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. From nuclear energy to lab-grown meat, the list of effective but unpopular climate solutions is long. A new University of Colorado Boulder study sheds light on why people reject or accept some proposed sustainability technologies: If it doesn't seem natural, they won't go for it. And that holds across political ideologies. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-naturalness-emerges-key-driver-climate.html Environment Tue, 11 Aug 2026 16:40:01 EDT news705670561 An international team of researchers has uncovered a previously undetected structure in the birdsong of Bengalese finches that has the same statistical patterns found in human languages. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-birdsong-whale-song-patterns-similar.html Plants & Animals Fri, 07 Aug 2026 14:00:05 EDT news705227461 Deep in the world's oceans, large male sperm whales emit slow, low-frequency clicks with the highest source levels of any animal communication sounds. These slow clicks are not the echolocation clicks the whales use to locate prey, but loud, low-frequency communication signals. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-male-sperm-whales-loudest-communication.html Plants & Animals Mon, 03 Aug 2026 17:20:01 EDT news704986802 Risso's dolphins around the British Isles are part of a single population—genetically distinct from those elsewhere in the Atlantic, new research shows. Scientists studied the DNA of dolphins that stranded in England, Scotland and Wales from 1992 to 2016. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-genetic-analysis-distinct-risso-dolphin.html Plants & Animals Mon, 03 Aug 2026 11:40:04 EDT news704971621 For male humpback whales, singing is serious business. Their haunting, complex songs can last for hours and travel for miles underwater, playing a central role in reproduction during the winter breeding season. But despite decades of research into what these songs sound like, scientists have had far less insight into what the whales are physically doing while they sing. https://phys.org/news/2026-08-humpback-whales-song-themes-phases.html Plants & Animals Mon, 03 Aug 2026 11:00:06 EDT news704969103 Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus)—the world's biggest fish—are one of the most charismatic marine species. They connect with the hearts of anyone lucky enough to encounter them, making people deeply curious about their lives and invested in their conservation. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-cameras-whale-sharks-capture-krill.html Plants & Animals Sat, 25 Jul 2026 14:00:01 EDT news703863834 New research from the University of St Andrews and Université de Neuchâtel has uncovered the mechanism that allows sperm whales to sleep in a unique vertical position just under the ocean surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-sperm-whales-restful-vertical.html Plants & Animals Thu, 23 Jul 2026 18:00:04 EDT news703932062 Orcas are known to be smart and ruthless hunters. They've been observed hunting a variety of prey, with some species, such as whales, larger than themselves. They use a wide range of strategies to hunt and kill prey, but now, in the Gulf of California, researchers have observed one that hasn't been described before. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-orcas-ramming-world-heaviest-fish.html Plants & Animals Thu, 23 Jul 2026 00:00:01 EDT news703925882 In 2012, Nature revealed that humans provide a home to thousands of different species of microbes in a series of papers that opened a path to understanding the impact of the human microbiome on our health. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-great-barrier-reef-microbiome-reveals.html Ecology Wed, 22 Jul 2026 11:00:35 EDT news703850574 Usually there's safety in numbers, but it doesn't always work that way. Fin whales (Balaenoptera physalus) filter-feed on immense shoals of krill, engulfing colossal mouthfuls of water containing up to 144 kg of the crustaceans. But then the mighty creatures expel the water by squeezing it out through the racks of baleen lining their mouths. https://phys.org/news/2026-07-krill-buildup-fin-whale-filter.html Plants & Animals Thu, 09 Jul 2026 18:00:01 EDT news702794203 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 Microscopic plankton are among the most important organisms on Earth. Phytoplankton produce around half of the oxygen we breathe, while plankton as a whole underpin marine food webs, support fisheries, help regulate carbon and sustain life across the ocean. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-decline-plankton-northeast-atlantic-stark.html Environment Mon, 29 Jun 2026 12:20:02 EDT news701952001 Scientists have spotted two humpback whales that made separate, record-breaking crossings between Australia and Brazil. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-humpback-whales-australia-brazil.html Plants & Animals Sat, 27 Jun 2026 05:00:02 EDT news698472027 Astronomers from Germany and Turkey have analyzed available data from various space telescopes to investigate an ultraluminous X-ray source designated X-4, which is located in the nearby galaxy NGC 4631. Results of the new study, published June 22 on the preprint server arXiv, yield important insights into the spectral and timing variability of this source. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ultraluminous-ray-source-whale-galaxy.html Astronomy Fri, 26 Jun 2026 12:20:04 EDT news701690531 A 100-year-old equation and a fiber-optic cable off the coast of Svalbard led researchers to discover they could detect swimming whales—even if they were completely silent. The discovery broadens the tools biologists could someday use to detect and monitor these marine giants. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-fiber-optic-cables-silent-whales.html Ecology Wed, 24 Jun 2026 15:00:03 EDT news701523194 Data spanning nearly half a century shows that endangered southern resident killer whales are spending less time in inland waters, whereas their larger cousins, Bigg's killer whales, are increasingly present in Puget Sound. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-decades-dataset-orcas-home-puget.html Plants & Animals Wed, 24 Jun 2026 14:00:06 EDT news701422585 New research from the University of St. Andrews shows how sperm whale vocal dialects evolve as they adopt new calls while still remembering the old. An international team of researchers studying vocal dialects in the endangered population of sperm whales that live in the Mediterranean Sea has captured the cultural evolution of new dialects in process. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-sperm-whale-vocal-dialects-evolve.html Plants & Animals Tue, 23 Jun 2026 21:00:03 EDT news701427003 Off Oman's coast lives a small population of just over 80 Arabian Sea humpback whales (ASHWs). They are classified as endangered and are thought to be the only humpback whale population that doesn't undertake seasonal migrations across the world's oceans. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-arabian-sea-humpback-whale-distance.html Plants & Animals Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:01 EDT news700989061 The vaquita (Phocoena sinus), an elusive porpoise found only in the shallow waters of Mexico's northern Gulf of California, is one of the rarest and most endangered marine mammals on Earth. Measuring about 5 feet (1.5 meters) in length, it is the world's smallest cetacean—a group that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. Known for the distinctive dark rings around its eyes and mouth, the vaquita remained unknown to science until the latter half of the 20th century. Today, it has become a global symbol of the growing biodiversity crisis unfolding in the world's oceans. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-pixels-world-rarest-porpoise-3d.html Biotechnology Mon, 15 Jun 2026 12:00:01 EDT news700736341 Marine mammal stranding teams have completed major response activities for two deceased juvenile humpback whales discovered less than 10 miles (16 kilometers) apart in Monterey Bay earlier this month and issued preliminary necropsy findings. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-toxic-algal-blooms-linked-deaths.html Ecology Mon, 15 Jun 2026 10:00:07 EDT news700735142 Long before vertebrates walked on land, millipedes had the place to themselves. Hundreds of millions of years before dinosaurs arrived, these early decomposers were helping establish Earth's terrestrial ecosystems. But despite their ancient history, scientists still hadn't fully unraveled their evolutionary story. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-evolutionary-history-millipede-dating-million.html Ecology Fri, 12 Jun 2026 11:00:05 EDT news700480561 Researchers have repurposed an AI model designed for visual identification tasks to detect Bryde's whale calls contained within seismic data collected in the South China Sea. The detection system precisely identified calls more than 96% of the time and even identified some call events that were missed when the data were examined by hand, according to the study published in Seismological Research Letters. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ai-bryde-whale-seismic-south.html Ecology Wed, 10 Jun 2026 15:50:01 EDT news700324561 Whale falls form when whale carcasses sink to the seafloor, creating localized concentrations of biodiversity in the deep ocean. Besides playing a role in long-term carbon sequestration, whale falls help scientists understand the evolution and dispersal of deep-sea life, as well as provide an unprecedented fossil record of whales and deep-sea ecosystems. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-newfound-whale-necropolis-reveals-million.html Ecology Wed, 10 Jun 2026 11:00:07 EDT news700303081 Ground squirrel droppings, preserved for millennia in the Yukon's deep permafrost, have yielded an enormous amount of environmental DNA from dozens of species of plants, insects, microbes and large mammals, offering detailed genetic information about an environment that no longer exists. It is among the oldest ancient DNA ever recovered and sequenced. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-ancient-ground-squirrel-reveal-arctic.html Evolution Tue, 09 Jun 2026 11:00:05 EDT news700130381 A seven-year collaborative study has revealed alarming fluctuations in the health of Hawaii's endangered insular false killer whales, with some individuals losing nearly a quarter of their body weight in just a few months. Published in Endangered Species Research, the findings provide the first quantitative evidence that nutritional stress and environmental shifts may be driving the decline of this iconic population, which now numbers fewer than 140 individuals. https://phys.org/news/2026-06-hawaii-false-killer-whales-threatened.html Plants & Animals Fri, 05 Jun 2026 11:20:01 EDT news699875865 For years, scientists studying bowhead whales have relied on a simple idea: if a whale makes a long, square or U-shaped dive, it's feeding time. A new study demonstrates that assumption may not hold water. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-bowhead-whale.html Plants & Animals Thu, 28 May 2026 18:20:01 EDT news699196621 Using old satellite radar techniques, scientists have developed a new way of measuring the true extent of an understudied and crucial region of the Antarctic sea-ice system for the first time. The Marginal Ice Zone (MIZ) around Antarctica is the "outer edge" of the sea ice, forming a nearly 200-kilometer-wide ring of ice floes affected by waves from the extremely rough Southern Ocean. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-miz-ing-action-antarctic-sea.html Earth Sciences Thu, 28 May 2026 17:20:04 EDT news699193701 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 Climate change is rapidly destroying cultural heritage sites across the Arctic, as exemplified in a 17th century "whalers' graveyard" which provides invaluable insights into early whalers' way of life, according to a study published in PLOS One by Lise Loktu of the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research and Elin Therese Brødholt of Oslo University Hospital, Norway. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-climate-destroying-arctic-cultural-heritage.html Archaeology Wed, 20 May 2026 14:00:03 EDT news698493781 An international team of scientists have documented, for the first time, humpback whales traveling between breeding grounds in eastern Australia and Brazil, crossing more than 14,000 kilometers of open ocean. The findings set new records for the greatest distances ever confirmed between sightings of individual humpback whales anywhere in the world. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-intrepid-tails-fluke-photos-humpback.html Plants & Animals Tue, 19 May 2026 19:10:01 EDT news698419561