Phys.org news

Urbanization is rapidly transforming natural habitats and poses growing challenges for wildlife. One lesser-known consequence is its potential impact on bird song, which plays a crucial role in communication, reproduction, ...

Old oil and gas wells may continue to affect the environment long after they have stopped producing, with new field evidence showing that their leakage footprint can be broader and more persistent than surface methane measurements ...

The world's forests form a vast network of carbon reservoirs, keeping carbon sequestered from the atmosphere where its presence is disrupting Earth's climate systems. Many corporate, national and state climate policies rely ...

It's a tale as old as time: parents don't like the company their children keep—and don't hesitate to say so. Often, parents openly state their disapproval, hoping that children will abandon unwelcome affiliates and seek out ...

Even if you haven't heard of Botrytis cinerea, you've likely seen it—slowly growing in your store-bought blueberries, tomatoes or even on your beautiful orchids. Commonly known as gray mold, the fungus attacks hundreds of ...

Plastic food packaging, caps and lids, and plastic bottles are the planet's predominant items of marine litter, according to the world's first overview of marine litter by usage type.

The offspring of a common coral branching species set up a new home up to 100 kilometers or more from their parents in one of the longest dispersal distances ever measured, according to new international research.

If humans one day settle Mars, they will need tools and parts to build structures on the planet. Carrying heavy, bulky supplies 34 million miles from Earth would be impractical. A better plan, says Zane Mebruer, a recent ...

A new study of the blue button (Porpita porpita), a small and elusive sea creature which lives on the surface of the ocean, has found that it may live for several years adrift at sea, much longer than previously estimated.

When researchers moved medaka—a fish commonly used in experiments—out of the lab and into more natural conditions, their reproductive clock shifted by hours, suggesting that laboratory findings may not fully capture their ...

Early in development, a group of migrating cells called cranial neural crest cells go on to form many different parts of the face, including the nose, jaw, ears, and throat. To build these structures correctly, genes must ...

A new study published in Nature Ecology and Evolution examining human populations in Sri Lankan tropical rainforests shows that people's consumption of plants began increasing thousands of years before the introduction of ...