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. In productive marine environments, a square meter (10.8 square feet) of seafloor can be perforated by hundreds to thousands of isolated and interconnected tunnels through which crawl and writhe a cornucopia of clams, shrimp, sea stars, sand dollars, snails, worms and other animals. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-twenty-years-fossils-reveal-blurs.html Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 21 Aug 2026 13:00:07 EDT news706530721 Researchers have identified two new species in the genus Bogidiella, small shrimp-like amphipods that live in subterranean aquatic environments, from cave waters on the Ryukyu Islands, a subtropical island chain in southwestern Japan. These creatures are clear products of their underground aquatic environment, often lacking pigmentation and eyes, with elongated appendages and reduced swimming legs, called pleopods. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-eyeless-shrimp-species-japan-groundwater.html Plants & Animals Mon, 17 Aug 2026 09:00:01 EDT news706175761 Researchers at the Department of Energy's (DOE) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) and the University of Tennessee (UT), Knoxville, have made an advance by using a natural substance from fungi called chitin to create hydrogels that are significantly stronger and tougher. This new material could lead to safer medical devices, longer-lasting coatings and other innovations that improve everyday technology and health care. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-fungal-chitin-route-tougher-hydrogels.html Biotechnology Tue, 11 Aug 2026 17:00:05 EDT news705670982 Researchers have described a new species of shrimpgoby from the coastal waters off Banyuwangi, East Java, and given it a name that pays tribute to both its fiery coloration and its birthplace. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-shrimpgoby-species-sunrise-java.html Plants & Animals Tue, 28 Jul 2026 17:40:06 EDT news704473261 Invasive rats on tropical islands are creating winners and losers among the tiny underwater animals near the bottom of the food chain that inhabit surrounding coral reefs. Scientists say the changes to these marine ecosystems can rewire food chains on the reefs. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-invasive-rats-rewire-coral-reef.html Plants & Animals Mon, 27 Jul 2026 17:00:36 EDT news704381942 The pearly razorfish (Xyrichtys novacula) is a small marine animal that lives in sandy coastal waters and feeds on creatures like shrimp. Known locally in Spain's Balearic Islands as raors, it is a popular dish in many homes and restaurants across the region. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-fishing-fish-species-molecular.html Plants & Animals Fri, 24 Jul 2026 13:40:06 EDT news704113560 Around 80 million years ago, a stretch of tropical coastline in what is now northeastern Italy was lashed by monsoon rains and tropical cyclones. Those storms swept dinosaur carcasses, crocodiles, plants and river mud onto a tidal flat, where the tides and a film of microbes sealed everything away with extraordinary preservation. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-storms-built-graveyard-ancient-monsoons.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 22 Jul 2026 13:20:09 EDT news703938783 For decades, scientists have crawled through Bobcat Cave on Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, searching its dark pools and underground passages for rare life. The cave is home to the endangered Alabama cave shrimp, making it one of the most closely watched cave systems in the region. Researchers have surveyed it month after month for roughly 40 years. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-demon-cavefish-lineage-alabama-cave.html Plants & Animals Tue, 21 Jul 2026 10:40:03 EDT news703848541 Hyperiid amphipods are a small but anatomically diverse group of shrimp-like crustaceans with remarkable adaptations for life in the ocean's twilight zone. A team of researchers from MBARI, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, GEOMAR, the University of Western Australia and the Florida Museum of Natural History leveraged 30 years of video observations from MBARI's robotic submersibles to study the evolution of eye complexity in hyperiid amphipods. The team recently published its findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-reveals-evolution-remarkable-eyes-deepsea.html Evolution Wed, 15 Jul 2026 12:00:01 EDT news703326587 Scientists from a handful of universities across the country have made innovative use of satellite images from NASA to determine the diet of Antarctic Adélie penguins across the continent by studying their icy feces with a fidelity and frequency that could be captured only by space technology. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-penguin-poo-satellites-reveal-global.html Ecology Thu, 09 Jul 2026 11:00:02 EDT news702807956 The shape of biological structures, ranging from flower petals to the limbs or organs of animals, is often naturally best suited for performing specific functions. Biological structures also often present curved surfaces with specific functional advantages, such as facilitating the drainage of water, increasing a structure's strength or aerodynamic efficiency, or supporting heavy loads. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-bioinspired-strategy-complex-3d-shrinkage.html General Physics Mon, 06 Jul 2026 07:20:07 EDT news702118964 When Jasmin Imran Alsous peered down her microscope lens, she expected to see chaos—a mishmash of tangled cells. She was viewing the inside of a male fruit fly's sperm storage organ, using a powerful microscope at the CCBScope Observatory, the experimental biology lab at the Center for Computational Biology (CCB) at the Simons Foundation's Flatiron Institute in New York City. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-thousands-nature-longest-sperm-tiny.html Evolution Mon, 22 Jun 2026 14:20:15 EDT news701353213 An international team of researchers have published a new review in Animal Behavior revealing how communication enables cooperation between different animal species. The review, titled "The ecology and evolution of cues and signals in animal interspecies cooperation," highlights how movements, visual displays, calls, and other behavioral cues and signals help partners coordinate interactions and align interests across species boundaries. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-animals-communicate-species-boundaries.html Plants & Animals Fri, 19 Jun 2026 10:00:01 EDT news701079434 A new study of the blue button (Porpita porpita), a small and elusive sea creature which lives on the surface of the ocean, has found that it may live for several years adrift at sea, much longer than previously estimated. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-tiny-sea-creature-porpita-adrift.html Plants & Animals Wed, 20 May 2026 08:40:03 EDT news698484541 Beneath the lush rainforests of the Yucatan Peninsula lies a hidden, subterranean world: a vast network of flooded sinkholes and anchialine caves. These unique underwater systems, which mix fresh and saltwater and are influenced by the tides, have no open connection to the surface and have served as an evolutionary refuge for millions of years. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-tiny-cave-shrimps-power-underworld.html Evolution Mon, 20 Apr 2026 09:20:04 EDT news695893441 Chemists in South Korea have created a stable color-changing sensor that displays an easily quantifiable response to the pH of its surroundings. Published in Microsystems & Nanoengineering, Dong-Hwan Kim and colleagues at Sungkyunkwan University say their approach could pave the way for more reliable, affordable pH measurements across a broad range of real-world scenarios. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-nanopigment-sensor-tracks-ph-ten.html Bio & Medicine Tue, 24 Feb 2026 13:40:01 EST news691147847 Researchers at Osaka Metropolitan University in Japan have discovered a previously undiscovered behavior in cleaner wrasse (Labroides dimidiatus). When presented with a mirror, the tiny fish not only recognized themselves, but experimented with the mirror themselves, interacting with it using a scrap of food. The results, published in Scientific Reports, suggest that these social fish can perform a higher level of intelligence known as "contingency testing," typically seen in intelligent marine mammals like dolphins. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-cleaner-fish-intelligence-typical-mammals.html Plants & Animals Fri, 20 Feb 2026 09:20:01 EST news690800463 A new study led by the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) has unveiled the first biomaterial that is not only waterproof but actually becomes stronger in contact with water. The material is produced by the incorporation of nickel into the structure of chitosan, a chitinous polymer obtained from discarded shrimp shells. The development of this new biomaterial marks a departure from the plastic-age mindset of making materials that must isolate from their environment to perform well. Instead, it shows how sustainable materials can connect and leverage their environment, using their surrounding water to achieve mechanical performance that surpasses common plastics. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-chitosan-nickel-biomaterial-stronger-plastics.html Biochemistry Wed, 18 Feb 2026 05:00:09 EST news690483601 Modern armor systems do not do a good enough job of protecting humans from blast-induced neurotrauma (brain and eye damage). To improve them, we may have to look to nature. In particular, a tiny shrimp that is able to protect itself from the shockwaves it generates to stun prey and rivals. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-tiny-shrimp-clue-armor.html Plants & Animals Wed, 11 Feb 2026 12:40:01 EST news690031101 A dome-fronted submersible sinks beneath the waves off Indonesia, heading down nearly 1,000 meters in search of new species, plastic-eating microbes and compounds that could one day make medicines. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-submersibles-revealing-deep-sea.html Earth Sciences Mon, 26 Jan 2026 02:08:01 EST news688615583 Nematodes discovered in the Great Salt Lake belong to at least one species that is new to science, and possibly two. A University of Utah research team has published a new paper characterizing the tiny roundworm. The team gave it a name that honors the Indigenous tribe whose ancestral lands include the lake. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-roundworms-great-salt-lake-science.html Plants & Animals Fri, 12 Dec 2025 09:20:06 EST news684753208 Researchers from FishEye Collaborative, a conservation-technology nonprofit, Cornell University, and Aalto University have developed a new tool that combines underwater sound recording and 360° video to pinpoint the sounds made by individual fish. The findings are published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-noise-fish-underwater-tool-ecologists.html Ecology Fri, 26 Sep 2025 12:40:01 EDT news678108236 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 Japanese mud shrimp, Upogebia major, constructs burrows that can reach two meters deep into the sandy shores of East Asia and Eastern Russia. The size and Y-shape of these double-entrance burrows make them appealing to other small dwelling species, resulting in a symbiotic relationship that effectively makes them roommates. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-roommate-rare-shrimp-mud-burrow.html Plants & Animals Wed, 27 Aug 2025 12:40:44 EDT news675517241 Researchers at the University of Sharjah have developed an innovative method to transform shrimp waste, which is typically discarded in large quantities by the seafood industry, into a valuable carbon product capable of capturing carbon dioxide (CO₂). https://phys.org/news/2025-08-scientists-sustainable-carbon-capture-shrimp.html Materials Science Tue, 26 Aug 2025 04:28:15 EDT news675401284 Connecticut College researchers have found that chemical byproducts produced by the amphibian-killing fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis—commonly known as Bd—may actually help ghost shrimp survive. Their study, published in PeerJ, offers deeper insight into how these compounds affect non-amphibian species in freshwater ecosystems. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-fungus-metabolites-ghost-shrimp-survive.html Plants & Animals Fri, 08 Aug 2025 09:00:04 EDT news673862402 High-frequency sounds produced by snapping shrimp, particularly at night, can serve as an effective indicator of coral reef resilience, according to research published in the journal Royal Society Open Science. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-snapping-shrimp-effective-tool-coral.html Plants & Animals Thu, 24 Jul 2025 04:20:08 EDT news672549603 Some of the most innovative and useful inventions have been inspired by nature. Take the Shinkansen bullet train in Japan, whose aerodynamic design is modeled after the kingfisher bird. Or Velcro, which a Swiss engineer invented after observing that the burrs that stick to a dog's fur have tiny hooks in them. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-impact-resistant-material-mimics-mantis.html Nanomaterials Tue, 24 Jun 2025 14:14:04 EDT news669993241 Colistin is a potent, last-resort antibiotic used only to treat people with dangerous, life-threatening bacterial infections that have developed resistance to other drugs. But it's not foolproof. Worldwide, resistance to colistin is spreading, further diminishing treatment options and putting infected people at higher risk. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-antimicrobial-resistance-genes-hitch-imported.html Cell & Microbiology Sun, 22 Jun 2025 05:00:01 EDT news669645440 A new study about tadpoles that turn into cannibals may sound like fodder for nature trivia, but it carries a much deeper message about evolution—and even about ourselves. https://phys.org/news/2025-06-cannibalistic-behavior-toad-species-reveal.html Evolution Wed, 04 Jun 2025 10:19:11 EDT news668251131