A new study of the oldest known bird, Archaeopteryx, shows that some of birds’ weirdest mouth features—like extra tongue bones, a sensitive beak-tip, and fleshy “teeth” on the roofs of their mouths—date all the way back to the Jurassic Period. These features, which are still present in most living birds, hint that being extra-good at finding, grabbing, and processing food might be key to a life on the wing.

AES Andes announced that it will step back from the megaproject INNA, planned to be located near the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO’s) Paranal Observatory. ESO welcomes this announcement and expects that the project will be withdrawn from Chile's Environmental Assessment Service (SEA) soon, which would formally confirm INNA is not going ahead.

A University of Missouri researcher is pioneering an innovative solution to remove tiny bits of plastic pollution from our water.

Contrary to expectations, wetlands do not need to be completely flooded to provide the greatest climate benefit. Instead, the water table should be below the soil surface and remain stable, according to a new study from the University of Copenhagen. The greenhouse gas methane and microorganisms in the soil are a game changer.

Low algal growth despite high iron supply: A new study in Nature Geoscience uncovers a surprising link between West Antarctic Ice Sheet retreat and the growth of marine algae over the past 500,000 years. The team's findings suggest that global warming could potentially result in a reduced uptake of carbon dioxide in the Pacific sector of the Southern Ocean if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, which is considered unstable, continues to shrink. 

Iron-rich sediments transported by icebergs from West Antarctica failed to support algae growth in the Southern Ocean, because the iron was highly “weathered” and not readily bioavailable to algae—thus reducing the ocean’s carbon dioxide uptake.

A thin, soft and slippery layer of clay-rich mud embedded in rock below the seafloor intensified the 2011 Japan earthquake that produced a tsunami that claimed tens of thousands of lives and decimated coastal communities along with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant. 

 

The discovery was made by a global research team who, onboard the world’s most advanced drilling-equipped science vessel, Chikyu, sailed to the Japan Trench in late 2024 to investigate what caused the Tōhoku-oki fault to rupture and trigger the earthquake. 

The researchers drilled up to 7,906 metres below the sea surface, setting a Guinness World Record for the deepest scientific ocean drilling ever conducted.