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. On the Great Plains of North America, bison were hunted for thousands of years before populations collapsed to near extinction due to overexploitation in the late 1800s. But long before then, bison hunters used various strategies and different types of sites, sometimes switching between sites. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-bison-hunters-abandoned-site-years.html Archaeology Tue, 10 Feb 2026 00:00:01 EST news689878261 Earth's magnetic field is generated by the churn of its liquid nickel-iron outer core, but it is not a constant feature. Every so often, the magnetic north and south poles swap places in what are called geomagnetic reversals, and the record of these flips is preserved in rocks and sediments, including those from the ocean floor. These reversals don't happen suddenly, but over several thousand years, where the magnetic field fades and wobbles while the two poles wander and finally settle in the opposite positions of the globe. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-earth-magnetic-field-flipping.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 05 Feb 2026 14:47:32 EST news689525221 Our Milky Way galaxy may not have a supermassive black hole at its center but rather an enormous clump of mysterious dark matter exerting the same gravitational influence, astronomers say. They believe this invisible substance—which makes up most of the universe's mass—can explain both the violent dance of stars just light-hours (often used to measure distances within our own solar system) away from the galactic center and the gentle, large-scale rotation of the entire matter in the outskirts of the Milky Way. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-dark-black-hole-power-milky.html Astronomy Thu, 05 Feb 2026 11:23:12 EST news689512921 Mantle plumes beneath volcanic hotspots, like Hawaii, Iceland, and the Galapagos, seem to be anchored into a large structure within the core-mantle boundary (CMB). A new study, published in Science Advances, takes a deeper dive into the structure under Hawaii using P- and S-wave analysis and mineralogical modeling, revealing its composition and properties. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-solid-iron-rich-megastructure-hawaii.html Earth Sciences Tue, 03 Feb 2026 12:20:04 EST news689341995 A study in Nature Geoscience reveals that changes in the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) closely tracked marine algae growth in the Southern Ocean over previous glacial cycles, but not in the way scientists expected. The key factor is iron-rich sediments transported by icebergs from West Antarctica. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-unexpected-climate-feedback-links-antarctic.html Earth Sciences Mon, 02 Feb 2026 17:30:01 EST news689253178 Some tropical land regions may warm more dramatically than previously predicted, as climate change progresses, according to a new CU Boulder study that looks millions of years into Earth's past. Using lake sediments from the Colombian Andes, researchers reveal that when the planet warmed millions of years ago under carbon dioxide levels similar to today's, tropical land heated up nearly twice as much as the ocean. https://phys.org/news/2026-02-tropical-oceans-climate-sediment.html Earth Sciences Mon, 02 Feb 2026 15:00:12 EST news689266441 A new study suggests the world's oxygen-depleted seas may have a chance of returning to higher oxygen concentrations in the centuries to come, despite our increasingly warming climate. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-fossilized-plankton-term-oxygen-depleted.html Earth Sciences Thu, 29 Jan 2026 10:12:54 EST news688903921 The cycling of water within Earth's interior regulates plate tectonics, volcanism, ocean volume, and climate stability, making it central to the planet's long-term evolution and habitability and a key scientific question. While subducting slabs are known to transport water into the mantle, scientists have long assumed that most hydrous minerals dehydrate at high temperatures, releasing fluids as they descend. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-superionic-state-enables-term-storage.html Earth Sciences Wed, 28 Jan 2026 14:00:03 EST news688814701 In our galaxy, a supernova explodes about once or twice each century. But historical astronomical records show that the last Milky Way core-collapse supernova seen by humans was about 1,000 years ago. That means we've missed a few. But with the Vera Rubin Observatory poised to begin its decade-long Legacy Survey of Space and Time, no supernova is safe from our prying astronomical eyes. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-rubin-observatory-rapidly-supernovae.html Astronomy Wed, 28 Jan 2026 09:57:43 EST news688816621 New findings from NASA's Perseverance rover have revealed evidence of wave-formed beaches and rocks altered by subsurface water in a Martian crater that once held a vast lake—considerably expanding the timeline for potential habitability at this ancient site. In an international study led by Imperial College London, researchers uncovered that the so-called "Margin unit" in Mars's Jezero crater preserves evidence of extensive underground interactions between rock and water, as well as the first definitive traces of an ancient shoreline. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ancient-martian-beach-clues-red.html Astrobiology Tue, 27 Jan 2026 11:59:40 EST news688737541 The remnants of ice attached to the coast offer astounding insights into the climate history of past millennia. An international research team led by the CNR Institute of Polar Sciences (Italy) and involving the University of Bonn has applied a new method of analyzing sediment drill cores to show the climate history of the past 3,700 years in Antarctica. Surprisingly, it is connected to the natural fluctuations in solar activity. The study has now been published in the journal Nature Communications. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-sync-sunlight-sediments-reveal-climate.html Earth Sciences Tue, 20 Jan 2026 08:22:31 EST news688119712 The climate warmed up almost as quickly 56 million years ago as it is doing now. When a huge amount of CO2 entered the atmosphere in a short period of time, it led to large-scale forest fires and erosion. Mei Nelissen, Ph.D. candidate at NIOZ and UU, and her colleagues were able to see this very clearly in the layers of sediment drilled off the Norwegian coast. The research was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on January 19. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ancient-surge-triggered-widespread-forest.html Earth Sciences Mon, 19 Jan 2026 15:00:05 EST news687788889 One of the most stubborn issues in cosmology today concerns the universe's rate of expansion. Scientists know it's expanding, but defining the rate of that expansion is challenging. The rate of expansion is called the Hubble Constant, after American astronomer Edwin Hubble, who discovered in the 1920s that the universe is expanding. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-gravitationally-lensed-supernovae-hubble-tension.html Astronomy Mon, 19 Jan 2026 11:37:38 EST news688045022 On Wednesday, January 14, 2026, the coolest library on Earth was inaugurated at the Concordia station, Antarctica. Samples from glaciers rescued worldwide are now beginning to be stored there for safekeeping. This will allow, among other things, future generations to continue studying traces of past climates trapped under ice, as glaciers on every continent continue to thaw out at a fast pace. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-qa-ice-core-library-antarctica.html Earth Sciences Sun, 18 Jan 2026 16:10:01 EST news687629187 Deep beneath the surface of distant exoplanets known as super-Earths, oceans of molten rock may be doing something extraordinary: powering magnetic fields strong enough to shield entire planets from dangerous cosmic radiation and other harmful high-energy particles. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-hidden-magma-oceans-shield-rocky.html Astrobiology Thu, 15 Jan 2026 15:49:35 EST news687714542 Using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), an international team of astronomers has discovered a new Type II supernova. The newly detected supernova, named SN Eos, exploded when the universe was only 1 billion years old. The finding was reported January 7 on the arXiv pre-print server. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-ancient-ii-supernova-universe-billion.html Astronomy Thu, 15 Jan 2026 09:33:31 EST news687691902 Scientists on Wednesday sealed ancient chunks of glacial ice in a first-of-its-kind sanctuary in Antarctica in the hope of preserving these fast-disappearing records of Earth's past climate for centuries to come. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-sanctuary-antarctica-ice-samples-rapidly.html Earth Sciences Wed, 14 Jan 2026 10:10:01 EST news687607667 The first study from GreenDrill—a project co-led by the University at Buffalo to collect rocks and sediment buried beneath the Greenland Ice Sheet—has found that the Prudhoe Dome ice cap was completely gone approximately 7,000 years ago, much more recently than previously known. https://phys.org/news/2026-01-greenland-prudhoe-dome-ice-cap.html Earth Sciences Mon, 05 Jan 2026 13:10:08 EST news686840697 In recent years, the global climate has become increasingly extreme, with intensifying alternations of droughts and floods—particularly in ecologically vulnerable mid-latitude regions. But what is driving this hydroclimatic variability? Scientists have long debated the underlying mechanisms. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-westerly-jet-stream-emerges-key.html Earth Sciences Fri, 19 Dec 2025 11:53:36 EST news685367581 New research reveals how ocean warming triggered the large-scale retreat of the Northeast Greenland Ice Stream (NEGIS)—offering vital clues for understanding its modern-day vulnerability. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-warmer-ocean-currents-significantly-destabilize.html Earth Sciences Wed, 17 Dec 2025 10:18:27 EST news685189081 Dressed in an orange puffer jacket, Japanese scientist Yoshinori Iizuka stepped into a storage freezer to retrieve an ice core he hopes will help experts protect the world's disappearing glaciers. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-extremely-ice-cores-glaciers.html Environment Wed, 17 Dec 2025 04:12:56 EST news685167115 When Santa is done delivering presents on Christmas Eve, he must get back home to the North Pole, even if it's snowing so hard that the reindeer can't see the way. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-north-pole-affects-santa-holiday.html Earth Sciences Tue, 16 Dec 2025 12:45:23 EST news685111501 One of the oldest unsolved riddles in planetary science concerns the origin of the moon. Over a century ago, George Darwin proposed that tidal and centrifugal forces on a rapidly rotating proto-Earth caused the moon to be spun off into an Earth orbit. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-moon-event-explosive-ejection-giant.html Astronomy Mon, 15 Dec 2025 09:00:32 EST news685011600 An international research team may have found an explanation for seismic anomalies, the noticeable deviations in the behavior of earthquake waves, in Earth's inner core. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-earth-core-onion-layered.html Earth Sciences Wed, 10 Dec 2025 10:50:01 EST news684585219 Researchers have developed a technology that uses carbon monoxide, typically harmful to humans, to precisely control metal thin films at a thickness of 0.3 nanometers. This technology enables faster and simpler production of core–shell catalysts, a key factor in improving the economic viability of fuel cells, and is expected to significantly boost related industries. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-carbon-monoxide-silent-killer-boon.html Nanomaterials Tue, 02 Dec 2025 18:00:01 EST news683913188 Dark matter and its impact on cosmology have puzzled physicists for nearly a century. At Perimeter Institute, two researchers are trying to better understand how one potential dark matter candidate, self-interacting dark matter (SIDM), could impact how cosmic structures evolve. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-code-scientists-dark-halos.html Astronomy Mon, 01 Dec 2025 13:30:06 EST news683817945 Around 12,000 years ago, the last Ice Age ended, global temperatures rose and the early Holocene began, during which time human societies became increasingly settled. A new study published in Nature Geoscience shows the important role played by the Southern Ocean surrounding Antarctica in this transition. https://phys.org/news/2025-12-expansion-antarctic-bottom-contributed-ice.html Earth Sciences Mon, 01 Dec 2025 11:42:00 EST news683811638 Scientists have detected what they believe to be lightning on Mars by eavesdropping on the whirling wind recorded by NASA's Perseverance rover. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-scientists-capture-crackling-lightning-mars.html Planetary Sciences Thu, 27 Nov 2025 12:00:04 EST news683386402 One of the major realizations of the Anthropocene era has been the importance of biodiversity for the functioning of the Earth system, as well as for human societies. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-medieval-communities-boosted-biodiversity-lake.html Archaeology Mon, 17 Nov 2025 15:00:01 EST news682596324 An international research team led by marine biologist Prof. Dr. Maren Ziegler from Justus Liebig University Giessen (JU) has developed an innovative method for reconstructing the past of corals and their symbiosis with algae by drilling into coral skeletons. The results, published in Global Change Biology, offer new insights into changes in symbiotic single-celled algae species that are crucial to the survival of coral reefs. https://phys.org/news/2025-11-tree-sea-environmental-conditions-microalgae.html Plants & Animals Fri, 07 Nov 2025 19:00:01 EST news681739096