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. The deadliest animals are not lions, spiders or snakes, but the tiny mosquitoes that suck our blood, make us itchy and infect us with disease. https://phys.org/news/2026-05-mosquitoes.html Ecology Tue, 12 May 2026 06:10:01 EDT news697781276 With longer days, warmer weather and a little more breathing room in the schedule, summer often feels like the perfect time to bring home a new dog. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-canine-distemper-virus-summer.html Veterinary medicine Sun, 03 May 2026 17:00:01 EDT news696764085 Every day, millions of people watch their pet reptiles run, dig, swim or climb up against the walls of their enclosure. Reptile keepers call this "glass surfing," but among scientists, this conduct is typically considered to be a type of repetitive behavior, akin to pacing in polar bears. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-pet-reptile-surfs-glass-barriers.html Plants & Animals Wed, 29 Apr 2026 17:00:04 EDT news696685082 The rise in infertility is not limited to humans, as environmental stressors are quietly undermining the reproductive potential of different forms of life. A recent review published in npj Emerging Contaminants investigated how today's environmental challenges are shaping the reproductive capacity of both humans and animals. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-invisible-fertility-crisis-chemicals-climate.html Environment Tue, 28 Apr 2026 14:00:02 EDT news696602190 Between 50,000 and 10,000 years ago, many of the world's largest mammals disappeared. Picture creatures like saber-toothed cats with 7-inch fangs and elephant-sized sloths. Woolly mammoths whose curved tusks grew longer than 12 feet. Even a three-ton wombat the size of a car. After roaming Earth for millions of years, most large-bodied mammals—especially those weighing over a ton—were wiped out. Vanished. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-giants-years-triggered-ripple-effects.html Ecology Mon, 27 Apr 2026 15:00:11 EDT news696242881 Roaring over long distances is a key behavior of lions. They communicate within prides as well as with other animals using distinct sequences of moans and grunts. Scientists from the GAIA Initiative have now published a machine learning approach in the journal Ecological Informatics that improves how roaring behavior can be studied. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-machine-roars-lion-collars-actual.html Ecology Thu, 23 Apr 2026 14:20:02 EDT news696163502 Burning time for North American wildfires is going into overtime. Flames are lasting later into the night and starting earlier in the morning because human-caused climate change is extending the hotter and drier conditions that feed fires, a new study found. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-wildfires-night-climate-prime-hours.html Environment Sat, 18 Apr 2026 06:16:17 EDT news695711720 Animal communication can look wildly different—flashing lights, chirping calls, croaking songs and elaborate dances. But new research from Northwestern University suggests many of these signals share a surprising feature: They repeat at nearly the same tempo. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-nature-universal-rhythm.html Ecology Wed, 15 Apr 2026 09:20:09 EDT news695461382 When she was a kid in the 1970s, Karen Terio wasn't allowed to watch much television, but wildlife specials were permitted. That was how she learned about the work of Jane Goodall, who was studying the behavior of wild chimpanzees in Gombe National Park, on the western edge of Tanzania. Watching National Geographic documentaries about Goodall's fearless and pioneering work with wild chimpanzees thrilled and inspired the young girl. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-footsteps-jane-goodall-wildlife-pathologist.html Plants & Animals Tue, 14 Apr 2026 22:00:01 EDT news695375478 Over the past 20 years, nearly half of commercially important Mediterranean fish species have shifted their distribution due to climate change, causing marine species to move away from their historical locations. These significant changes in fish habits are expected to have a major impact on biodiversity, ecosystems and fishing opportunities. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-fish-redistribution-mediterranean-species-climate.html Ecology Mon, 13 Apr 2026 14:40:03 EDT news695303822 On a calm summer's morning in southern Australia, the water can look deceptively clear, until you see thousands of gelatinous shapes washing ashore. In January, thousands of pink lion's mane jellyfish washed into Port Phillip Bay, prompting beach warnings and startling swimmers more accustomed to cold water than the shock of stinging tentacles. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-jellyfish-bloom-triggered.html Plants & Animals Wed, 08 Apr 2026 22:00:01 EDT news694848574 Leo is a prominent sight for stargazers in April. Its famous sickle, punctuated by the bright star Regulus, draws many a beginning stargazer's eyes, inviting deeper looks into some of Leo's celestial delights, including a great double star and a famous galactic trio. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-celestial-leo.html Astronomy Wed, 08 Apr 2026 09:20:04 EDT news694858621 With its striking San Francisco Bay settings, director Alfred Hitchcock's iconic horror film "The Birds" has captivated audiences for more than 60 years. For Hitchcock, the film—set in an ocean-side town terrorized by swarming, murderous birds, was about how an unexpected threat could shatter everyday life. Today, the plot reads like a warning about our warming climate. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-qa-red-tides-threaten-human.html Environment Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:20:01 EDT news694707615 Imagine a creature nearly twice the size of a modern African elephant, which can weigh up to 6,000 kg. This was Elephas (Paleoxodon) recki, a prehistoric titan that roamed the landscape of what is now Tanzania nearly two million years ago. Now, imagine a group of our ancestors standing over its carcass, then butchering it and eating it. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-elephant-fossil-tanzania-oldest-butchering.html Archaeology Mon, 06 Apr 2026 16:00:02 EDT news694695961 Fences are among conservation's most controversial interventions. To some, they are essential for conserving wildlife, minimizing encroachment, and preventing the type of conflict that happens when humans come into contact with wildlife. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-wildlife-african-examples.html Plants & Animals Mon, 06 Apr 2026 13:10:06 EDT news694698721 When tourists travel to Seattle, it's common to take in the Space Needle and the downtown skyline from Puget Sound. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-orcas-seattle-whale-watchers.html Ecology Sat, 04 Apr 2026 06:56:59 EDT news694504577 A friend in Indonesia recently told me about a conversation he had with ChatGPT. He had typed a question in Indonesian—Bahasa Indonesia—about how to handle a difficult family dispute. The chatbot responded fluently, in perfect Indonesian, with advice about communication strategies and conflict resolution. The grammar was flawless. The tone was appropriate. And yet something felt off. https://phys.org/news/2026-04-ai-fluency-languages-western-worldview.html Social Sciences Thu, 02 Apr 2026 13:20:05 EDT news694347648 Politics are rife with emotions. But new research from the University of Georgia suggests emotions alone may not determine whether people are satisfied with democracy. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-good-democracy.html Political science Tue, 31 Mar 2026 16:10:01 EDT news694183297 A paleontologist from The University of Texas at Austin has discovered the fossilized remains of Ice Age animals that have never been found in Central Texas before—and he came across the bones while snorkeling for fossils in an underground stream. The new fossils are from a giant tortoise and an armadillo relative called a pampathere that was about the size of a lion. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-ice-age-animals-slice-earth.html Paleontology & Fossils Wed, 25 Mar 2026 21:20:03 EDT news693672121 The increasingly urban lifestyles of seagulls in the UK and around Europe has made them experts at grabbing food from unsuspecting outdoor diners. Herring gulls in particular are gaining a reputation for food theft in seaside towns like Falmouth in Cornwall, where I live. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-eyes-food-packaging-seagulls-chips.html Ecology Sat, 21 Mar 2026 14:00:08 EDT news693141168 When the H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza virus was discovered on a poultry farm in Asia in 1996, there was little indication that it would become so widespread and so destructive. Within 30 years, it reached every continental region except Oceania, infecting more than 400 million poultry, tens of thousands of elephant seals and sea lions, about 1,000 people and many other mammals and wild birds. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-h5n1-marine-mammals-tallies-sea.html Plants & Animals Thu, 19 Mar 2026 17:00:01 EDT news693153961 A humpback whale alters the pitch of its song when joined by a neighboring singer, a finding that opens a new chapter in the ongoing effort to understand whale song, some of the most structurally and acoustically complex vocal patterns produced by mammals. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-whale-song-remix-humpbacks-shift.html Plants & Animals Mon, 16 Mar 2026 13:40:01 EDT news692883002 The More You Know: This week, researchers successfully reconstructed videos from the brain activity of mice. According to a new study, female birds are more likely to sing when their extended families help with childcare. And mathematicians have disproven a decades-old classical geometry rule by constructing two compact, self-contained torus objects that have the same metric and mean curvature but are structurally different on a global scale. So that's neat. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-saturday-citations-neurology-huge-croc.html Other Sat, 14 Mar 2026 09:00:02 EDT news692620799 Neuroscientists have uncovered new insights into a key evolutionary question: Why can humans talk when most animals can't? The journal Science published the research led by Emory University and the New College of Florida. The findings suggest that seals and sea lions may have vocal flexibility as a side effect of developing a brain "bypass" for voluntary breath control. This same bypass allowed them to adapt to aquatic life. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-sea-lions-clues-evolution-vocalization.html Plants & Animals Thu, 12 Mar 2026 17:10:01 EDT news692553061 A joint archaeological mission by the University of Tübingen and the Egyptian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities (MoTA) has documented the world's most extensive find of inscribed pottery sherds at the Upper Egypt site of Athribis. The archaeologists have recovered more than 43,000 ostraca between 2005 and 2026, more than 42,000 of them in the past eight years alone. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-upper-egypt-site-yielded-inscribed.html Archaeology Thu, 12 Mar 2026 15:20:10 EDT news692534522 More than 3 million years ago, when our ancient ancestors embodied by the iconic Lucy were roaming the African landscape, they would have feared a big, bad crocodile with a prominent lump on its head, patiently lurking in rivers and lakes to attack them. According to a research team led by the University of Iowa, that crocodile is a new species. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-crocodylus-lucivenator-foot-predator-iconic.html Paleontology & Fossils Thu, 12 Mar 2026 01:10:01 EDT news692452021 A team of researchers from The University of Texas at El Paso has uncovered new evidence explaining why the rattlesnake's rattle—one of nature's most iconic warning signals—has persisted and proven so effective across millions of years. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-3d-rattlesnake-reveals-rattle.html Plants & Animals Wed, 11 Mar 2026 14:00:14 EDT news692441101 From whale songs to lion roars, animals have evolved to stretch their voices across distances so that friends—and sometimes foes—can hear them. Each sound is coded with messages like "Come here!" "Back off!" "Danger's lurking!" or "Want to hang out?" But why can some communicate over thousands of kilometers, and others mere meters? https://phys.org/news/2026-03-distance-animal.html Evolution Tue, 10 Mar 2026 18:00:01 EDT news692371616 A page long believed to have been lost from the Archimedes Palimpsest, one of the most important surviving manuscripts of antiquity, has been identified at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Blois, central France, by a CNRS researcher. Initial analysis confirms that the page corresponds to page 123 of the Palimpsest and contains a passage from Archimedes' treatise "On the Sphere and the Cylinder," Book I, Propositions 39 to 41. The discovery is presented in an appearing in Zeitschrift für Papyrologie und Epigraphik. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-lost-page-archimedes-palimpsest-blois.html Archaeology Mon, 09 Mar 2026 10:40:03 EDT news692268829 In 2022, a Russian whale researcher made a remarkable discovery on Bering Island off Russia's Pacific coast: a severed killer whale fin marked with the teeth of another killer whale. In 2024, it happened again. The two finds were two kilometers apart. https://phys.org/news/2026-03-killer-whales-cannibals-dont.html Plants & Animals Mon, 02 Mar 2026 18:40:01 EST news691685222