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. A new University of Otago—Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka study reveals two vastly different life courses for one of Aotearoa New Zealand's least-studied penguin species. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-schrdinger-penguin-species-contrasting-outcomes.html Ecology Thu, 22 Oct 2026 09:20:01 EDT news711877201 Giant manta rays can grow up to nine meters (30 feet) long with a disk size of seven meters (23 feet) across and weigh up to 2,000 kg (4,400 pounds). This size leaves them with very few natural enemies once they reach adulthood at around eight to 10 years old. But giant manta ray babies, called pups, cannot rely on their size to protect them from predators that live in the open ocean, including several species of shark and orcas. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-baby-manta-rays-hunker-coasts.html Plants & Animals Thu, 22 Oct 2026 00:00:01 EDT news711799141 Populations of many pollinators, including bumblebees, have been crashing over the last few decades, thanks to the widespread use of chemical pesticides, loss of habitat and the acceleration of climate change. But it can be hard to know just how bad the problem is, or whether conservation strategies are helping, without relying on lethal traps—which can kill tens of thousands of bees in order to get an accurate count of their populations. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-ai-bee-lethal.html Plants & Animals Wed, 21 Oct 2026 19:40:05 EDT news711817081 Salt marsh sediment and vegetation can remain largely intact even during extreme storm surges. This was demonstrated in a large-scale experiment in which researchers transported sections of salt marsh to an experimental facility capable of producing the world's largest artificial waves. The results show how salt marshes can contribute to natural coastal protection, both in the Netherlands and beyond. The results were published in the journals Nature and Communications Sustainability. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-salt-marshes-powerful-allies-climate.html Earth Sciences Wed, 21 Oct 2026 16:40:01 EDT news711807002 Archaeologists have uncovered the largest collection of Latin cave inscriptions anywhere in the Roman Empire. Early analysis of the inscriptions discovered at Cova Dones reveals that a female deity was worshipped at the site and that women had a prominent role in rituals there—highly unusual in Roman society. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-largest-roman-cave-inscriptions-spain.html Archaeology Tue, 20 Oct 2026 12:20:15 EDT news711711363 Rivers provide water for everything from growing crops and running factories to the taps in our homes, but droughts can leave them struggling to meet all these demands. A new study, published in Water Resources Research, suggests that changing how water is shared could help make limited supplies go further. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-river-reveals-ease-drought-unequal.html Earth Sciences Tue, 20 Oct 2026 09:00:16 EDT news711638259 The interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS brought material from another planetary system within reach of our telescopes, but reading its chemistry poses a problem. Energetic particles encountered during its journey through space may have changed its outer layers, so how much of what astronomers detect still reflects the comet's birthplace? https://phys.org/news/2026-10-sun-meters-interstellar-comet-3iatlas.html Astronomy Tue, 20 Oct 2026 08:10:01 EDT news711696503 A plant's roots do much of their work out of sight, pulling in water and nutrients and holding the plant in place. That makes it hard to see how plants respond when conditions underground change, and how a warming climate affects them. New Dartmouth-led studies look at the strategies plants use below the surface to adapt and survive. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-climate-tree-roots-soil-microbes.html Plants & Animals Fri, 16 Oct 2026 15:40:01 EDT news711369664 Researchers from the Bazaruto Center for Scientific Studies (BCSS) Ocean Observatory have documented ancient forests that grew on the Mozambican coast thousands of years ago and have been found beneath the sea, where they now serve as hotspots teeming with marine life similar in biodiversity to coral reefs. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-year-forests-reborn-peat-reefs.html Plants & Animals Thu, 15 Oct 2026 10:00:16 EDT news711275883 The western U.S. is facing parallel and escalating hazards in the form of ongoing drought and increasingly frequent wildfires. Although the region's ecosystems have evolved with wildfires, the intensity and frequency of blazes where people live and recreate remain a persistent challenge for communities. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-wide-scale-cropland-loss-consequences.html Earth Sciences Wed, 14 Oct 2026 16:40:02 EDT news711206386 People who join shark ecotourism tours are more likely to take action to protect sharks, including donating to related causes, signing petitions or speaking up online, new research from the University of Sydney shows. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-shark-ecotourism-term.html Plants & Animals Wed, 14 Oct 2026 10:20:22 EDT news711187382 As ocean temperatures rise, corals' ability to withstand and adapt to heat stress is critical for the future of coral reefs. Many reef-building corals already live near their upper thermal limits, making them vulnerable to bleaching and, with prolonged stress, mortality. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-hawaiian-coral-reveal-tolerance-varies.html Plants & Animals Tue, 13 Oct 2026 18:00:12 EDT news711121562 Peatlands in the Alps are mostly small, scattered and difficult to access. As a result, up-to-date information on their extent and condition is often lacking. An international research team, including researchers from the University of Göttingen, has now developed a cross-border approach to identifying these particular areas. A comparison with official maps shows that the model identifies many peatlands as smaller than previously mapped—particularly in areas where aerial photographs reveal visible signs of disturbance. The findings were published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-satellite-alpine-peatlands-smaller.html Earth Sciences Tue, 13 Oct 2026 15:40:10 EDT news711116761 Elephants shape the African savanna. They consume huge amounts of forage, dig for water, topple trees and affect all the animals around them. So, what happens to their outsized presence after these iconic animals pass away? https://phys.org/news/2026-10-elephants-savanna-death.html Plants & Animals Mon, 12 Oct 2026 15:00:11 EDT news711014041 The fact that ecosystems change is nothing new. What is new, however, is the speed and scale at which new species communities are emerging as a result of climate change. Processes that once unfolded over centuries or even millennia are now being observed within just a few decades. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-climate-species-combinations-prompting-rethink.html Plants & Animals Fri, 09 Oct 2026 15:40:01 EDT news710768941 Majestic African antelopes known as gemsbok have been roaming the U.S. Southwest since their introduction in the 1960s and 1970s. Brought to New Mexico as a game species for hunting, gemsbok quickly settled in, expanding more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) from their introduction point. University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers say that's due to their exceptional adaptations to arid conditions, which they predict will dramatically expand under climate change. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-african-antelopes-mexico-climate.html Plants & Animals Fri, 09 Oct 2026 12:20:17 EDT news710765761 A new paper published in the journal Phytotaxa describes a new species in the genus Victoria, the Colombian giant water lily (Victoria colombiana). With only three other known species in the genus, V. colombiana joins the pantheon of nature's giants with pads measuring up to 2 meters (6.6 feet) across. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-chance-instagram-sighting-discovery-rare.html Plants & Animals Thu, 08 Oct 2026 19:10:06 EDT news710667361 New analysis of traces of radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing trapped in the teeth of stranded whales has helped scientists reconstruct their life stories. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nuclear-whales-teeth-scientists-reconstruct.html Plants & Animals Wed, 07 Oct 2026 10:20:06 EDT news710586721 A new study shows that the world's oyster reefs are a precious resource that's vastly underestimated and underutilized. The authors set out to calculate the reefs' potential gross ecosystem product (GEP), the ecological counterpart of the gross economic product, and arrived at trillions of dollars in ecosystem goods and services delivered each year to different aspects of planetary health, including human well-being. But for their full potential to be realized, oyster reefs around the world will need to be restored and protected. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-world-oyster-reefs-trillion-planetary.html Earth Sciences Wed, 07 Oct 2026 00:00:01 EDT news710524261 Where did the energy come from to power the chemical origin of life, and how did phosphate come to be the universal energy currency of cells? Biologists from the Institute of Molecular Evolution at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (HHU) have uncovered a new source of energy that drove primordial chemical reactions on the early Earth forward to kick-start metabolism. Their findings, now published in The FEBS Journal, identify phosphite and palladium, substances that naturally occur in H2-producing hydrothermal vents, as an inorganic precursor of ATP. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-hydrothermal-vents-geochemical-precursor-atp.html Evolution Tue, 06 Oct 2026 18:00:11 EDT news710509202 Small, hairy and cheekily charismatic. Those words sprang to mind when I first met a Sumatran rhinoceros (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) after traversing the maze of wooden slat paths at the conservation center in the dense, humid forests of Malaysian Borneo. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-africa-rhinos-spotlight-indonesia-rhino.html Plants & Animals Tue, 06 Oct 2026 08:20:05 EDT news710488682 The idea that ecosystems carry plenty of backup, so if a small number of species become extinct there is little harm, has been greatly overestimated, according to the largest global study of its kind. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-nature-capacity-species-lost-vastly.html Plants & Animals Tue, 06 Oct 2026 05:00:01 EDT news710437081 From a drone flying above the waves to a camera just inches from the seafloor, University of Miami researchers are transforming how scientists observe coral reefs and measure changes that were once difficult, costly or time-consuming to document. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-imaging-technologies-clearer-view-coral.html Ecology Sat, 03 Oct 2026 12:00:01 EDT news709898082 A new research paper published in Zootaxa describes five new species of freshwater mussels in the southern U.S., providing the scientific foundation for protecting the most imperiled group of animals in North America. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-species-freshwater-mussels-southern-uncovered.html Plants & Animals Thu, 01 Oct 2026 18:30:01 EDT news710092442 UCLA biologists have found the hiding place of a silent killer stalking threatened Yosemite toads: their own burrows. The Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd) fungus decimating amphibian populations around the world has long been thought to live in and infect the toads through their skin when they are in the water. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-yosemite-toad-killer-homes.html Plants & Animals Thu, 01 Oct 2026 17:40:01 EDT news710077720 When it comes to removing Burmese pythons, one snake does not equal another. A new study by researchers at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS) offers agencies a tool to identify pythons with the greatest influence on future population growth and uses machine learning to determine when they are most likely to be detected. https://phys.org/news/2026-10-python-index-large-females-key.html Ecology Thu, 01 Oct 2026 15:00:17 EDT news710073841 New research has shown that a "floating scarecrow" developed by U.K.-based scientists and a repurposed bird-scaring kite can help save threatened seabirds from getting caught in fishing nets. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-scientists-scarecrow-threatened-seabirds.html Plants & Animals Wed, 30 Sep 2026 19:10:02 EDT news709988102 Boats passing over smooth water form a pair of diffusion wakes behind them veering off at a certain angle. Turbulence occurs along the line directly behind the boat, but the two diffusion waves are at a theoretical angle of 19.5° from the same line, for deep, ideally smooth water. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-years-jet-diffusion-quark-gluon.html General Physics Wed, 30 Sep 2026 07:40:07 EDT news709805374 Like many parasites, nematomorphs are known to manipulate their hosts' behavior to complete their life cycles. Also known as horsehair worms, among other names, these creatures develop in their hosts' body cavities and lure their terrestrial arthropod victims into the water, where the parasites reproduce. Some species have even been observed to induce positive phototaxis, attracting the host toward horizontally polarized light reflected on the water's surface. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-parasites-nocturnal-hosts-lunar.html Ecology Tue, 29 Sep 2026 12:20:10 EDT news709899119 A spore is a bacterium's survival capsule: dried almost solid and wrapped in protein armor, with its chemical processes shut down. Bacteria enter this state of hibernation when environmental conditions are unfavorable. What's left is close to indestructible: It can survive boiling, desiccation, radiation and the vacuum of space. NASA once bolted Bacillus spores to the outside of a satellite and left them in orbit for nearly six years; the ones shielded from sunlight were able to come back to life upon returning to Earth. https://phys.org/news/2026-09-hibernating-bacteria-invade-hospitals-survive.html Evolution Mon, 28 Sep 2026 17:10:01 EDT news709832761