Phys.org

In 2023, professor Damian Helbling was getting a lot of calls and emails from local residents. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) had just announced regulations to limit per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS)—some of which have been linked to cancers and other negative health effects—in drinking water. Ithacans and others in the region wanted to know about levels in the ponds, lakes, streams and creeks in their proverbial backyards.

For more than 20 years, Canada's Species at Risk Act (SARA) has protected wildlife that are at risk of being lost from Canadian lands and waters. Once a species is listed as extirpated, endangered or threatened under the act, it becomes illegal to kill, harm or capture it or damage its residences. Its critical habitat must also be protected, at least on federal land.

Manhattan's Upper West Side has been reveling in the company of its latest celebrities: a family of barn owls nested in a water tower atop a building near Central Park.

Scientists have learned a lot about what happens to the human body as we age. But there's still much to learn about how other species age, including dogs. Even carrying extra weight could affect a dog's cognitive health. Alexandra Genualdi, a student at Oklahoma State University who presented her research in September at the American Physiological Society's 2026 Comparative Physiology conference in Orlando, talks about her efforts to learn more.

Female protagonists in animated films have come a long way over the past several decades. Take the 1959 movie "Sleeping Beauty": Soft-spoken and vulnerable, Princess Aurora is cursed as an infant by the evil fairy Maleficent and ultimately saved not by her own wits, but by a prince's kiss.

Researchers at the University of Miami have identified a group of previously unknown viruses that bridge an evolutionary gap between viruses and cellular protein compartments, a discovery with implications for both biotechnology and scientists' understanding of the origins of life.

NASA's Artemis II mission sent four astronauts around the moon and brought them safely back to Earth, laying a foundation for crewed flights to the moon's surface.

Expanded excavations at White Sands National Park in New Mexico have provided researchers an opportunity to refine the age of the oldest human footprints in North America and establish a deeper understanding of the landscape and environmental conditions at the time humans were present there.

Researchers have created a detailed, animated 3D model of the imperial woodpecker (Campephilus imperialis), a spectacular bird that has not been confirmed in the wild since 1956. The model, built from a museum specimen and the only known film footage of the living bird, is freely available to scientists, educators and the public.

The open ocean is a dynamic environment, where food is patchy, predators are plentiful, and oceanographic conditions change constantly. Life in the pelagic environment—the offshore waters that extend from the sunlit surface through the twilight zone—requires unique adaptations for survival.

The size of a nucleus (nuclear charge radius) is an important physical quantity that reflects the arrangement of protons and neutrons within the nucleus. Particularly in deformed nuclei, such as those of rare-earth elements, examining changes in the charge radius can deepen our understanding of nuclear structure and nuclear deformation.

A new study of young tectonic landforms on the moon offers the most detailed estimate yet of how much the moon has contracted as its interior gradually cooled over time.

A University of Portsmouth scientist has helped lead a major global study, which finds that 44% of the world's reef-building coral species are now threatened with extinction—and warns the true figure is likely to be even higher.

A study led by Nekehia Quashie, an assistant professor of public health in the University of Rhode Island's College of Health Sciences, examined how different African American age groups felt about the responsibility of supporting older adults.

To produce pharmaceuticals, food ingredients, and flavors and fragrances, it is often necessary to oxidize alcohols. In conventional chemistry, this transformation typically relies on harsh oxidants and elevated temperatures and generates toxic waste.

New materials and catalysts have the potential to transform everything from food production and medicine to batteries and stainless steel. Computer simulations help scientists narrow down promising candidates before testing them in a lab, but those simulations can be unreliable, especially for molecules that contain multiple metals.

As governments prepare to gather in Armenia for the U.N. biodiversity summit, researchers are highlighting a conservation approach that recognizes places where nature thrives beyond conventional protected areas.

Humanity's ongoing disruption of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) concentrations, temperatures, and global nutrient cycles is starving the oceans of oxygen. Although we can measure ongoing changes to ocean circulation and marine life, we still don't know how far the oxygen loss and the damage to ocean ecosystems could go. One way to foresee the oceans' future is to look back at how our seas and their inhabitants responded to higher CO₂ levels and warmer climates in the past.

Retail research has changed during the last couple of decades, according to an analysis of almost 5,200 papers covering business practices, consumer behavior and technology. The study, published in the International Journal of Electronic Marketing and Retailing, considered papers from the four leading specialist journals in this area.

A steep drop in baby lobsters provided an early warning of the sharp decline in adult lobsters along Maine's midcoast, a new University of Maine study shows.