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. Highlights from the last week of May, 2026: A key climate tipping point is disrupting the Arctic Ocean food chain (more of a lowlight, I guess). Scuba-diving tourism may not be the benefit to coral reef systems that we once thought, and might actually be unsustainable. And an experimental mRNA vaccine showed promising results against strains of Ebola. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-saturday-citations-failure-cellular-mortality.html Other Sat, 30 May 2026 09:20:02 EDT news699280662 New research reveals a potential link between the gut microbes of a fish and global ocean processes, offering new insight into how marine ecosystems help regulate ocean chemistry and the marine carbon cycle. The study, titled "Symbiotic bacteria may support calcium carbonate precipitation in the Gulf toadfish," is published in the journal PLOS Biology. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-fish-microbe-partnership-ocean-health.html Ecology Fri, 29 May 2026 15:40:01 EDT news699281453 Past research has indicated Mars's largest northern basin, Utopia Planitia, was once the location of a large body of water, but details surrounding when this body of water may have existed have not been resolved. Researchers have now identified a ring of minerals in the region that have helped them string together a timeline of what happened there. The new study, published in Nature Communications, provides details about the ocean's timeline and what it says about life on Mars. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mars-manganese-bathtub-reveals-ancient.html Astrobiology Fri, 29 May 2026 11:50:26 EDT news699274173 Plastic waste poses an urgent problem for the planet's ecosystems, especially in waterways. Millions of tons of plastic waste enter Earth's oceans every year, and plastic has been found in every part of the ocean, including at the bottom of the deepest ocean trenches. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-bio-stickers-plastic-breakdown-marine.html Biochemistry Fri, 29 May 2026 10:00:07 EDT news699265681 There is a forever chemical lurking in the world's oceans that could be fundamentally altering the biology of marine life before it even hatches. PFOS, a notorious member of the PFAS family of chemicals, is known for its ability to bioaccumulate, binding specifically to proteins in the blood and liver. While it's long been recognized as a pollutant, scientists are only beginning to understand how it changes an organism from the inside out. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-chemical-fish-hatch-reveals.html Plants & Animals Fri, 29 May 2026 09:20:01 EDT news699262973 Reducing methane emissions will slow climate change but could also slow the recovery of the stratospheric ozone layer, new research from the University of Reading shows. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-climate-hidden-methane-reshapes-ozone.html Earth Sciences Fri, 29 May 2026 09:00:06 EDT news699205501 Conservationists are in a race against time to prevent one of the world's rarest island plants from disappearing forever, after seeds collected from the only surviving wild Dendroseris neriifolia tree arrived at the Millennium Seed Bank (MSB) at Kew Wakehurst in Sussex last month. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-kind-tree-cliffside-botanic-gardens.html Plants & Animals Fri, 29 May 2026 06:00:02 EDT news699206581 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 Despite the intensity of modern exploration, the eastern Mediterranean continues to yield unexpected discoveries. On the small Greek island of Kastellorizo, researchers have documented a previously unknown cave cricket thriving within a network of man-made tunnels. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-balrog-tunnels-scientists-cave-cricket.html Plants & Animals Thu, 28 May 2026 17:00:04 EDT news699193681 The motion of the ocean may be the key to removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, so University of Houston researchers set out to determine which U.S. coastlines are best suited for the process in a new study. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-gulf-coast-ocean-technology-carbon.html Environment Thu, 28 May 2026 16:40:03 EDT news699200721 The proton sharks showed up on a Friday. In a routine data calibration meeting for NASA's Parker Solar Probe in 2020, a small group of scientists were scrolling through visualizations of their data showing solar winds. Suddenly, a weird shape flashed on the screen: Instead of the usual rounded blob of solar-wind protons, this distribution had a long, flattened, head-like structure jutting out to one side. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-solar-secret-hammerheads-space.html Astronomy Thu, 28 May 2026 16:00:04 EDT news699192481 A new study published in the journal Nature Geoscience by researchers at the IBS Center for Climate Physics (ICCP) at Pusan National University in South Korea shows that the Antarctic ice sheet became more sensitive to climate forcing following a major shift in Earth's ice age cycles about one million years ago, providing new insight into how ice sheets respond to long-term climate change. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-sensitivity-antarctic-ice-climate-sharply.html Earth Sciences Thu, 28 May 2026 15:20:07 EDT news699191563 Nearly 50 years ago, a puzzling earthquake beneath northern Utah jolted scientists' understanding of how Earth works. Now, research from the University of Utah confirms that the mysterious event was real, and part of a rare class of earthquakes occurring far deeper beneath the continental crust than scientists once believed possible. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-deep-beneath-utah-rare-mantle.html Earth Sciences Thu, 28 May 2026 12:20:05 EDT news699186242 About a billion years ago, Earth started to come into its own. It was past the awkwardness of its younger years full of growing pains and turmoil: comet strikes and slimy water, including the Great Oxidation Event that flipped the world upside down. Roughly a billion years ago, the planet began to advance and mature, with plant life developing about 700 million years ago, but still with the occasional wild climate parties to keep things interesting. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-supercontinent-ancient-earth-snowball-phase.html Astrobiology Thu, 28 May 2026 11:20:04 EDT news699181908 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 irreversible shift in the chemical makeup of the Arctic Ocean driven by climate change is disrupting the region's food chain, a study suggests. Widespread loss of Arctic sea ice has led to a sharp fall in levels of a key nutrient, affecting populations of plankton, fish, seabirds and marine mammals, say researchers. Their analysis reveals that exposure to sunlight of vast shallow regions of the ocean previously covered by ice fuels a process that breaks down the nutrient—nitrate—and removes it from seawater. The study appears in Communications Earth & Environment. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-arctic-ocean-food-chain-disrupted.html Ecology Thu, 28 May 2026 05:00:04 EDT news699117661 When a team of researchers recorded a low thundering underneath the surface of the Hudson River, they thought they were hearing the muffled rumble of trains. A closer look and listen led to a much more interesting discovery: The thunder came from Atlantic sturgeon—an iconic and endangered species—spawning in the depths of the river. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-newly-thunder-atlantic-sturgeons-awe.html Plants & Animals Wed, 27 May 2026 19:00:01 EDT news699118321 Waves of higher, warmer water move eastward across the Pacific Ocean a few months before an El Niño emerges. Several have shown up in 2026 satellite data. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-giant-pacific-el-nio-weather.html Earth Sciences Wed, 27 May 2026 15:00:01 EDT news699106488 From the revived corpse of Frankenstein's monster to the disembodied hand, "Thing," in the Addams Family, reanimated tissue is one of the most enduring images in science fiction. It turns out, that image has some basis in nature, according to the recent discovery of a mysterious creature that lives on the seafloor that scientists are calling a "real-life zombie." https://phys.org/news/2026-05-severed-piece-sea-cucumber-die.html Cell & Microbiology Wed, 27 May 2026 14:00:14 EDT news699090181 Earth was mostly devoid of oxygen for much of its 4.5 billion year lifetime. That is, until certain processes started to allow for the eventual buildup of oxygen up to the levels we have now (around 21% of the atmosphere). While scientists have found evidence of the approximate timescales of rises in oxygen over time and are aware of some of the mechanisms behind it, the main driver behind Earth's long-term oxygenation is still unclear. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-earth-oxygen-rich-atmosphere-owe.html Earth Sciences Wed, 27 May 2026 12:15:54 EDT news699102077 A study by researchers at The University of Manchester, carried out alongside the Universities of Melbourne and Copenhagen, could hold the key to understanding the causes of long-term health problems, such as infertility and ovarian cancer. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-coral-infertility-ovarian-cancer-decoding.html Soft Matter Wed, 27 May 2026 11:20:06 EDT news699093819 Antarctica's Ross Ice Shelf and the West Antarctic Ice Sheet may have been far smaller during one of Earth's most recent warm periods, according to a new study that traced the origin of ancient dust preserved in Antarctic ice. Previous modeling studies suggest that the melting of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet could raise global sea levels by between three and five meters. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ancient-retreat-west-antarctic-ice.html Earth Sciences Tue, 26 May 2026 18:20:01 EDT news699029348 Europe, which is in the throes of a record-smashing heat wave this week, is the world's fastest-warming continent and stretches into an even more rapidly heating Arctic. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-europe-world-fastest-continent.html Environment Tue, 26 May 2026 14:45:24 EDT news699025457 As meltwater drains through and beneath a glacier, it can alter how the ice flows and whether it breaks apart. Meltwater can also cause feedback that leads to more ice loss. Understanding when and how glacial meltwater drains is therefore critical to predicting how fast glaciers will lose ice and how that loss will affect sea level. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-glacial-meltwater.html Earth Sciences Tue, 26 May 2026 14:00:05 EDT news699016441 Most people think of ice as frozen and lifeless, but research at Umeå University shows the opposite. A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences demonstrates that ice actively speeds up the breakdown of iron minerals and may release more iron than current environmental models account for. This is crucial for predicting how nutrient cycles, carbon storage, and water quality will change in polar and mountain regions as the planet warms. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-ice-iron-climate.html Earth Sciences Tue, 26 May 2026 10:00:02 EDT news699001562 Translucent, speckled, and barely the size of a grain of rice, a new species of sea slug has been identified in the coastal waters of Keelung, Taiwan. Because of its minute size and distinctive black and yellow markings, researchers from National Taiwan Ocean University, National Museum of Natural Science and National Taipei University of Education have named the creature Thecacera sesama. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-tiny-sesame-sea-slug-species.html Plants & Animals Tue, 26 May 2026 07:40:18 EDT news698998081 Research at the University of Sydney has found that scuba-diving tourism—widely promoted as a sustainable way to experience coral reefs—is causing frequent and often hidden damage to fragile marine ecosystems. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-divers-reefs-unseen-habit-steady.html Plants & Animals Tue, 26 May 2026 07:00:03 EDT news698917862 What if some of the most important clues about marine biodiversity were already collected but never fully shared? That's the question that motivated a study, published in Biodiversity Data Journal. It brought together over 40 years of unpublished data on marine amphipods—ecologically crucial crustaceans—from across Italian waters. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-decades-overlooked-reveal-hidden-amphipod.html Plants & Animals Mon, 25 May 2026 17:20:03 EDT news698942641 Over the past few decades, heat waves have become more common in several parts of the world as our planet warms. That's a huge problem for many animals, as it can lead to habitat loss and push their bodies to lethal thresholds. However, one penguin species appears to be adapting to these extreme conditions by shifting its breeding calendar. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-gentoo-penguins-cope-climate-earlier.html Plants & Animals Mon, 25 May 2026 11:30:02 EDT news698923661 The Galápagos Islands off the coast of Ecuador are home to more than a thousand plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth—things like marine iguanas and giant tortoises. In a new paper in the journal Zootaxa, scientists have announced the discovery of the newest animal found in the Galápagos: a tiny blue octopus. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-tiny-blue-octopus-galpagos-deep.html Plants & Animals Sun, 24 May 2026 21:00:01 EDT news698660703