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. When picturing a scaled, toothy Tyrannosaurus rex stomping across North America, building nests and eating other dinosaurs, it's easy to forget that scientists have gleaned everything we know about T. rex from clues left more than 60 million years ago. While the presence of fossils in Alaska suggested that this prehistoric ancestor of birds was already on the evolutionary path from cold-blooded reptile to warm-blooded avian, there wasn't a way to take T. rex's temperature—until now. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-tyrannosaurus-rex-teeth-reveal-body.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 16 Sep 2026 14:00:19 EDT news708777841 Like all other snakes, sea snakes shed their skin as they grow. But because they live near the surface of the open ocean, they don't have the benefit of removing their old skin by slithering against a hard surface. Instead, they wriggle into a pretzel and use the friction generated by their scales to get the job done. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-planes-snake-scientists-crab-species.html Plants & Animals Fri, 11 Sep 2026 09:40:02 EDT news708335546 The Hammerschmiede clay pit near Pforzen in the eastern Allgäu is famous for its wealth of finds: Besides fossils of two early anthropoid apes, the remains of numerous vertebrate species have been uncovered in 11.6-million-year-old river sediments—but until now, very few birds. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-rare-bird-fossils-bavaria-reveal.html Ecology Thu, 10 Sep 2026 19:20:05 EDT news708270181 Harmful algal blooms pose serious threats to people, animals and the environment. The University of Toledo's Dr. Jeanine Refsnider counts it as a positive discovery that northern map turtles tend to steer clear, as she and an undergraduate collaborator recently reported in the Journal of Great Lakes Research. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-northern-turtles-lake-erie-algal.html Plants & Animals Thu, 10 Sep 2026 12:20:06 EDT news708252187 A study provides the first large-scale empirical evidence that seagrass meadows act as a critical safety net for millions of coastal people living in extreme poverty across the Indo-Pacific. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-underwater-meadows-sustain-millions-extreme.html Environment Thu, 03 Sep 2026 04:00:02 EDT news707484181 Thirty-five years on—well, 12 million, technically—Ashfall Fossil Beds State Historical Park continues to offer important glimpses of prehistoric life in Nebraska. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-tracks-tooth-reveal-bone-dogs.html Paleontology & Fossils Fri, 28 Aug 2026 11:40:04 EDT news707135102 Why do humans rely on XY chromosomes to determine sex, while birds use ZW—and many reptiles use neither, letting temperature decide instead? Sex determination is remarkably diverse across the animal kingdom. In genotypic sex determination (GSD), sex is encoded in the genome: XX individuals are female and XY males in humans and most mammals, while in the ZW system, found in birds and some reptiles, males are ZZ and females ZW. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-xy-zw-gecko-chromosomes-reveal.html Evolution Thu, 27 Aug 2026 14:00:08 EDT news707044201 Using a new combination of computational tools to analyze ancient DNA, Yale researchers have discovered two ancient, extinct giant tortoise lineages that once lived on the Galapagos Islands. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-degraded-dna-reveals-extinct-galapagos.html Evolution Thu, 27 Aug 2026 09:40:03 EDT news707039701 Sea turtles are famous for being prodigious wanderers. Guided by Earth's magnetic field, ocean currents and the sun, they tend to crisscross the seas in search of food, returning to the region of their birth every few years to breed. So when scientists discovered a population of sea turtles that appear to be very much homebodies, they were taken aback. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-galpagos-yellow-sea-turtles-homebodies.html Plants & Animals Thu, 27 Aug 2026 00:00:01 EDT news706880270 Moving threatened sea turtle nests to cooler, safer parts of the beach can save entire clutches from rising tides and extreme heat, but new research suggests it may have hidden consequences for the hatchlings that emerge. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-turtle-eggs-hidden-consequences.html Plants & Animals Tue, 25 Aug 2026 13:30:01 EDT news706881369 During the Late Cretaceous period, parts of Egypt were covered in water. A new study, published in the journal Cretaceous Research, describes new evidence that this tropical sea was home to a diverse community of sharks. The study adds five new species to the region's history, found in what the authors refer to as a "shark graveyard." https://phys.org/news/2026-08-egypt-home-diverse-shark-community.html Paleontology & Fossils Tue, 25 Aug 2026 11:30:02 EDT news706874558 Florida State University researchers studying male green sea turtles off the coast of Brazil have discovered two distinct migration strategies, with some turtles traveling up to 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) after breeding while others remain in the same area year-round. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-turtle-uncover-migration-strategies-male.html Plants & Animals Mon, 17 Aug 2026 11:00:05 EDT news706179121 South America was a frightening place during the Miocene. More than 10 million years ago, a vast lake covered much of the continent, home to giant turtles and crocodylians. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-giant-crocodylians-dominated-food-chain.html Ecology Sun, 16 Aug 2026 21:00:04 EDT news705927781 Some cynodonts may have been giving birth to live young much sooner in evolutionary history than previously assumed. A new Frontiers in Mammal Science study has offered the first compelling evidence that cynodonts may have been viviparous—a reproductive mode characterized by live birth. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-million-year-fossil-story-mammalian.html Evolution Thu, 13 Aug 2026 00:00:02 EDT news705656222 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 The Mauritian dodo—a global symbol of human-caused extinction and one of the world's largest pigeons—may not have deserved its reputation as a silly simpleton and may have been the only member of its group to live in the dark. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-dodo-birds-clever-thought.html Ecology Sat, 08 Aug 2026 11:20:01 EDT news705161909 When most baby turtles hatch, their sex depends on the temperature of the sand or soil where their mother laid her eggs. Warm incubation produces females, while cool nests produce males. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-antenna-cell-appendage-turtle-embryos.html Plants & Animals Fri, 07 Aug 2026 16:00:01 EDT news705323701 Dinosaurs are famous for being big, from the towering Tyrannosaurus rex to the colossal Apatosaurus. But a new study published today in the journal Evolution by scientists at the American Museum of Natural History and Princeton University suggests that one of the greatest mysteries of dinosaur evolution isn't how some species became giants—it's why even the smallest dinosaurs never became truly tiny. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-tiny-dinosaurs-explores-evolution-biggest.html Evolution Wed, 05 Aug 2026 10:00:05 EDT news705050822 Despite the promise of rebounding green sea turtle numbers, many sea turtle populations continue to flounder under the pressures of changing climates, overfishing and urbanization. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ancient-turtle-modern-southern-caribbean.html Plants & Animals Thu, 30 Jul 2026 07:00:12 EDT news704605682 An ancient marine 'crime scene' discovered near Richmond captures the world first evidence of a flying reptile being eaten by a sea monster… before that predator became dinner itself. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-bag-bones-rare-tier-prehistoric.html Paleontology & Fossils Tue, 28 Jul 2026 18:40:06 EDT news704476081 Some 400 years ago, a member of the Indigenous Potano-Timucua tribe scooped up some clay and carefully molded it into a modest vessel, small enough to rest in the palm of their hand. You can imagine their fingers pressing a tight crease around the pot's simple rim and smoothing its dull gray surface, leaving it free of any adornment. We may never know exactly what the pot held or how many hands it passed through before it was excavated, still fully intact, by students at the University of Florida earlier this year. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-students-unearth-rare-centuries-pot.html Archaeology Tue, 21 Jul 2026 18:10:01 EDT news703868282 How did a large crab end up trapped inside a plastic bottle with an opening smaller than its body? Hiroshima University researchers investigated this unusual marine mystery, revealing a lesser-known impact of marine plastic pollution on crustaceans. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-crab-plastic-bottle-survives-months.html Plants & Animals Thu, 02 Jul 2026 09:00:01 EDT news702199921 New research indicates that sea turtles seem to navigate across hundreds of miles of open ocean using Earth's magnetic field. Previous experimental studies suggested that sea turtles use geomagnetism to navigate, but this study, published in Science Advances, was purely observational: Researchers attached devices measuring location and compass direction (the way a turtle was facing at a given moment) to six female green sea turtles that took about a month to navigate more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) westward across the Indian Ocean. The satellite tags, developed over the course of five years specifically for this purpose, measure compass headings to within 10° and location to within 100 meters. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-turtles-migrate-earth-magnetic-field.html Plants & Animals Thu, 25 Jun 2026 11:20:04 EDT news701598181 Until recently, researchers were unable to conduct satellite-tracking studies on juvenile turtles because of their small body sizes and immediate dispersal into the ocean, leaving this period of their lives enigmatic and often referred to as the "lost years." A study titled "Pioneering insights into the diving behavior of early-stage sea turtles revealed by novel marine miniaturized satellite tags," published in Scientific Reports in April 2026, provides the most comprehensive analysis to date of vertical diving behavior in early life stages of leatherback and loggerhead sea turtles. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-miniature-satellite-tags-reveal-behavior.html Plants & Animals Thu, 25 Jun 2026 07:20:01 EDT news701535993 An international study co-authored by a University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa researcher has found that drifting devices used by the global tuna fishing industry are entering marine protected areas around the world, creating potential risks for wildlife and sensitive ocean habitats. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-drifting-tuna-gear-wildlife-marine.html Plants & Animals Wed, 24 Jun 2026 19:20:01 EDT news701533201 Sometime between 5.5 and 5.6 million years ago, two shell crushers squared off in the languid currents of an ancient Florida river. The fossils they left behind, discovered by paleontologists at the Florida Museum of Natural History, reveal the identity of the combatants and the outcome of their encounter. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ancient-altercations-musk-turtles-alligator.html Ecology Tue, 02 Jun 2026 13:40:03 EDT news699617204 The origin of turtles has always been a bit of a puzzle for scientists who study the evolution of animals. To this day, where they fit in the tree of life remains a highly debated topic. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-turtles-tree-life-xray-south.html Evolution Thu, 28 May 2026 16:40:02 EDT news699193621 An invasive algae already well-established in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands is raising concern among researchers as it threatens to spread into the main Hawaiian Islands. Scientists from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) have identified a potential ally in slowing its advance: sea turtles. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-hawaiian-green-sea-turtles-emerge.html Plants & Animals Mon, 20 Apr 2026 12:00:01 EDT news695897463 Neanderthals hunted European pond turtles (Emys orbicularis) in Central Europe, though probably not for food. The careful cleaning of carapace elements at Neumark-Nord indicates that shells were reused, perhaps as small containers or scoop-like implements, according to an international research team. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-neanderthals-central-europe-pond-turtles.html Archaeology Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:20:03 EDT news694860183 The mass extinction at the boundary between the Cretaceous and Paleogene periods was catastrophic, wiping out much of life on Earth. Vertebrate groups that dominated at the time, such as dinosaurs and many large marine reptiles, fell victim to the effects of the asteroid impact about 66 million years ago. However, the catastrophe did not affect all organisms to the same extent: turtles, for example, survived with only minimal losses. Their chance of survival was apparently linked to their diet: species with a preference for hard-shelled organisms survived the catastrophic event. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-shell-turtles-defied-mass-extinction.html Evolution Wed, 25 Mar 2026 15:20:01 EDT news693661142