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. Saturn's moon Enceladus sports a thick shell of ice surrounding a liquid water ocean. As though scraped by an enormous claw, four parallel cracks slash across its south pole. Each about 500 meters (1,600 feet) deep, 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) across and 130 kilometers (81 miles) long, the fissures spew water vapor and other materials from the subsurface ocean directly into space. But the origin of these "tiger stripes" is mysterious. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-ocean-motion-enceladus-tiger-stripes.html Planetary Sciences Wed, 26 Aug 2026 13:20:15 EDT news706960681 Many animals obtain information about others from scent marks left in the environment, including urine. Because these marks remain after the sender has left, they allow animals to communicate across space and time. But odor molecules evaporate, degrade and change after release. How, then, can a scent mark continue to convey reliable information about who left it? https://phys.org/news/2026-08-year-mystery-cat-kidney-linked.html Molecular & Computational biology Wed, 19 Aug 2026 11:00:26 EDT news706194782 Scientists have described a new species of lizard from the high mountain forests of western Thailand and have given it a name straight out of an American fantasy drama television series: Acanthosaura syrax, named after Syrax, the dragon ridden by Queen Rhaenyra Targaryen in "House of the Dragon." https://phys.org/news/2026-08-species-mountain-horned-dragon-thailand.html Plants & Animals Mon, 10 Aug 2026 10:40:04 EDT news705575461 Todd Montgomery pops the lid off a small tube and taps out hundreds of mosquitoes into the backyard of a suburban home outside Washington. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-firm-backyard-mosquitoes.html Ecology Fri, 07 Aug 2026 03:20:02 EDT news705288775 Some mosquitoes really are picky eaters. They will not just stick their proboscis into any old human. We know this anecdotally, with some people claiming they are always bitten while others are completely ignored, though we don't really know why. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-people-mosquito-magnets-unbitten.html Cell & Microbiology Tue, 04 Aug 2026 15:20:03 EDT news705055569 "Shark Week," which kicks off this week, has captivated audiences for decades with stories of these powerful ocean predators. But the secret behind their extraordinary swimming abilities lies far deeper than their impressive teeth or iconic tails—it's hidden inside their spines. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-sharks-spines-hidden-architecture-styles.html Plants & Animals Mon, 27 Jul 2026 11:40:07 EDT news704368926 The choices people make to control mosquitoes in their own backyards may be helping some of those mosquitoes survive the very insecticides meant to kill them, according to two new studies from North Carolina State University. The paper on the emergence and spatial distribution of resistance appears in Parasites & Vectors. The paper on socioeconomic predictors of resistance appears in Royal Society Open Science. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-wealthier-north-carolina-neighborhoods-hotspots.html Evolution Mon, 20 Jul 2026 09:40:08 EDT news703757343 When trying to attract and recognize potential mates, animals are known to rely on various signals, traits and behaviors. In the case of birds, these signals can typically include a wide range of sounds—such as trills, whistles, chirps or melodious notes defined as "songs"—as well as the color and movement of their feathers. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-songs-play-greater-role-plumage.html Evolution Fri, 03 Jul 2026 08:20:04 EDT news702042111 Fossils tucked away in a museum drawer and identified merely as "feline" are actually from a very ancient and enigmatic saber-toothed cat that inhabited North America more than 5 million years ago. Newly identified by a UC Berkeley paleontologist, the nearly complete skull helps clarify how these large-fanged felines evolved over millennia before going extinct about 10,000 years ago. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-newly-fossil-evolutionary-history-saber.html Evolution Sat, 27 Jun 2026 14:00:01 EDT news701360015 The tropical rainforests of Central and South America are among the most biodiverse places on Earth. Costa Rica alone is home to half a million species, five times more than exist in the entire country of Canada, despite the former having 200 times less land area than the latter. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-widespread-butterfly-species-disguise.html Plants & Animals Thu, 25 Jun 2026 09:40:01 EDT news701594281 Patterns reveal the individual: A novel AI algorithm equips researchers with a powerful new tool to accurately identify individual jaguars, zebras and giraffes in real time based on their unique coat patterns. Biologists and ecologists can now observe individual wild animals as they move from place to place, as well as their behavior and development over long periods, accurately, with much less effort and significantly faster than before—a major step forward for nature conservation. The scientists explain how this works in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ai-tool-wild-animals-unique.html Ecology Tue, 23 Jun 2026 14:20:06 EDT news701436782 It's an insect everybody loves to hate. Pesky mosquitoes will be out in swarms as the weather warms up across the U.S.—and their bites aren't just itchy. They can transmit pathogens that can cause diseases like West Nile virus, Zika virus and malaria, to name a few. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-harmonic-radar-tags-reveal-mosquitoes.html Plants & Animals Sat, 13 Jun 2026 09:00:02 EDT news700403639 Around the world, ocean warming is causing fish to move poleward in search of cooler water. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-climate-fish-cooler-route-blocked.html Plants & Animals Fri, 12 Jun 2026 11:40:05 EDT news700477980 Scientists have used an online game to discover the secrets of animal camouflage—such as why tigers have stripes. The study, by the universities of Exeter and Bristol, reveals that high-contrast markings like tiger stripes are harder to see in sunshine, and in complex 3D habitats such as tall grass or forest undergrowth. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-online-game-uncovers-tiger-stripes.html Plants & Animals Wed, 29 Apr 2026 14:00:15 EDT news696672721 The striped dog-like marsupial we know as the Tasmanian tiger has long been surrounded by mystery, and the subject of scientific curiosity. Now, newly discovered rock art depicting Tasmanian tigers and Tasmanian devils in northern Australia is providing fresh insights into their cultural importance and when they may have last roamed mainland Australia. A paper on this topic appears in Archaeology in Oceania. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-tasmanian-tiger-arnhem-art.html Archaeology Mon, 30 Mar 2026 15:00:09 EDT news694100999 There aren't any native lion or tiger populations living in Japan today, but this was not always the case. Fossil evidence indicates that at least one species of large cat roamed the archipelago during the Late Pleistocene—a period lasting from approximately 129,000 to 11,700 years ago. While researchers initially thought the fossils came from ancient tigers, new DNA evidence, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicates that the fossils actually came from an ancient species of lion. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-japan-ancient-tigers-cave-lions.html Molecular & Computational biology Mon, 16 Feb 2026 12:00:03 EST news690463233 New University of Hawaiʻi research confirms that "Sharktober" is real, revealing a statistically significant spike in shark bite incidents in Hawaiian waters every October. The study, which analyzed 30 years of data (1995–2024), found that about 20% of all recorded bites occurred in that single month, a frequency far exceeding any other time of the year. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-sharktober-scientists-spike-tiger-shark.html Plants & Animals Thu, 22 Jan 2026 17:40:02 EST news688319296 A team of shark researchers from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa has solved a long-standing mystery, identifying the first-ever documented mating hub for tiger sharks. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-tiger-sharks-maui-whale-season.html Plants & Animals Fri, 16 Jan 2026 16:10:02 EST news687715767 Researchers have developed a new "color-coded" genetic method that makes it easy to distinguish male and female mosquitoes. This innovation can help solve a major bottleneck in mosquito control strategies that rely on releasing only sterile males. The approach uses gene editing to produce dark males and pale females, offering a practical and safer alternative to current sex-separation techniques. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-males-gene-method-mosquito.html Biotechnology Wed, 17 Dec 2025 05:00:15 EST news685124521 The sense of smell is vital for animals, as it helps them find food, protect themselves from predators and interact socially. An international research team led by Dr. Quentin Martinez and Dr. Eli Amson from the State Museum of Natural History, Stuttgart, has now discovered that certain areas of the brain skull allow conclusions to be drawn about the sense of smell in mammals. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-olfaction-written-bones-insights-evolution.html Evolution Mon, 08 Dec 2025 15:00:04 EST news684405901 This week, JPL scientists reported that glaciers speed up and slow down at predictable intervals. CERN's ATLAS experiment detected evidence for the decay of a Higgs boson into a muon-antimuon pair. And researchers discovered that exercise slows tumor growth by shifting glucose uptake to muscles. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-saturday-citations-cancer-therapy-breakthrough.html Other Sat, 06 Dec 2025 09:30:01 EST news684152960 Destroyed habitats, poaching, and prey depletion have dramatically reduced tiger habitats around the world. Today, tigers occupy just 5–10% of their historical habitats. But on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, an important population of critically endangered Sumatran tigers may persevere, a new Frontiers in Conservation Science study shows. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-camera-snap-images-endangered-sumatran.html Plants & Animals Thu, 04 Dec 2025 00:00:04 EST news683991181 The female mosquito only mates once in her lifetime, and yet she can develop many hundreds of eggs from this single event. After each blood feeding, she draws from an internal sperm storage unit to inseminate her eggs, then lays them (about 150 in each batch) and repeats this process every few days. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-wrong-mosquito-females.html Plants & Animals Tue, 28 Oct 2025 13:09:04 EDT news680875741 Organic molecules detected in the watery plumes that spew out from cracks in the surface of Enceladus could be formed through exposure to radiation on Saturn's icy moon, rather than originating from deep within its sub-surface ocean. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-enceladus-plumes-ocean.html Astrobiology Tue, 09 Sep 2025 10:26:42 EDT news676632357 When you picture a shark, you probably think of a large, powerful predator cruising the open ocean. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-sharks-roam-ocean-million-years.html Evolution Mon, 08 Sep 2025 11:20:05 EDT news676548772 During a tiger survey at a wildlife sanctuary in India, conservationists noticed a "large-sized" mammal. The brief glimpse intrigued them and led them to set up more trail cameras for a better look at the "smooth-coated" animal. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-chance-sighting-tiger-survey-kind.html Plants & Animals Fri, 05 Sep 2025 09:56:45 EDT news676285001 The thylacine, also known as the Tasmanian tiger or Tasmanian wolf, roamed the Australian mainland, Tasmania and New Guinea for millions of years, up until the last one died in Tasmania in 1936. Despite the names, the thylacine was neither a tiger nor a wolf, but actually a marsupial relative of the Tasmanian devil. https://phys.org/news/2025-08-tasmanian-tiger-extinction-ancestral-gene.html Plants & Animals Wed, 27 Aug 2025 10:30:01 EDT news675509128 The largest-ever study of over 2.6 million zoo birth records reveals skewed sex ratios in endangered species, from lemurs to elephants. The international team of scientists behind the study emphasizes that it is vital that zoos take into account the ratios of males to females born in captivity when planning conservation projects and breeding programs for endangered species to avoid the silent threat of having too many of one sex. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-male-zoo-animals-threaten-endangered.html Plants & Animals Wed, 30 Jul 2025 12:29:58 EDT news673097394 In two new studies, researchers at the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, have shed light on how interactions between predators and prey influenced the extinction of saber-toothed tigers and the demise of the diverse antilocaprid species, which are now reduced to a single species: the American antelope. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-reduction-prey-decisive-factor-extinction.html Evolution Tue, 15 Jul 2025 14:20:03 EDT news671806084 Certain migratory species of sharks may remain swimming and feeding in Atlantic Ocean waters in areas of the northeast coast for longer periods of time later into fall before they head toward southern waters. Led by researchers in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) at Stony Brook University, the study tracked six shark species over five years by way of tagging them and acoustically tracking their movement. https://phys.org/news/2025-07-sharks-north-atlantic-delay-fall.html Plants & Animals Fri, 11 Jul 2025 11:11:54 EDT news671451108