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. Every year, thousands of parrots confiscated from the illegal wildlife trade arrive at rehabilitation centers across Latin America. For many of these birds, rescue centers can provide safety but not necessarily a path back to the wild. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-birds-life-wild-technique-boosts.html Plants & Animals Mon, 06 Jul 2026 16:00:33 EDT news702560522 In the humid jungle of Vietnam, Natalia Ocampo-Peñuela and Monte Neate-Clegg spent hours patiently waiting to spot the rare "Halloween bird." Officially known as the collared laughingthrush, this songbird has striking orange, silver and black coloring and a distinct, singsong call. It's extremely valuable and heavily traded as a pet in Vietnam, and is considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). https://phys.org/news/2026-07-songbirds-higher-extinction.html Plants & Animals Thu, 02 Jul 2026 11:20:05 EDT news702205470 For humans, death is surrounded by culture, emotion, ritual and language. But the question can be framed in a much more basic way: What would an animal have to understand in order to recognize that someone has died? https://phys.org/news/2026-06-cockatoos-touchscreen-rewards-die-contexts.html Plants & Animals Tue, 16 Jun 2026 18:40:03 EDT news700833541 It is one of the strangest puzzles in human evolution. About 90% of people across every human culture favor their right hand—with no other primate species showing a population-level preference on this scale. Despite decades of research into the brains, genes and development behind handedness, why humans ended up so overwhelmingly right-handed has remained an evolutionary enigma. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-why-is-almost-everyone-right.html Evolution Fri, 15 May 2026 13:00:06 EDT news698068021 Paleontologists from the Federal University of Santa Maria (UFSM) have published a new study in the scientific journal Royal Society Open Science, in which they describe a new species based on a fossil skull approximately 230 million years old. The specimen was discovered within the Quarta Colônia UNESCO Global Geopark, in southern Brazil, at a fossil site that has already yielded some of the oldest dinosaurs in the world. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-brazil-unearths-bizarre-beaked-reptile.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 23 Apr 2026 14:40:02 EDT news696164521 A study reported in Current Biology shows how physical disabilities in the animal world can be overcome through behavioral innovation. The report features an endangered kea parrot in captivity at New Zealand's Willowbank Wildlife Reserve named Bruce who is missing his entire upper beak. While earlier reports had described his unique use of pebbles as self-care tools, the new findings show how he uses a novel beak jousting technique to turn his disability into social dominance. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-disabled-parrot-undefeated-alpha-male.html Plants & Animals Mon, 20 Apr 2026 11:00:13 EDT news695901422 Like many animals, parrots make sounds that suggest they are talking with each other, maybe even calling out to a specific parrot. But do they truly have names in the same way people do? To find out, Lauryn Benedict, a biology professor at the University of Northern Colorado, didn't set up shop in the tropics to record parrot chatter, as they've done in the past. She instead found birds who spoke her language—birds that live with humans and mimic what they hear, including people's names. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-parrots-mimicking-words-proper-humans.html Plants & Animals Fri, 17 Apr 2026 14:00:04 EDT news695636041 Neuroscientists have uncovered new insights into a key evolutionary question: Why can humans talk when most animals can't? The journal Science published the research led by Emory University and the New College of Florida. The findings suggest that seals and sea lions may have vocal flexibility as a side effect of developing a brain "bypass" for voluntary breath control. This same bypass allowed them to adapt to aquatic life. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-sea-lions-clues-evolution-vocalization.html Plants & Animals Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:10:01 EDT news692553061 The Amazon rainforest is famous for storing massive amounts of carbon in its trees and soils, helping regulate the global climate. Yet a paper published in New Phytologist shows that one of South America's largest carbon-storing ecosystems exists in an often-overlooked grassy savanna: the Cerrado in Brazil. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-wetlands-brazil-cerrado-carbon-storage.html Earth Sciences Thu, 12 Mar 2026 10:00:04 EDT news692436781 New analysis of ancient parrot DNA has revealed that vibrant Amazonian parrots were transported alive across the Andes to coastal Peru centuries before the Inca Empire, highlighting a sophisticated pre-Inca, long-distance trade network spanning rainforest, highlands and deserts. The international team of researchers, including scientists from The Australian National University (ANU), analyzed parrot feathers that were discovered at Pachacamac, Peru—one of the preeminent religious centers of the Andean civilization—far outside the birds' native rainforest range. The research is published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-ancient-parrot-dna-reveals-sophisticated.html Archaeology Tue, 10 Mar 2026 12:00:07 EDT news692293141 Anyone who has seen a hummingbird poking her beak deep into a trumpet creeper blossom, or a honeyeater using its brush-tipped tongue to extract nectar from eucalyptus flowers, has witnessed something that, from a human perspective, is rather remarkable. Although many bird species avoid sugar-rich foods, others survive almost entirely on sugar-rich nectar or fruit, processing massive sugar loads without developing the diseases that such diets cause in people and other animals. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-birds-sweet-success-high-sugar.html Evolution Thu, 26 Feb 2026 14:00:09 EST news691326961 A protein called neurofilament light chain (NfL)—studied in humans in the context of neurodegenerative diseases and aging—is also detectable in the blood of numerous animals, and NfL levels increase with age in mice, cats, dogs and horses. Experts from the DZNE and the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research (HIH) at the University of Tübingen report these findings in PLOS Biology. In their view, this biomarker could help to assess the biological age of animals and estimate their life expectancy. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-blood-marker-dementia-track-aging.html Plants & Animals Fri, 20 Feb 2026 12:40:01 EST news690808575 Minutes after getting to a park in the middle of Phoenix, you can see flashes of green in the sky and hear chatter because love is in the air—or at least, the lovebirds are. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-lovebirds-rare-birds-life.html Plants & Animals Sat, 14 Feb 2026 05:10:01 EST news690266562 With a few minutes of searching, anyone can find videos online of chatty birds: macaws talk to their keepers, cockatoos sing to the camera, corvids mimic the jarring sounds of construction sites. Research has shown that some birds can understand and use words in context—so, when Polly speaks up from inside her cage, she may really want a cracker—but scientists know far less about how birds use their vocal abilities in the wild. Christine Dahlin, professor of biology at the University of Pittsburgh at Johnstown, is working to change that. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-syntax-warbling-duets-wild-parrots.html Plants & Animals Fri, 13 Feb 2026 14:20:02 EST news690205948 Purrs of contentment. Soulful eyes locked on yours over dinner. Valentine's Day? Not for pet owners. For those of us who share our lives with animals, this is a daily—if not exactly romantic—experience. So are the various barks, meows, whines, and other, sometimes adorable, often insistent, methods of communication our four-legged friends use to express what they want. Or how they feel when we don't get it. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-pets-science.html Plants & Animals Fri, 13 Feb 2026 09:20:04 EST news690195756 Islands are famous for producing some of the world's strangest creatures, and now a new international study shows that the evolution of bird species on Hawaiian islands includes an ibis with unusually small eyes and limited visual capacity. The team from University of Lethbridge in Canada and Flinders University in Australia made the discovery while examining the skull of Apteribis, an extinct flightless ibis that once inhabited the Hawaiian islands. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-extinct-hawaiian-ibis-strangely-small.html Evolution Wed, 11 Feb 2026 13:12:44 EST news690037922 Australian and New Zealand scientists have unearthed the remains of ancient wildlife in a cave near Waitomo on Aotearoa's North Island, the first time a large number of million-year-old fossils have been found—including an ancestor of the large flightless Kākāpō parrot. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-lost-world-ancient-cave-reveals.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 28 Jan 2026 15:13:39 EST news688835581 During conversation, people sometimes synchronize their voices in ways that often go completely unnoticed. Talking speeds converge, sentence lengths shift, turn-taking rhythms fall into sync. New research from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Intelligence and the Institute of Science and Technology Austria has revealed how nightingales also deploy complex vocal coordination when competing for territory and mates in fierce night-time singing duels, coordinating both the pitch and timing of their songs. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-nightingales-chord-territorial-duels.html Plants & Animals Mon, 12 Jan 2026 14:19:50 EST news687449967 New Zealand's critically endangered flightless parrot, the kakapo, started breeding last week for the first time in four years, the government conservation department said. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-zealand-rare-flightless-parrot.html Plants & Animals Fri, 09 Jan 2026 04:47:09 EST news687156414 In a recent study, Dr. Katelyn Bishop conducted a zooarchaeological and archival data reanalysis of macaws and parrots recovered from Chaco Canyon to better understand their depositional contexts, material associations, and the human-bird relationship of the ancient Puebloans. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-ancient-puebloans-macaws-parrots-great.html Archaeology Mon, 29 Dec 2025 06:30:01 EST news686205115 A yearslong surge in displaced roosters is overwhelming animal sanctuaries in Maryland and across the country, fueled by a pandemic-born boom in backyard chicken coops and the noisy realities of owning a male bird. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-rooster-epidemic-fueled-backyard-coops.html Plants & Animals Thu, 11 Dec 2025 07:22:49 EST news684660149 Making new friends has its challenges, even for birds. Researchers at the University of Cincinnati found that monk parakeets introduced to new birds will "test the waters" with potential friends to avoid increasingly dangerous close encounters that could lead to injury. They gradually approach a stranger, taking time to get familiar before ramping up increasingly risky interactions. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-friends-lesson-birds.html Plants & Animals Thu, 20 Nov 2025 17:25:04 EST news682881902 When you think of birds imitating sounds, parrots and starlings might come to mind. They're famous for copying human speech, car alarms, and even ringtone melodies. But what happens when you challenge them with something really complex, like the electronic beeps and boops of R2-D2, the beloved Star Wars droid? Researchers from the University of Amsterdam and Leiden University put nine species of parrots and European starlings to the test. The results are published in Scientific Reports. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-birds-imitate-r2-d2-good.html Plants & Animals Thu, 06 Nov 2025 10:59:06 EST news681649135 The largest-ever study on neophobia, or fear of novelty, has discovered the key reasons why some bird species are more fearful of new things than others. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-chickening-birds-novelty.html Plants & Animals Tue, 14 Oct 2025 14:00:01 EDT news679649761 Animal training can teach carrion crows to use a stick tool to retrieve food. With increasing practice, they not only demonstrate great skill and achieve their objective in a few steps, they also respond flexibly to varying conditions in the experiment. These were the findings from behavioral experiments with tame birds by Dr. Felix Moll, Julius Würzler and Professor Andreas Nieder from the Institute for Neurobiology at the University of Tübingen. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-carrion-crows-precise-tool.html Plants & Animals Wed, 10 Sep 2025 12:34:03 EDT news676726442 One of the most effective ways we learn is through third-party imitation, where we observe and then copy the actions and behaviors of others. Until recently, this was thought to be a unique human trait, but a new study published in Scientific Reports reveals that macaws also possess this ability. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-macaws-interactions-skill-animals.html Plants & Animals Fri, 05 Sep 2025 10:10:04 EDT news676285655 Captive cockatoos have at least 30 different dance moves in their repertoire, including headbanging and body rolls, according to a study by Natasha Lubke at Charles Sturt University in Australia, and colleagues, published August 6, 2025 in the journal PLOS One. The moves, of which 17 are newly identified, may be performed with or without music. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-cockatoos-distinct-combine-unique-ways.html Plants & Animals Wed, 06 Aug 2025 14:00:01 EDT news673615453 Researchers from the University of Adelaide, New Zealand's Manaaki Whenua-Landcare Research and the University of Auckland have discovered that more than 80% of parasites detected in kākāpō poo prior to the 1990s are no longer present in contemporary populations. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-kkp-population-decline-linked-rapid.html Plants & Animals Tue, 29 Jul 2025 06:10:01 EDT news672988127 The endangered golden-shouldered parrot, a technicolor species native to Far North Queensland's Cape York Peninsula, is abandoning areas of grassland it usually nests in because woody plants are encroaching upon its preferred vegetation. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-grassland-loss-woody-encroachment-decline.html Plants & Animals Thu, 24 Jul 2025 06:37:19 EDT news672557835 Like Earth, Mars is surrounded by an ionosphere—the part of its upper atmosphere where radiation from the sun knocks electrons off of atoms and molecules, creating charged particles. The Martian ionosphere is complex and continuously changes over the course of the day, but its role in atmospheric dynamics and radio communication signals means understanding it is key for Mars exploration. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-orbiter-pair-view-martian-ionosphere.html Planetary Sciences Mon, 23 Jun 2025 08:56:03 EDT news669887761