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. Draped in a uniform coat of vibrant grass-green and possessing eyes that shimmer like amber, a newly discovered pitviper is the latest hidden jewel to be found in the misty mountains of western Sichuan, China. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-philosopher-serpent-grass-green-pitviper.html Plants & Animals Wed, 22 Apr 2026 13:40:05 EDT news696076681 Research by microbiologists Reinier Egas and Cornelia Welte of Radboud University shows that many methane-consuming microorganisms actually prefer carbon monoxide over methane. When carbon monoxide is present, they consume far less methane. This suggests that in carbon monoxide–rich environments, more methane may be released from the soil into the atmosphere. The paper is published in the journal Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-picky-methane-consuming-microorganisms-carbon.html Ecology Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:00:05 EDT news695388781 By analyzing the data from the Pan-Andromeda Archaeological Survey (PandAS), European astronomers have discovered a new satellite of the Andromeda galaxy. The newfound object, which received the designation Andromeda XXXVI, appears to be an ultra-faint dwarf galaxy. The finding is reported in a paper published March 30 on the arXiv preprint server . https://phys.org/news/2026-04-astronomers-andromeda-xxxvi-ultra-faint.html Astronomy Tue, 07 Apr 2026 08:10:01 EDT news694706609 Mammals are not especially diverse. Roughly 6,800 mammal species are known to exist, compared with about 8,800 species of amphibian, 11,000 species of bird and 12,500 of reptile. Yet when most people picture biodiversity, they often think of charismatic mammals first: pandas, orangutans, elephants or tigers. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-tous-genus-mammal.html Plants & Animals Fri, 06 Mar 2026 10:00:04 EST news692011013 Members of the arachnid class—think spiders, scorpions and harvestmen (daddy long legs)—are often the targets of revulsion, disgust and fear. Yet, they are crucial for ecosystems to thrive. Given the crash in worldwide biodiversity, including what some call the "insect apocalypse," a pair of ecologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst decided to check in on the general state of insects and arachnids in the U.S.—only to discover massive gaps in the data. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-spiders-real-horror-story-world.html Plants & Animals Mon, 02 Mar 2026 15:00:01 EST news691340307 Scientists have uncovered an elegant biophysical trick that tuberculosis-causing bacteria use to survive inside human cells, a discovery that could lead to new strategies for fighting one of the world's deadliest infectious diseases. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-tuberculosis-bacteria-stealth-mechanism-evade.html Cell & Microbiology Sat, 21 Feb 2026 08:00:03 EST news690818553 The ancestors of our furry cats and dogs once looked similar to today's modern mongoose, a mammal with a long body and small, round ears. In fact, all members of the order Carnivora, which includes a variety of mammalian species, such as bears, wolves and even seals, evolved from these 'mongoose-like' creatures. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-qa-climate-shifts-drove-carnivores.html Evolution Wed, 17 Dec 2025 15:59:43 EST news685209541 That resourceful "trash panda" digging through your garbage may be more than just a nuisance—it could be a living example of evolution in progress. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-city-raccoons-domestication.html Plants & Animals Mon, 01 Dec 2025 07:08:38 EST news683795299 Whether we're talking about animals or humans, gut microbes are essential for health, metabolism and protecting against infection. While captivity is known to alter the gut microbiota of wildlife, the relative influence of diet, genetics and environment has been unclear, especially for endangered species. A new study published in the journal PLOS One compared the gut microbes of wild and captive giant pandas, red pandas and Asiatic black bears and found that captivity has the biggest impact on their gut microbiome. https://phys.org/news/2025-10-captivity-gut-bacteria-endangered-pandas.html Plants & Animals Mon, 13 Oct 2025 11:10:01 EDT news679572508 For over 100 years, teddy bears have been a hallmark of childhood nurseries, ubiquitously embedded in our early memories and rarely the object of deep scrutiny. https://phys.org/news/2025-09-teddy-valuable-tools.html Environment Wed, 24 Sep 2025 10:00:01 EDT news677820515 Early in the pandemic, most research, including our own, focused on designing drugs that could block the virus's spike protein. This was a logical first step, but as we've seen, the virus is a moving target. It was rapidly evolving, and new variants acquired resistance due to changes in the surface spike glycoprotein (S protein). https://phys.org/news/2025-08-human-protein-ace2-modulation-entry.html Biochemistry Fri, 15 Aug 2025 10:50:02 EDT news674394408 Catalytic function and its efficiency play a significant role in industrial reactions, and consistent reforms are made in the methodology to enhance the large-scale synthesis of drugs, polymers, and other desired products. Available catalysts can be homogeneous, which means that they possess the same phase as the reactants and products, making them difficult to separate from the reaction mixture. On the other hand, heterogeneous catalysts are a preferred choice for such reactions because of their ease of separation and reusability. https://phys.org/news/2025-03-advancing-catalysis-porous-thin-approach.html Analytical Chemistry Mon, 10 Mar 2025 12:31:03 EDT news660828661 Giant pandas have digestive systems that are typical for carnivores. Yet, bamboo is their main source of food. They have evolved several features; for example, pseudo thumbs to grasp bamboo and flat teeth that are well suited for crushing it, that make it possible for them to live off plants. https://phys.org/news/2025-02-dont-pandas-meat-molecules-bamboo.html Plants & Animals Fri, 28 Feb 2025 00:00:02 EST news659880901 Decades after it was first found in Japan, a species of crustacean with unique black-and-white coloring that resembles a panda has been confirmed to be new to science. Melitid amphipods are shrimp-like crustaceans found worldwide. The newly classified Melita panda—named after the charismatic mammal—was first found in the 1990s. Details of the discovery and morphological analysis are published in ZooKeys. https://phys.org/news/2024-10-crustacean-panda-species.html Plants & Animals Thu, 24 Oct 2024 15:34:03 EDT news649002842 Augmented reality (AR) takes digital images and superimposes them onto real-world views. But AR is more than a new way to play video games; it could transform surgery and self-driving cars. To make the technology easier to integrate into common personal devices, researchers report in ACS Photonics how to combine two optical technologies into a single, high-resolution AR display. In an eyeglasses prototype, the researchers enhanced image quality with a computer algorithm that removed distortions. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-augmented-reality-displays-eyeglasses.html Optics & Photonics Wed, 25 Sep 2024 11:29:02 EDT news646482541 A team of biologists in China has reprogrammed skin cells from giant pandas into induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs), opening the door to creating primordial germ cells that could serve as precursors to sperm and egg cells. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-giant-panda-skin-cells-stem.html Plants & Animals Mon, 23 Sep 2024 09:50:01 EDT news646303287 The Hammerschmiede fossil site in southern Germany has yielded finds from about 11.5 million years ago that have rewritten evolutionary history. The sole species of bear discovered to date at the site was a relative of the giant panda. Its diet, however, more closely resembled the mixed diet of today's brown bears. https://phys.org/news/2024-09-paleontologists-omnivorous-ancestor-giant-panda.html Paleontology & Fossils Mon, 16 Sep 2024 10:07:04 EDT news645700021 In a study published in Current Biology on August 9, a research team led by Prof. Wei Fuwen from Jiangxi Agricultural University and the Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, revealed the mechanism and process of giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) recovery. https://phys.org/news/2024-08-habitat-panda-recovery.html Plants & Animals Tue, 20 Aug 2024 12:55:02 EDT news643377301 Dark energy—a mysterious force pushing the universe apart at an ever-increasing rate—was discovered 26 years ago, and ever since, scientists have been searching for a new and exotic particle causing the expansion. https://phys.org/news/2024-06-captures-atoms-free-fall-gravitational.html General Physics Wed, 26 Jun 2024 11:00:01 EDT news638603102 A multi-institutional team of geneticists in China has discovered the gene mutation responsible for a brown coat in giant pandas. In their study, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group sequenced the genes of a captive giant panda with a brown coat and compared the results with the genes of hundreds of black and white pandas. https://phys.org/news/2024-03-gene-mutation-responsible-brown-giant.html Plants & Animals Wed, 06 Mar 2024 10:02:11 EST news628941720 Pandas, long portrayed as solitary beasts, do hang with family and friends—and they're big users of social media. Scent-marking trees serve as a panda version of Facebook. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-pandas-socially-previously-thought.html Plants & Animals Tue, 19 Dec 2023 14:44:48 EST news622219485 Each year at its annual meeting, the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics sponsors a contest for the best images in a variety of categories, all related to the flow of fluids. https://phys.org/news/2023-12-liquid-lace-medusa-image-fluid.html Soft Matter Sat, 16 Dec 2023 09:00:01 EST news621866866 Many mammals, from domestic cats and dogs to giant pandas, use scent to communicate with each other. A new study from the University of California, Davis shows how domestic cats send signals to each other using odors derived from families of bacteria living in their anal glands. The work was published Nov. 8 in Scientific Reports. https://phys.org/news/2023-11-meows-bacteria-cats-communicate.html Plants & Animals Wed, 15 Nov 2023 16:01:04 EST news619286461 When an asteroid hit the Earth 66 million years ago, it set off a devastating mass extinction. The dinosaurs (except for a few birds) all died out, along with lots of the mammals. But some small mammals survived, laying the groundwork for all the mammals alive today. https://phys.org/news/2023-10-survival-mammals-survive-mass-extinctions.html Evolution Thu, 05 Oct 2023 11:00:01 EDT news615716832 All animals have an internal clock called a circadian clock, which is regulated by cues from their environment—but animals in zoos can be exposed to very different cues from animals in the wild. https://phys.org/news/2023-09-captive-pandas-jet-lagged-body.html Plants & Animals Mon, 18 Sep 2023 05:14:38 EDT news614232872 Nothing can evoke an existential perspective-spiral quite like looking at an image of a galaxy. At first glance, these sublime structures may appear rather serene. But in fact the center of many galaxies is a turbulent environment containing an actively feeding supermassive black hole. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-outskirts-supermassive-black-hole-accretion.html Astronomy Fri, 25 Aug 2023 14:01:52 EDT news612190908 Organisms across the globe are facing unprecedented levels of stress from climate change, habitat destruction, and many other human-driven changes to the environment. Predicting and mitigating the effects of this increasing stress on organisms, and the environmental services on which we depend, requires understanding why some species can exist in a wide range of environments while others exist in only a few habitats. https://phys.org/news/2023-08-soil-microbes-survive-climate.html Ecology Thu, 17 Aug 2023 09:32:35 EDT news611483551 The vaquita, a small porpoise on the verge of extinction, is still hanging in there, said scientists Wednesday who had spotted about a dozen specimens of Mexico's "panda of the sea" on an expedition in May. https://phys.org/news/2023-06-vaquitas-sea-panda-survey.html Plants & Animals Wed, 07 Jun 2023 16:20:46 EDT news605373639 Assemblies of tiny molecular proteins span the membranes that encapsulate our cells, directing cellular activities and regulating the transport of materials and information in and out. https://phys.org/news/2023-05-chemical-supercharger-molecular-membrane-mystery.html Biotechnology Wed, 17 May 2023 09:22:04 EDT news603534120 New research lead by Keith Slotkin, Ph.D., a member of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, opens the door for scientists to equip plants with the tools they need to adapt to rising levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), high heat, and other stressors associated with climate change. The study is published in the journal The New Phytologist . https://phys.org/news/2023-04-uncovers-memory-high-carbon-dioxide.html Plants & Animals Tue, 11 Apr 2023 16:10:24 EDT news600448220