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. Nature has invented countless types of pointy appendages, and scientists have long sought to explain what makes these structures so effective at puncturing other things. A new study models the key physical characteristics of puncturing tools to reflect their diversity in nature, finding that the shape of a biological tool is driven in part by trade-offs between its puncture efficiency and its ability to resist bending or buckling. The findings are described in the journal Science Advances. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-nature-tools-reveal-offs-piercing.html Plants & Animals Wed, 08 Jul 2026 14:00:13 EDT news702700982 Spider venoms contain ingredients that could lead to a new treatment to protect honeybees from the deadly Varroa destructor mite, according to a study led by the University of the Sunshine Coast. Researchers identified components in the venoms of the Tasmanian cave spider and the giant Japanese funnel-web spider that killed the parasitic mites without harming the bees. The study is published in the journal npj Drug Discovery. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-spider-venoms-deadly-varroa-mites.html Plants & Animals Thu, 02 Jul 2026 09:20:03 EDT news702200161 The earliest evidence of spiders' fangs has been identified in a 518-million-year-old fossil by scientists at the University of Leicester and Yunnan University. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-urokodia-million-year-fossil-spider.html Evolution Wed, 01 Jul 2026 11:00:10 EDT news702121023 A James Cook University Ph.D. student's late-night solo survey has led to the first recorded sighting of a microwhip scorpion in the Daintree Rainforest. JCU entomologist and taxonomist Matthew Connors works at the university's Daintree Rainforest Observatory as a demonstrator and rainforest tour guide for visiting groups. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-student-sighting-microwhip-scorpion-daintree.html Plants & Animals Fri, 19 Jun 2026 09:00:03 EDT news701078041 Fossil fragments found in the U.K. have been identified as remains of the largest scorpions ever. Measuring more than a meter in length, Praearcturus gigas was among the first large predators to ever stalk the land. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-world-largest-scorpion-revealed-million.html Evolution Wed, 03 Jun 2026 09:40:02 EDT news699695521 Get set for a rare blue micromoon this weekend—a blue moon that's also the most distant and smallest-looking full moon of the year. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-rare-blue-micromoon-weekend.html Space Exploration Thu, 28 May 2026 09:54:21 EDT news699180800 New research published in BMC Biology helps to fill in questions about the so-called "Furongian gap" from about 497 million to 485 million years ago, when paleontologists previously thought there were far fewer fossils than periods before or after it. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-forgotten-museum-fossil-rewrite-animal.html Evolution Thu, 28 May 2026 09:00:02 EDT news699094381 An international research team has discovered that the fire salamander (Salamandra salamandra) is biofluorescent. A study published in the journal Royal Society Open Science shows that the salamander reflects turquoise light when exposed to ultraviolet radiation. This phenomenon had gone unnoticed until now, despite decades of research on this amphibian species. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-salamanders-reveal-hidden-turquoise-exposed.html Plants & Animals Wed, 27 May 2026 09:20:05 EDT news699091141 Scorpions wield some of the natural world's most formidable built-in weapons, from crushing pincers to venomous stingers. Scientists have long known that these structures contain trace metals that strengthen them, but only a small fraction of the roughly 3,000 scorpions have ever been examined for this trait. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-scorpions-weapons-fortified-metal.html Plants & Animals Tue, 28 Apr 2026 19:10:01 EDT news696586562 It had been a long day of teaching for Rudy Lerosey-Aubril. As a reward, he returned to cleaning an intriguing Cambrian arthropod fossil he had recently received for review. At first, the specimen showed all the expected characteristics of its time—yet, something was off. In place of an antenna, there appeared to be a claw. "Claws are never in that location in a Cambrian arthropod," said Lerosey-Aubril, "It took me a few minutes to realize the obvious, I had just exposed the oldest chelicera ever found." https://phys.org/news/2026-03-million-year-clawed-predator-rewrites.html Evolution Wed, 01 Apr 2026 11:00:14 EDT news694164841 For millennia, sling bullets served as a hand-thrown projectile that could be used to fend off enemies. At Hippos, 70 sling bullets made of lead have been recovered over the course of fieldwork and excavation. However, while many are bare or depict scorpions and thunderbolts, one recently recovered sling bullet is the first inscribed example ever recovered at Hippos and the only known sling bullet ever inscribed with the letters ΜΑΘΟΥ meaning "Learn your lesson!" https://phys.org/news/2026-03-ancient-bullet-year-taunt-lesson.html Archaeology Fri, 20 Mar 2026 14:00:05 EDT news693221832 The ancient city of Pompeii is one of those archaeological sites that keeps on giving with one discovery after another. While much of what we know about the Roman settlement comes from the eruption of Vesuvius in AD 79, another significant event from nearly a century earlier is also yielding fresh insights into its past. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-pompeii-scars-linked-ancient-machine.html Archaeology Thu, 19 Mar 2026 14:40:01 EDT news693147067 Adaptation is essential for survival. Across species, it occurs over many generations through evolution and natural selection. Individual animals, however, can also adapt within their own lifetimes—through learning. For many species, humans included, this process is vital. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-survival-safe-space-staged-young.html Plants & Animals Mon, 02 Mar 2026 15:20:05 EST news691676041 Members of the arachnid class—think spiders, scorpions and harvestmen (daddy long legs)—are often the targets of revulsion, disgust and fear. Yet, they are crucial for ecosystems to thrive. Given the crash in worldwide biodiversity, including what some call the "insect apocalypse," a pair of ecologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst decided to check in on the general state of insects and arachnids in the U.S.—only to discover massive gaps in the data. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-spiders-real-horror-story-world.html Plants & Animals Mon, 02 Mar 2026 15:00:01 EST news691340307 An international team of scientists has identified how to pinpoint and predict hotspots for some of the most dangerous species of scorpion in the world. The researchers have established the key environmental conditions that determine where lethal, venomous arachnids thrive—findings that could help shine a light on flashpoints for scorpion stings in tropical regions across the globe. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-field-world-deadly-scorpion-hotspots.html Plants & Animals Sun, 15 Feb 2026 05:00:01 EST news690201313 Scientists have uncovered a 400-million-year-old genetic secret that gave spiders the ability to produce silk and weave their webs. Spiders didn't begin their journey on Earth in the same way as they are known today. Arthropods such as our eight-legged weaver owe much of their evolutionary success to the slow, repeated modification of appendages. One of the crucial changes that allowed spiders to survive and diversify into more than 53,000 species was the spinnerets, a silk-spinning organ found on the underside of a spider's abdomen. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-spider-spinneret-evolution-genome-duplication.html Evolution Fri, 30 Jan 2026 11:40:01 EST news688994658 Some 445 million years ago, life on Earth was forever changed. During the geological blink of an eye, glaciers formed over the supercontinent Gondwana, drying out many of the vast, shallow seas like a sponge and giving an "icehouse climate" that, together with radically changed ocean chemistry, ultimately caused the extinction of about 85% of all marine species—the majority of life on Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-age-fishes-began-mass-death.html Evolution Fri, 09 Jan 2026 14:00:05 EST news687087422 When researchers studying spiders and scorpions at the Zoological Collections Laboratory of the Butantan Institute in São Paulo, Brazil, came across a few-millimeter-long spider wearing something resembling a pearl necklace, they knocked on the door of a colleague specializing in mites. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-spider-parasitic-mite-species-brazil.html Plants & Animals Mon, 05 Jan 2026 18:20:01 EST news686849400 A remarkably preserved horseshoe crab fossil from North America offers rare insight into some of the earliest known cases of animal disease in a Late Carboniferous swamp—some 50 to 70 million years before the age of dinosaurs. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-horseshoe-crab-fossil-reveals-early.html Ecology Tue, 09 Dec 2025 19:10:06 EST news684434821 The bite of a black widow spider can initially feel like a sharp stabbing pain, or it can be deceptively subtle, barely registering notice. But as the spider's potent neurotoxin courses through the bloodstream, some unlucky human victims begin to develop severe symptoms. Within about an hour, the venom can cause widespread body pain, stiffness and muscle spasms, or trouble breathing. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-lessons-historic-quest-spider-neglected.html Plants & Animals Mon, 06 Oct 2025 09:17:05 EDT news678961022 A tiny fossil of a sea creature that lived more than half a billion years ago sheds new light on the evolution of arthropods, the most species-rich and successful group of animals to inhabit Earth, according to a study published in Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-ancient-signpost-minute-fossils-big.html Evolution Thu, 28 Aug 2025 05:00:05 EDT news675502081 The Burgess Shale in British Columbia is renowned for its exceptional preservation of soft tissues in fossils, including limbs and guts. While trilobites are abundant in the fossil record thanks to their hard exoskeleton, their soft limbs are rarely preserved and poorly understood. However, Olenoides serratus, a particularly abundant and well-preserved Burgess Shale trilobite, offers a unique opportunity to study these appendages. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-ancient-trilobite-limbs-reveal-unique.html Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 04 Aug 2025 14:28:40 EDT news673536515 A study by Ali Vahdati and his colleagues, Raffaele Biscone, Roberto Dan, and Marie-Claude Trémouille analyzed the remains and artifacts contained in the richest burial ever excavated from the Greater Khorasan Civilization (GKC) site of Tepe Chalow. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-archaeologists-uncover-lavish-bronze-age.html Archaeology Mon, 28 Jul 2025 11:40:02 EDT news672917939 A new analysis of an exquisitely preserved fossil that lived half a billion years ago suggests that arachnids—spiders and their close kin—evolved in the ocean, challenging the widely held belief that their diversification happened only after their common ancestor had conquered the land. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-fossilized-nervous-ocean-spiders.html Plants & Animals Tue, 22 Jul 2025 11:00:01 EDT news672299848 Snake, scorpion, and spider venom are most frequently associated with poisonous bites, but with the help of artificial intelligence, they might be able to help fight antibiotic resistance, which contributes to more than one million deaths worldwide each year. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-ai-hundreds-potential-antibiotics-snake.html Biotechnology Mon, 14 Jul 2025 12:27:24 EDT news671714840 Scientists have discovered four new species of pseudoscorpions, blind cave-dwelling arachnids with dragon-like jaws. The subterranean creatures were found deep inside caves in South Korea by Kyung-Hoon Jeong and colleagues at Jeonbuk National University. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-pseudoscorpion-species-dragon-jaws-korean.html Plants & Animals Thu, 10 Jul 2025 13:29:53 EDT news671372986 The majority of Earth's plant species, including our crop plants, rely on the services of animal pollinators in order to reproduce. Honey bees and other pollinating insects annually contribute billions of dollars to the U.S. economy, and are responsible for nearly a third of the food that ends up on our tables. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-voracious-honey-bees-threaten-food.html Plants & Animals Mon, 07 Jul 2025 03:00:01 EDT news670750501 It's not easy to look at a sea spider and see an animal so representative of its kind that it may help scientists sort out the evolution of almost everything with eight legs. But that's the potential a new study finds in these spindly, strikingly strange bottom-dwellers. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-weird-sea-spider-evolution-legged.html Plants & Animals Thu, 03 Jul 2025 08:39:04 EDT news670750741 Ever wondered why our teeth are so sensitive to pain or even just cold drinks? It might be because they first evolved for a very different purpose than chewing half a billion years ago, a study suggested Wednesday. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-teeth-million-year-fish.html Paleontology & Fossils Sun, 25 May 2025 13:30:01 EDT news667052799 In the natural world—where predators pounce, prey flee, and group members feed and sleep in solidarity—animal behavior is glorious in its variety. Now, new research suggests there may be an underlying architecture that orders the movements of animals as they go about their very different lives. And it's more widespread than previously imagined. https://phys.org/news/2025-05-mammals-behavior-hints-underlying-architecture.html Plants & Animals Fri, 16 May 2025 14:07:04 EDT news666623222