Science

Geology, paleontology, physics, space and the natural world

In Science, ECOnews reports on new discoveries in geology, paleontology, physics, space, health and the natural world. We explain the latest studies from universities and labs worldwide in plain language.

A digital illustration showing Earth’s blue magnetic field lines shielding the planet from solar wind while green vegetation represents oxygen production.

NASA detects a 500-million-year pattern between Earth’s magnetic “shield” and oxygen in the air… and the question posed by the article is crazy

By Adrian Villellas

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April 5, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Earth’s “green heart” is drifting northeast, and scientists say the shift could reveal how climate change is reshaping life.

Scientists have discovered that Earth’s “green pole” has been shifting northeastward for decades and that, since 2010, this shift has accelerated much more than expected

By Adrian Villellas

—

April 5, 2026 at 12:56 PM

An artist's impression of the LHS 1903 system showing a small red dwarf star orbited by two large, blue gaseous planets and two smaller, brownish rocky worlds in an unusual order.

The four planets of red dwarf LHS 1903 are in “inverted” order, with a rocky world on the outside

By Adrian Villellas

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April 5, 2026 at 12:30 PM

Researchers extracting a vertical ice core sample from the frozen floor of a Romanian cave for microbial analysis.

A 5,000-year-old bacterium awakens from the ice in a cave in Romania, revealing something disturbing: it was already resistant to antibiotics still used today to treat serious infections

By ECONEWS

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April 5, 2026 at 10:15 AM

An ultraviolet camera capture showing faint electrical corona discharges glowing on the tips of sweetgum tree leaves during a thunderstorm.

What had been only a suspicion for nearly a century has just become reality: dozens of electrical flashes have been recorded in trees on the east coast of the United States that could be silently burning leaves

By Adrian Villellas

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April 5, 2026 at 8:45 AM

A composite image showing a total solar eclipse transitioning into an annular "ring of fire" eclipse against a dark starry background.

The Moon moves 3.8 cm away from Earth each year, and the last total solar eclipse could come in about 600 million years

By ECONEWS

—

April 5, 2026 at 6:30 AM

Rare gigantic jet lightning shooting upward from a thunderstorm toward space as seen from the International Space Station

NASA is once again highlighting an image taken on July 3, 2025, from the ISS that looks like something out of a movie: a “gigantic jet” that doesn’t fall to Earth, but instead shoots out of a storm and rises to a height of nearly 100 kilometers

By ECONEWS

—

April 5, 2026 at 4:52 AM

A deep-space composite image from the Hubble and Euclid telescopes showing the Perseus galaxy cluster, with a circle highlighting the faint star clusters of CDG-2.

CDG-2, a galaxy in the Perseus cluster made of 99.9% dark matter, is one of the darkest ever found

By Adrian Villellas

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April 4, 2026 at 5:00 PM

A digital recreation of a Neanderthal and a modern human standing side-by-side, representing the genetic blending of the two lineages.

It is possible that Neanderthals did not “die out”… they mixed with us until they became invisible

By ECONEWS

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April 4, 2026 at 12:30 PM

A high-resolution close-up of a dark, carbon-rich rocky sample from asteroid Bennu held in a NASA laboratory setting.

Samples from the asteroid Bennu force us to rethink the origin of life: NASA finds key compounds in rocks over 4.5 billion years old

By ECONEWS

—

April 4, 2026 at 8:45 AM

An artist's depiction of GRB 250702B, showing a black hole at the center of a helium star emitting powerful, narrow jets of gamma radiation.

A gamma-ray burst kept astronomers on tenterhooks for 7 hours

By Adrian Villellas

—

April 4, 2026 at 6:30 AM

Bright slope lineae on Mercury detected in NASA MESSENGER images, suggesting recent geological activity on the planet’s crater walls.

For decades, Mercury had been considered a “dead” planet, but a study has just changed that idea. NASA has detected bright structures that point to current geological activity

By ECONEWS

—

April 4, 2026 at 4:08 AM

JOIDES Resolution research vessel at sea during the expedition that recovered the deepest mantle core ever drilled beneath the Atlantic Ocean

Scientists drill into the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and extract the deepest mantle core ever obtained at 4,160 feet

By ECONEWS

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April 3, 2026 at 6:34 PM

Carrion crow perched on a tree branch, the bird species used in a study on shape recognition and animal intelligence

Crows outperform monkeys in an intelligence test that until now was believed to be exclusive to humans

By ECONEWS

—

April 3, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Radar view of the Venus surface near Nyx Mons, where scientists found evidence of a giant underground volcanic cave

Astronomers confirm for the first time the existence of a giant volcanic cave on Venus

By Adrian Villellas

—

April 3, 2026 at 3:00 PM

Illustration or map showing a future supercontinent configuration of Earth based on tectonic plate movement models

A new supercontinent could form in 200 to 250 million years and make much of Earth too hot for mammals

By ECONEWS

—

April 3, 2026 at 12:30 PM

Scientist conducting high-pressure laboratory experiment simulating Earth’s core conditions to study hydrogen and water origins

A discovery in the Earth’s core casts doubt on the origin of much of the planet’s water and forces us to rethink what we knew about the formation of the oceans

By ECONEWS

—

April 3, 2026 at 10:15 AM

Wetland landscape in the Netherlands or Belgium linked to ancient hunter-gatherer populations studied through DNA research

Ancient DNA reveals that hunter-gatherers in what is now Belgium and the Netherlands survived until 2500 BC, when the rest of Europe was already engaged in agriculture

By ECONEWS

—

April 3, 2026 at 8:45 AM

Student working in a laboratory while conducting research to recreate cosmic dust and study the origins of life’s ingredients

A student has created cosmic dust in the laboratory and may have revealed how the ingredients for life on Earth came about

By Adrian Villellas

—

April 2, 2026 at 6:30 PM

Dwingeloo radio telescope detecting Voyager 1 signal from deep space nearly 25 billion kilometers from Earth

A group of amateur astronomers has just “heard” a signal from 25 billion kilometers away, confirming that Voyager 1 is still transmitting from the outer reaches of the Solar System

By ECONEWS

—

April 2, 2026 at 5:00 PM

Previous Next

Science

NASA detects a 500-million-year pattern between Earth’s magnetic “shield” and oxygen in the air… and the question posed by the article is crazy

Scientists have discovered that Earth’s “green pole” has been shifting northeastward for decades and that, since 2010, this shift has accelerated much more than expected

The four planets of red dwarf LHS 1903 are in “inverted” order, with a rocky world on the outside

A 5,000-year-old bacterium awakens from the ice in a cave in Romania, revealing something disturbing: it was already resistant to antibiotics still used today to treat serious infections

What had been only a suspicion for nearly a century has just become reality: dozens of electrical flashes have been recorded in trees on the east coast of the United States that could be silently burning leaves

The Moon moves 3.8 cm away from Earth each year, and the last total solar eclipse could come in about 600 million years

NASA is once again highlighting an image taken on July 3, 2025, from the ISS that looks like something out of a movie: a “gigantic jet” that doesn’t fall to Earth, but instead shoots out of a storm and rises to a height of nearly 100 kilometers

CDG-2, a galaxy in the Perseus cluster made of 99.9% dark matter, is one of the darkest ever found

It is possible that Neanderthals did not “die out”… they mixed with us until they became invisible

Samples from the asteroid Bennu force us to rethink the origin of life: NASA finds key compounds in rocks over 4.5 billion years old

A gamma-ray burst kept astronomers on tenterhooks for 7 hours

For decades, Mercury had been considered a “dead” planet, but a study has just changed that idea. NASA has detected bright structures that point to current geological activity

Scientists drill into the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and extract the deepest mantle core ever obtained at 4,160 feet

Crows outperform monkeys in an intelligence test that until now was believed to be exclusive to humans

Astronomers confirm for the first time the existence of a giant volcanic cave on Venus

A new supercontinent could form in 200 to 250 million years and make much of Earth too hot for mammals

A discovery in the Earth’s core casts doubt on the origin of much of the planet’s water and forces us to rethink what we knew about the formation of the oceans

Ancient DNA reveals that hunter-gatherers in what is now Belgium and the Netherlands survived until 2500 BC, when the rest of Europe was already engaged in agriculture

A student has created cosmic dust in the laboratory and may have revealed how the ingredients for life on Earth came about

A group of amateur astronomers has just “heard” a signal from 25 billion kilometers away, confirming that Voyager 1 is still transmitting from the outer reaches of the Solar System

In Romania’s Brașov County, brown bears number about 1,329 by a national genetic estimate, the highest density of any county, and one bear relocated from Poiana Brașov was back within 3 days

More than 40 Magellanic penguins born in captivity arrived by court order from Mar del Plata at a river island in Argentina’s Río Negro province, and at first they had not explored even a third of their new home

In Japan, researchers led by Tohoku University used an inexpensive blue pigment to turn carbon dioxide into methane with 79.5% Faradaic efficiency, and methane selectivity stayed above 60% for about 80 hours

At 8.2 feet on Oct. 13, the Lake Constance water level in Konstanz, Germany, fell below a 1947 record for the date, and it now sits 10 inches under last winter’s low

A simulated AMOC collapse in an unreviewed preprint cut wheat, corn and rice harvests in Germany and Ukraine by roughly 16 to 19 percent, and cereal prices could climb up to 40 percent in the worst case

A landslide in Alaska’s Tracy Arm fjord sent a tsunami 1,578 feet up the opposite wall, and a Science study found small tremors striking every 30 to 60 seconds in the hours before the collapse

A company won a mining license for a magnesium deposit it estimates at more than 50 million metric tons near Rășinari, in Romania’s Sibiu County, and the EU gets 97 percent of its magnesium from China

Leap seconds will end on May 20, 2027, under a rule the General Conference on Weights and Measures adopted in Versailles, France, and a new study finds Earth’s solid surface turning slightly rounder as polar ground rises

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