rosemary? As humans, we're prone to seeing patterns where they don't actually exist. This behavior is so common there's a name for it: apophenia. But sometimes, those patterns really do exist. Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Associate Professor Saket Navlakha specializes in finding them. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-nature-algorithm-chinese-money.html Plants & Animals Tue, 12 May 2026 09:40:07 EDT news697794232 A research team from the Institut Català de Paleontologia Miquel Crusafont (ICP-CERCA) has led the paleohistological study of Ampelomeryx ginsburgi, a giraffomorph ruminant from the Middle Miocene recovered at the Els Casots site (Catalonia, Spain). Through microscopic analysis of bone tissues, the researchers were able to determine that this peculiar animal reached skeletal maturity at three years of age, while reproductive maturity began around the second year. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ampelomeryx-grew-life-history-giraffe.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 29 Apr 2026 13:40:07 EDT news696681781 The south coast of South Africa's Western Cape province is a rich source of fossil tracks and traces—clues suggesting what this environment may have been like many thousands of years ago. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-bird-tortoise-fossil-tracks-south.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 16 Apr 2026 16:00:09 EDT news695567462 A team of scientists from EPFL and Alaska Pacific University has developed an AI program that can recognize individual bears in the wild, despite the substantial changes that occur in their appearance over the summer season. This breakthrough holds significant promise for research, management, and conservation efforts. The study is published in the journal Current Biology. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ai-enables-brown-alaska.html Plants & Animals Thu, 29 Jan 2026 11:20:04 EST news688907452 A study of wild African herbivores offers new insight into how environmental conditions—not just diet and anatomy—can influence the evolution of gut microbes that play a critical role in animal health and well-being. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-environmental-conditions-evolution-gut-microbiomes.html Evolution Mon, 26 Jan 2026 14:34:00 EST news688660372 Humans live in a world abundant in salt, but this everyday seasoning is a luxury for wild herbivores, and it's far from clear how these animals get enough. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-culprit-limiting-abundance-earth-largest.html Plants & Animals Tue, 09 Dec 2025 05:00:18 EST news684405541 Picture a baby Brachiosaurus the size of a golden retriever, hunting for food with its siblings while dodging predators that would happily eat it. Meanwhile, its parents—towering over 40 feet tall—are dozens of miles away, going about their lives completely unbothered by their offspring's potential fate. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-free-range-dinosaur-parenting-diverse.html Ecology Thu, 04 Dec 2025 12:36:23 EST news684074161 Zoos and private collections teach, inspire, and connect people to animals they may never encounter in the wild. And, in some cases, those animals represent valuable "assurance populations"—essentially, backups that could be used to revive critically endangered populations in their native ranges. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-wild-giraffes-safety-net-zoo.html Ecology Mon, 03 Nov 2025 11:32:05 EST news681391922 Young umbrella acacia trees in Africa survive severe drought by putting their natural processes into overdrive when water is in short supply, prioritizing continued growth over water conservation, new research shows. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-africa-acacias-broke-survive-drought.html Plants & Animals Thu, 30 Oct 2025 09:25:28 EDT news681035124 Understanding what the environment looked like millions of years ago is essential for piecing together how our earliest ancestors lived and survived. Habitat shapes everything, from what food was available, to where water could be found, to how predators and prey interacted. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-ancient-antelope-teeth-insights-early.html Ecology Thu, 23 Oct 2025 13:01:04 EDT news680443261 A study of elephants, giraffes and other wildlife in Namibia's Etosha National Park underscores the ways in which the environment, biological sex, and anatomical distinctions can drive variation in the gut microbiomes across plant-eating species. Because the gut microbiome plays a critical role in animal health, the work can be used to inform conservation efforts. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-african-wildlife-scat-gut-ecosystem.html Ecology Wed, 15 Oct 2025 13:00:36 EDT news679752030 Giraffes are a majestic sight in Africa with their long necks and distinctive spots. Now it turns out there are four different giraffe species on the continent, according to a new scientific analysis released Thursday. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-giraffe-species-africa-scientific-analysis.html Ecology Thu, 21 Aug 2025 10:47:29 EDT news674992036 Most of us are familiar with sloths, the bear-like animals that hang from trees, live life in the slow lane, take a month to digest a meal and poop just once a week. Their closest living relatives are anteaters and armadillos, and if that seems like an odd pairing, there's a reason why. Today, there are only two sloth species, but historically, there were dozens of them, including one with a bottle-nosed snout that ate ants and another that likely resembled the ancestors of modern armadillos. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-scientists-figured-extinct-giant-ground.html Evolution Thu, 22 May 2025 17:04:06 EDT news667152242 By analyzing the arrangement of vertebrae in the spines of nearly 400 species of tetrapods—a group of animals with four limbs, such as mammals, reptiles, and birds—RIKEN researchers have found some follow a predicted pattern, whereas others do not. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-mammal-spines-hox-gene-birds.html Plants & Animals Thu, 01 May 2025 11:10:10 EDT news665316601 What roils beneath Earth's surface may feel a world away, but the activity can help forge land masses that dictate ocean circulation, climate patterns, and even animal activity and evolution. In fact, scientists believe that a plume of hot rocks that burst from Earth's mantle millions of years ago could be an important part in the story of human evolution. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-earth-mantle-ancient-ancestors-elephants.html Earth Sciences Mon, 21 Apr 2025 12:37:03 EDT news664457821 Last week, Colossal Biosciences made global headlines when they announced that they had successfully brought the dire wolf back from extinction, or at least a version of one. Colossal's team used pieces of the genetic code they uncovered in ancient dire wolf DNA samples to alter the genome of a common gray wolf to resemble that of its long-extinct cousin. The resulting pups are not exact replicas of their ancestors, but have many of their most distinctive traits. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-ancient-dna-aids-de-extinction.html Plants & Animals Mon, 14 Apr 2025 13:22:50 EDT news663855766 Oviraptorosaurs are weird dinosaurs that look a bit like flightless birds. But these ancient animals aren't just funny-looking fossils. As my team's new research published in Royal Society Open Science shows, they can help us understand how our own forelimbs evolved and challenge what scientists think about the T rex. https://phys.org/news/2025-04-bizarre-dinosaur-evolution-fingers.html Evolution Thu, 03 Apr 2025 12:30:04 EDT news662902201 Imagine a world where the oxygen you need changes dramatically between day and night. Your world shifts from being rich in oxygen (oxic) in the day, so you have energy to hunt for food, to suffocatingly oxygen-free (anoxic) at night, which slows you down. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-daily-oxygen-early-animal-life.html Evolution Mon, 24 Mar 2025 12:26:47 EDT news662038002 A drill to search for ice. A 4G network test. Three rovers and a first-of-its-kind hopping drone. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-firm-moon-drill-rovers-drone.html Space Exploration Thu, 06 Mar 2025 04:48:26 EST news660458897 Elephants, giraffes, pythons and other large species have higher cancer rates than smaller ones like mice, bats, and frogs, a new study has shown, overturning a 45-year-old belief about cancer in the animal kingdom. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-bigger-animals-cancer-defying-decades.html Plants & Animals Mon, 24 Feb 2025 15:00:11 EST news659609701 A new study by Connecticut College provides strong evidence that palm trees once thrived in subarctic Canada, reshaping scientific understanding of past Arctic climates. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-fossil-reveals-palm-trees-subarctic.html Ecology Wed, 19 Feb 2025 17:19:03 EST news659207941 Researchers from the Cluster of Excellence Collective Behavior have introduced the method YOLO-Behaviour: a new computer vision framework to automatically identify animal behaviors from videos. The robust and easy-to-use tool lowers the barrier of entry for biologists who would like to automate data collection using novel AI technologies. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-faster-animal-behaviors-video.html Ecology Thu, 13 Feb 2025 09:36:05 EST news658661760 The fossilized neck bone of a flying reptile unearthed in Canada shows tell-tale signs of being bitten by a crocodile-like creature 76 million years ago, according to a study published 23 January in the Journal of Paleontology. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-rare-pterosaur-fossil-reveals-crocodilian.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 23 Jan 2025 09:15:04 EST news656846101 Until now, contraception has been the method of choice for zoos to avoid surplus animals. Researchers are now calling for a paradigm shift: zoos could preserve their breeding populations, raise awareness of conservation challenges and improve animal welfare and their carbon footprint by allowing animals to reproduce naturally and culling surplus animals. https://phys.org/news/2025-01-rethinking-population-zoos-policy-natural.html Plants & Animals Wed, 08 Jan 2025 11:22:08 EST news655557720 The University of Cape Town, along with the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, have conducted a large-scale study identifying significant cranial shape differences between four genetically distinct giraffe species. The findings suggest that these species exhibit unique developmental and morphological characteristics, which have implications for conservation efforts. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-morphological-evidence-giraffe-species-classifications.html Plants & Animals Sat, 28 Dec 2024 09:00:01 EST news654497655 New research finds that giraffes much prefer flat terrain and do not traverse slopes of more than 20°, which severely limits the areas in, and outside, protected reserves they can access. The findings, which are yet to be published, were presented at the British Ecological Society's (BES) Annual meeting in Liverpool on the 13 December. https://phys.org/news/2024-12-giraffes-uphill-slopes-pose.html Plants & Animals Fri, 13 Dec 2024 08:47:55 EST news653302069 A collaborative study by researchers from Baylor College of Medicine and Illumina has showcased the exceptional capabilities of the DRAGEN (Dynamic Read Analysis for GENomics) platform in comprehensive genome analysis. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-validation-gen-genome-analysis-platform.html Biotechnology Mon, 04 Nov 2024 10:10:21 EST news649937407 Bats are incredibly diverse animals: They can climb onto other animals to drink their blood, pluck insects from leaves or hover to drink nectar from tropical flowers, all of which require distinctive wing designs. https://phys.org/news/2024-11-comparison-bird-wings-reveals-evolutionary.html Plants & Animals Fri, 01 Nov 2024 11:49:03 EDT news649680541 In 1898, two male lions terrorized an encampment of bridge builders on the Tsavo River in Kenya. The lions, which were massive and maneless, crept into the camp at night, raided the tents and dragged off their victims. The infamous Tsavo "man-eaters" killed at least 28 people before Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson, the civil engineer on the project, shot them dead. Patterson sold the lions' remains to the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago in 1925. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-hidden-teeth-dna-19th-century.html Ecology Fri, 11 Oct 2024 11:00:01 EDT news647854429 Researchers have developed a new approach for describing the shape of the cerebral cortex, and provide evidence that cortices across mammalian species resemble a universal, fractal pattern. https://phys.org/news/2024-07-universal-blueprint-mammalian-brain.html Plants & Animals Tue, 30 Jul 2024 14:08:15 EDT news641567290