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What's carving active gullies on Mars? It's not water

Scientists were shocked when they received the first images of Martian gullies. They were even more shocked as those gullies appeared to change over time. Their similarities to gullies seen on Earth were uncanny, but all of Earth's gullies are formed by water runoff, and Mars is too cold and has too sparse an atmosphere to have liquid water on its surface. Whatever has been causing those changing gullies couldn't have been water, so what was it? A new paper from Apolline Leclef of the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale at Université Paris-Saclay and her colleagues, available on the arXiv preprint server, shows how they are likely caused by CO2 frost turning into a fluid.

Phys.org11 Sept

Seasonal forecasts could give northern India months of warning before severe winter air pollution

Northern India experiences some of the world's worst winter air pollution, with dangerous episodes often prompting emergency control efforts. In major cities like Delhi, the Air Quality Index has reached levels above 999—over 30 times the World Health Organization's safety limit.

Phys.org11 Sept

How diaspora groups in the US are responding to disasters in Nepal, Colombia, Venezuela and other homelands

A string of major disasters in 2026 have had devastating consequences. Earthquakes in Venezuela and Colombia and floods and mudslides in Nepal have killed tens of thousands of people and injured many more. Countless people remain missing, and hundreds of thousands of homes are damaged, with some entire neighborhoods destroyed.

Phys.org11 Sept

AI-generated images may support conservation, but real-world data remain essential

New research finds there is no substitute for real-world observations, but that—under the right circumstances—AI-generated images can be used to improve the performance of computer models used for species identification and biodiversity monitoring.

Phys.org11 Sept

Chihuahua dogs are part coyote—this might help explain their 'small but mighty' reputation

It turns out that one of the smallest dog breeds, the Chihuahua, is part wild coyote, according to recently published genetic research. The Chihuahua breed originated in Mexico but is now a popular canine companion worldwide.

Phys.org11 Sept

Faster wood formation matters more than longer growing seasons in a warming climate

In non-tropical forests, cold winters hinder tree growth. There, climate warming prolongs the period during which trees absorb carbon through photosynthesis and store it in wood, known as the growing season. This could potentially mitigate further climate change as wood formation and carbon storage increases. But is this really the case?

Phys.org11 Sept

Turkey-monitoring AI forecasts body weight three weeks ahead with 93% accuracy

Body weight monitoring is one of the most important tools for poultry farmers. It provides valuable information about growth, uniformity, feed conversion efficiency—how well birds turn feed into meat—and the occurrence of diseases in a flock. But obtaining frequent and accurate body weight measurements is a significant challenge in commercial poultry production, according to researchers at Penn State who may have developed a solution.

Phys.org11 Sept

How soybeans took over the American diet—without anyone noticing

U.S. farmers will produce a record-breaking harvest of 4.52 billion bushels of soybeans in 2026, according to projections from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. At 60 pounds (27 kilograms) to the bushel, that is roughly 800 pounds (360 kilograms) of soybeans for every American.

Phys.org11 Sept

Nepal floods: How measuring snow in the Himalayas could help avoid future disasters

The massive and deadly floods on the Nepal–Tibet border are a stark reminder of why the world needs to constantly update its understanding of the fragile ecosystem in the Himalayas.

Phys.org11 Sept

Breaking down shoe foam by genetically tweaking a microbe found in compost

Your favorite pair of tennies, kicks or trainers may soon become a little more sustainable. In a study published Sept. 11 in the journal Chem Catalysis, researchers developed a new kind of enzyme based on a bacterium found in compost that can degrade the polyurethane material in shoe foams. The results could one day help recycle plastic waste from shoes, mattresses, kitchen sponges and more.

Phys.org11 Sept

Release of open AI model trained on 17 years of lunar data maps ice, craters and volcanoes

NASA is bringing artificial intelligence to the study of the moon, helping researchers transform how they analyze its surface. In an ongoing collaboration with IBM Research and several academic institutions, NASA has launched the NASA-IBM Lunar Foundation Model, one of the first open-source AI models built specifically for lunar science. The model, trained primarily on data from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO), is hosted publicly on Hugging Face for anyone to use, with the complete codebase available on GitHub for testing and experimentation.

Phys.org11 Sept

Scientists discover a new way a disease-linked protein comes apart

Transthyretin amyloid disease (ATTR) is a progressive, life-threatening condition caused when the protein transthyretin (TTR) breaks apart and aggregates in the heart and other organs. One of the most common treatments, a drug called tafamidis, works by helping TTR stay intact—slowing how it normally unfolds and aggregates.

Phys.org11 Sept

More than kinship, social isolation has a greater effect on toad tadpole behavior

Amphibian larvae—often known as tadpoles—exhibit a behavior known as "social aggregation," in which they gather together to avoid predators. These interactions are evidence of their "association preferences," or their tendency to recognize members of their own species. Some varieties of tadpoles have even shown a preference for their siblings.

Phys.org11 Sept

Tasmanian devils lived with people in outback Western Australia 45,000 years ago, new fossils show

Tasmanian devils are among Australia's most distinctive mammals. Stocky, powerful and famously noisy, wild populations are now restricted to Tasmania. But this was not always the case. In fact, thousands of years ago, devils could be found across mainland Australia.

Phys.org11 Sept

Uniting sequence and structure to map the protein universe across billions of years of evolution

An international team of researchers, including those at the Earth-Life Science Institute (ELSI) at the Institute of Science Tokyo, has developed a protein language model that brings together two fundamental sources of information about proteins: their amino acid sequences and three-dimensional structures.

Phys.org11 Sept

Research shows agricultural fungicides drive evolution of multidrug resistance in soil microbes

Two newly published studies from Trinity College Dublin scientists raise significant concerns about the use of agricultural fungicides.That is because they show fungicides can rapidly drive soil microbes to evolve multidrug resistance to clinically important drugs and, when combined with warmer temperatures, disrupt soil microbes in ways that negatively affect plant growth.

Phys.org11 Sept

When a company 'believes' something false that causes harm, who's to blame? Professor offers a new answer

When Boeing certified the 737 Max in 2017 as safe to fly, a flight-control system it had approved caused two crashes that killed 346 people. When Takata kept shipping airbag inflators it had cleared for use, the devices exploded on impact, triggering the largest automotive recall in U.S. history. When a Hollywood armorer handed Alec Baldwin a gun on the set of "Rust," she believed it held no live rounds, but it did, and the shot killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins.

Phys.org11 Sept

Planes on a snake? Scientists discover various crab species hitching rides on sea snakes

Like all other snakes, sea snakes shed their skin as they grow. But because they live near the surface of the open ocean, they don't have the benefit of removing their old skin by slithering against a hard surface. Instead, they wriggle into a pretzel and use the friction generated by their scales to get the job done.

Phys.org11 Sept

Low-cost phone lessons keep children learning during emergency school closures across five countries

The COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns forced people to find ways to get things done remotely. Companies developed systems that made working from home run smoothly. Educators also had to shift to mobile phones and group video calls to get their lessons across and make sure students didn't lose out on their progress. This exposed the need for education systems to be more resilient and adaptive to local and global disruptions.

Phys.org11 Sept

A new surface atlas of Phobos will help MMX mission collect its samples

Thanks to JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and its sample-return capabilities, we're on the cusp of receiving our first sample from the Martian system—not from Mars itself, but from its largest moon, Phobos. JAXA's Martian Moons eXploration (MMX) mission is set to launch in October. It will reach Phobos in 2027 and, if successful, return a sample from the moon to Earth in 2031.

Phys.org11 Sept