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.

Woman sitting in bed in the morning looking at her phone

Two Oregon State studies of 1,512 adults found social media support eased loneliness far less than real-life ties, and checking apps within 30 minutes of waking was tied to twice the odds of depression

By Adrian Villellas

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September 30, 2026 at 4:57 PM

The new sea spider Callipallene pilosuspedes

Divers off British Columbia found two sea spider species new to science, the first described in the Salish Sea in almost a century, and one has red eyes and legs so spiny its name means hairy feet

By ECONEWS

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September 30, 2026 at 3:02 PM

Specimens of the new red sponge Polycapus rubrum

NOAA scientists studying sponges collected in Alaska trawl surveys as early as 1997 identified nine deep-sea sponges new to science, including a red one so unusual that it needed a brand-new genus

By Adrian Villellas

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September 30, 2026 at 12:33 PM

University students sitting and studying in a library

A study that tracked 1,967 people in Singapore with smart rings found university students averaging 20 moved 100 minutes less per day than adults in their 70s and spent over 10.5 hours a day sitting

By ECONEWS

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September 30, 2026 at 10:13 AM

According to psychology, reading for pleasure may do more for your brain than you think, as a Cambridge review links it to better memory in 10,243 children and less cognitive decline later in life

By ECONEWS

—

September 30, 2026 at 6:34 AM

Squid numbers have climbed for decades and many blamed warming seas, but a Danish model found warmer water actually shrinks squid populations and the real driver is the overfishing of their predators

By ECONEWS

—

September 30, 2026 at 6:18 AM

Illustration of a predatory dinosaur hunting a diving bird

A 66-million-year-old feather found inside fossilized dinosaur poop in Montana belonged to a diving bird eaten by a predator, and its modern design may explain why some birds survived the asteroid

By Adrian Villellas

—

September 30, 2026 at 2:17 AM

Painted underworld figure on a wall of the Etruscan Tomb of the Blue Demons in Tarquinia, Italy

Echoes lasted more than seven seconds inside a 2,400-year-old Etruscan tomb in Tarquinia, and researchers think its builders designed it to unsettle mourners

By ECONEWS

—

September 29, 2026 at 7:09 PM

Prairie rattlesnakes and newborns seen on a livestream camera

Livestream cameras in California, Colorado and Pennsylvania caught rattlesnakes giving birth for the first time, with over 60 newborns in Colorado, and the footage shows mothers staying with their pups

By ECONEWS

—

September 29, 2026 at 4:59 PM

Illustration of an American cheetah chasing a saiga antelope

The Ice Age American cheetah was a close cousin of the puma, and fossils from Canada’s Yukon suggest northern populations ate salmon before the species faded through a slow decline, not a sudden collapse

By Adrian Villellas

—

September 29, 2026 at 3:03 PM

Scientists beside the submersible Alvin aboard a research ship

Scientists took the submersible Alvin 3 miles down to the world’s deepest known hydrothermal vents in the Caribbean to learn how shrimp find them in darkness, and they suspect an odd eye on their backs

By ECONEWS

—

September 29, 2026 at 12:32 PM

Bubblegum coral growing on the deep seafloor

Scientists pulled a pale coral from 2,200 feet deep off South America and found a chitin network never seen in this group, which may help bubblegum corals grow branches without a central skeleton

By Adrian Villellas

—

September 29, 2026 at 10:11 AM

Shipwreck on the seafloor off Queensland surrounded by fish

Scientists mapping a shipwreck off Queensland found 300 holes up to 26 feet wide spread 328 feet around it and suspect fish dug them, a pattern that once helped CSIRO find a ship lost for 74 years

By ECONEWS

—

September 28, 2026 at 6:33 PM

Asian elephant reaching into a transparent box for fruit

Scientists hid fruit in a box and taught 16 Asian elephants in Thailand to reach around it, then moved the opening and found they could drop a habit that no longer worked, though older ones took longer

By ECONEWS

—

September 28, 2026 at 3:04 PM

Tsushima leopard cat standing on the ground

On Japan’s Tsushima Island, researchers found leopard cats with short tails and feared domestic cats had crept into their family tree, but genome tests of 16 animals found no trace of that ancestry

By ECONEWS

—

September 28, 2026 at 10:17 AM

Bottlenose dolphin mother and calf surfacing together in the Gulf of Mexico

Scientists filmed a bottlenose dolphin calf handling a seashell just three minutes after its mother used the same shell while hunting, offering a rare clue that this unusual fishing technique may be passed between generations, although researchers say the brief encounter does not yet prove the calf learned it from its mother

By ECONEWS

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September 28, 2026 at 6:32 AM

An Australian stick insect people had photographed for years only now received its own scientific name, and researchers also found a rainforest species whose eggs carry rings never seen before

By ECONEWS

—

September 27, 2026 at 5:22 PM

Black and white photo of Marie Curie working in her Paris laboratory in 1912

More than 120 years after Marie Curie’s experiments, some of her laboratory notebooks remain radioactively contaminated, but France’s national library says visitors behind glass receive essentially no additional radiation while the originals require strict handling controls because radium-226 has a half-life of about 1,600 years

By ECONEWS

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September 27, 2026 at 2:57 PM

Swirling cloud bands of Jupiter photographed by NASA’s Juno spacecraft

Carl Sagan imagined an ecosystem floating in Jupiter’s clouds with microscopic “sinkers,” kilometer-scale balloon-like “floaters” and roaming “hunters,” but nearly 50 years later scientists have found only that some atmospheric layers could meet limited conditions for life, not evidence that anything actually lives there

By ECONEWS

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September 26, 2026 at 12:29 PM

Entrance to the Escoural cave archaeological site in Portugal

Scientists sampled 120 surfaces inside caves in Portugal and Spain and recovered ancient human DNA from just five, including a red-pigment crust at Escoural, revealing that even apparently blank cave walls can preserve genetic traces of people who passed through thousands of years ago

By ECONEWS

—

September 25, 2026 at 2:58 PM

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Science

Two Oregon State studies of 1,512 adults found social media support eased loneliness far less than real-life ties, and checking apps within 30 minutes of waking was tied to twice the odds of depression

Divers off British Columbia found two sea spider species new to science, the first described in the Salish Sea in almost a century, and one has red eyes and legs so spiny its name means hairy feet

NOAA scientists studying sponges collected in Alaska trawl surveys as early as 1997 identified nine deep-sea sponges new to science, including a red one so unusual that it needed a brand-new genus

A study that tracked 1,967 people in Singapore with smart rings found university students averaging 20 moved 100 minutes less per day than adults in their 70s and spent over 10.5 hours a day sitting

According to psychology, reading for pleasure may do more for your brain than you think, as a Cambridge review links it to better memory in 10,243 children and less cognitive decline later in life

Squid numbers have climbed for decades and many blamed warming seas, but a Danish model found warmer water actually shrinks squid populations and the real driver is the overfishing of their predators

A 66-million-year-old feather found inside fossilized dinosaur poop in Montana belonged to a diving bird eaten by a predator, and its modern design may explain why some birds survived the asteroid

Echoes lasted more than seven seconds inside a 2,400-year-old Etruscan tomb in Tarquinia, and researchers think its builders designed it to unsettle mourners

Livestream cameras in California, Colorado and Pennsylvania caught rattlesnakes giving birth for the first time, with over 60 newborns in Colorado, and the footage shows mothers staying with their pups

The Ice Age American cheetah was a close cousin of the puma, and fossils from Canada’s Yukon suggest northern populations ate salmon before the species faded through a slow decline, not a sudden collapse

Scientists took the submersible Alvin 3 miles down to the world’s deepest known hydrothermal vents in the Caribbean to learn how shrimp find them in darkness, and they suspect an odd eye on their backs

Scientists pulled a pale coral from 2,200 feet deep off South America and found a chitin network never seen in this group, which may help bubblegum corals grow branches without a central skeleton

Scientists mapping a shipwreck off Queensland found 300 holes up to 26 feet wide spread 328 feet around it and suspect fish dug them, a pattern that once helped CSIRO find a ship lost for 74 years

Scientists hid fruit in a box and taught 16 Asian elephants in Thailand to reach around it, then moved the opening and found they could drop a habit that no longer worked, though older ones took longer

On Japan’s Tsushima Island, researchers found leopard cats with short tails and feared domestic cats had crept into their family tree, but genome tests of 16 animals found no trace of that ancestry

An Australian stick insect people had photographed for years only now received its own scientific name, and researchers also found a rainforest species whose eggs carry rings never seen before

Scientists sampled 120 surfaces inside caves in Portugal and Spain and recovered ancient human DNA from just five, including a red-pigment crust at Escoural, revealing that even apparently blank cave walls can preserve genetic traces of people who passed through thousands of years ago

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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