Earth & Climate News

October 13, 2025

Top Headlines

Earth’s Climate Just Crossed a Line We Can’t Ignore

Oct. 13, 2025 — Humanity has reached the first Earth system tipping point, the widespread death of warm-water coral reefs, marking the beginning of irreversible planetary shifts. As global temperatures move beyond 1.5°C, the world risks cascading crises such as ...

Scientists Find Gold Hiding in Food Waste

Oct. 12, 2025 — Researchers are finding extraordinary new uses for what we throw away. Beet pulp may help crops resist disease, while composted coconut fibers could replace peat moss. Discarded radish and beet greens are rich in bioactive compounds that boost gut ...

They’re Smaller Than Dust, but Crucial for Earth’s Climate

Oct. 10, 2025 — Coccolithophores, tiny planktonic architects of Earth’s climate, capture carbon, produce oxygen, and leave behind geological records that chronicle our planet’s history. European scientists are uniting to honor them with International ...

Thousands Fall Ill as Mosquito Fever Explodes Across Southern China

Oct. 10, 2025 — China’s Guangdong Province is battling its worst-ever chikungunya outbreak, with thousands of infections spreading across major cities and nearby regions. Transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, the disease underscores how climate change, urbanization, ...

Scientists Shocked as Birds Soaked in “Forever Chemicals” Still Thrive

Oct. 9, 2025 — Tree swallows in polluted U.S. regions are accumulating high levels of “forever chemicals.” These durable pollutants, used in firefighting foams and consumer products, are found everywhere from soil to human blood. Surprisingly, researchers ...

Record Amazon Fires Release More Carbon Than an Entire Country

Oct. 8, 2025 — The Amazon has suffered its most destructive fire season in more than two decades, releasing a staggering 791 million tons of carbon dioxide—on par with Germany’s annual emissions. Scientists found that for the first time, fire-driven ...

The Red Sea That Vanished and the Catastrophic Flood That Brought It Back

Oct. 8, 2025 — Researchers at KAUST have confirmed that the Red Sea once vanished entirely, turning into a barren salt desert before being suddenly flooded by waters from the Indian Ocean. The flood carved deep channels and restored marine life in less than ...

Ocean Heatwaves Are Breaking Earth’s Hidden Climate Engine

Oct. 7, 2025 — Marine heatwaves can jam the ocean’s natural carbon conveyor belt, preventing carbon from reaching the deep sea. Researchers studying two major heatwaves in the Gulf of Alaska found that plankton shifts caused carbon to build up near the surface ...

When Sunshine Became Cheaper Than Coal

Oct. 7, 2025 — Solar energy is now the cheapest source of power worldwide, driving a massive shift toward renewables. Falling battery prices and innovations in solar materials are making clean energy more reliable than ever. Yet, grid congestion and integration ...

From Gentle Giants to Ghostly Hunters, Sharks Face an Unseen Peril

Oct. 5, 2025 — New research reveals that deep-sea mining could dramatically threaten 30 species of sharks, rays, and ghost sharks whose habitats overlap with proposed mining zones. Many of these species, already at risk of extinction, could face increased dangers ...

Japan’s Hot Springs Hold Clues to the Origins of Life on Earth

Oct. 3, 2025 — Billions of years ago, Earth’s atmosphere was hostile, with barely any oxygen and toxic conditions for life. Researchers from the Earth-Life Science Institute studied Japan’s iron-rich hot springs, which mimic the ancient oceans, to uncover how ...

Scientists Just Recreated a Wildfire That Made Its Own Weather

Oct. 2, 2025 — In 2020, California’s Creek Fire became so intense that it generated its own thunderstorm, a phenomenon called a pyrocumulonimbus cloud. For years, scientists struggled to replicate these explosive fire-born storms in climate models, leaving major ...

Latest Headlines

updated 2:37pm EDT

California’s Next Big One Could Be Faster and Far More Destructive

Oct. 12, 2025 — Supershear earthquakes, moving faster than seismic waves, could cause catastrophic shaking across California. USC researchers warn that many faults capable of magnitude 7 quakes might produce these ...

New Simulation Reveals How Earth’s Magnetic Field First Sparked to Life

Oct. 12, 2025 — Geophysicists have modeled how Earth’s magnetic field could form even when its core was fully liquid. By removing the effects of viscosity in their simulation, they revealed a self-sustaining ...

Scientists Just Found the Shocking Reason Chile’s Quake Shook So Hard

Oct. 2, 2025 — A massive quake struck Calama, Chile, in 2024, surprising scientists with its unusual depth and destructive power. Unlike typical deep quakes, it broke past thermal limits and triggered an intense ...

1,000 Swiss Glaciers Already Gone, and the Melting Is Speeding Up

Oct. 2, 2025 — Swiss glaciers lost nearly 3% of their volume in 2025, following a snow-poor winter and scorching summer heatwaves. The melt has been so extreme that some glaciers lost more than two meters of ice ...

The Billion-Year Reign of Fungi That Predated Plants and Made Earth Livable

Oct. 1, 2025 — Fungi may have shaped Earth’s landscapes long before plants appeared. By combining rare gene transfers with fossil evidence, researchers have traced fungal origins back nearly a billion years ...

Tiny Stones Rewrite Earth’s Evolution Story

Sep. 26, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered an unexpected witness to Earth’s distant past: tiny iron oxide stones called ooids. These mineral snowballs lock away traces of ancient carbon, revealing that oceans ...

Biochar’s Secret Power Could Change Clean Water Forever

Sep. 26, 2025 — Scientists found that biochar doesn’t just capture pollutants, it actively destroys them using direct electron transfer. This newly recognized ability accounts for up to 40% of its cleaning power ...

Toxic Waste Could Become the Next Clean Energy Breakthrough

Sep. 26, 2025 — Bio-tar, once seen as a toxic waste, can be transformed into bio-carbon with applications in clean energy and environmental protection. This innovation could reduce emissions, create profits, and ...

Hidden “electron Highways” Beneath Our Feet Could Revolutionize Pollution Cleanup

Sep. 26, 2025 — Electrons flow underground in ways far more extensive than once believed, forming networks that link distant chemical zones. Minerals, organic ...

A Tiny Mineral May Hold the Secret to Feeding Billions Sustainably

Sep. 24, 2025 — Rice, a staple for billions, is one of the most resource-hungry crops on the planet—but scientists may have found a way to change that. By applying nanoscale selenium directly to rice plants, ...

Scientists Crack the Explosive Secret of How Diamonds Reach the Surface

Sep. 24, 2025 — Diamonds hitch a ride to the surface through explosive kimberlite eruptions, powered by volatile-rich magmas. New simulations show that carbon dioxide and water are the secret ingredients that make ...

Diamonds Reveal Hidden Chemistry Deep Inside Earth

Sep. 23, 2025 — South African diamonds have revealed nickel-rich metallic inclusions, offering the first direct evidence of reactions predicted to occur deep in Earth’s mantle. The study shows how oxidized melts ...

The Shocking Reason Arctic Rivers Are Turning Rusty Orange

Sep. 22, 2025 — Researchers found that ice can trigger stronger chemical reactions than liquid water, dissolving iron minerals in extreme cold. Freeze-thaw cycles amplify the effect, releasing iron into rivers and ...

This Surprising Building Material Is Strong, Cheap, and Sustainable

Sep. 22, 2025 — A team at RMIT University has created a cement-free construction material using only cardboard, soil, and water. Strong enough for low-rise buildings, it reduces emissions, costs, and waste compared ...

Childhood Plastic Exposure Could Be Fueling Obesity, Infertility, and Asthma

Sep. 22, 2025 — A sweeping review from NYU Langone Health reveals that everyday exposure to plastics—especially during childhood—poses lasting risks for heart disease, infertility, asthma, and even brain ...

Strange New Hybrid Bird Spotted in Texas Backyard

Sep. 20, 2025 — In Texas, biologists have documented an extraordinary bird — the natural hybrid offspring of a green jay and a blue jay. Once separated by millions of years of evolution and distinct ranges, the ...

Wildfire Smoke Could Kill 70,000 Americans a Year by 2050

Sep. 19, 2025 — Wildfires are no longer a seasonal nuisance but a deadly, nationwide health crisis. Fueled by climate change, smoke is spreading farther and lingering longer, with new research warning of tens of ...

Breakthrough Method Could Dramatically Cut Prescription Drug Prices

Sep. 21, 2025 — University of Maine researchers developed a new process to make HBL, a key ingredient in many medicines, from renewable glucose instead of petroleum. The approach not only lowers drug production ...

Earthquakes Release Blistering Heat That Can Melt Rock in an Instant

Sep. 19, 2025 — MIT scientists have unraveled the hidden energy balance of earthquakes by recreating them in the lab. Their findings show that while only a sliver of energy goes into the shaking we feel on the ...

Soil Warming Experiments Challenge Assumptions About Climate Change

Sep. 17, 2025 — Heating alone won’t drive soil microbes to release more carbon dioxide — they need added carbon and nutrients to thrive. This finding challenges assumptions about how climate warming influences ...

Scientists Just Found the “master Switch” for Plant Growth

Sep. 16, 2025 — Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory have cracked open the secrets of plant stem cells, mapping key genetic regulators in maize and Arabidopsis. By using single-cell RNA sequencing, they ...

A Volcano Erased an Island’s Plants. Their DNA Revealed How Life Starts Over

Sep. 15, 2025 — Volcanic eruptions on the remote island of Nishinoshima repeatedly wipe the land clean, giving scientists a rare chance to study life’s earliest stages. Researchers traced the genetic origins of an ...

DNA from Old Ants Reveals a Hidden Insect Apocalypse in Fiji

Sep. 20, 2025 — Insects are essential for ecosystems, but mounting evidence suggests many populations are collapsing under modern pressures. A new study used cutting-edge genomic techniques on museum specimens to ...

Tiny Skaters Beneath the Arctic Ice Rewrite the Limits of Life

Sep. 12, 2025 — Hidden within Arctic ice, diatoms are proving to be anything but dormant. New Stanford research shows these glass-walled algae glide through frozen channels at record-breaking subzero temperatures, ...

Scientists Finally Solve the Mystery of Ghostly Halos on the Ocean Floor

Sep. 10, 2025 — Barrels dumped off Southern California decades ago have been found leaking alkaline waste, not just DDT, leaving behind eerie white halos and transforming parts of the seafloor into toxic vents. The ...

Why Alaska’s Salmon Streams Are Suddenly Bleeding Orange

Sep. 18, 2025 — Warming Arctic permafrost is unlocking toxic metals, turning Alaska’s once-clear rivers into orange, acid-laced streams. The shift, eerily similar to mine pollution but entirely natural, threatens ...

The Invisible Plastic Threat You Can Finally See

Sep. 10, 2025 — Researchers in Germany and Australia have created a simple but powerful tool to detect nanoplastics—tiny, invisible particles that can slip through skin and even the blood-brain barrier. Using an ...

Hungry Flathead Catfish Are Changing Everything in the Susquehanna

Sep. 9, 2025 — Flathead catfish are rapidly reshaping the Susquehanna River’s ecosystem. Once introduced, these voracious predators climbed to the top of the food chain, forcing native fish like channel catfish ...

Why Some Plants Are Taking Over the World

Sep. 9, 2025 — Plants are spreading across the globe faster than ever, largely due to human activity, and new research shows that the very same traits that make plants thrive in their native lands also drive their ...

The Ocean’s Most Abundant Microbe Is Near Its Breaking Point

Sep. 9, 2025 — Tiny ocean microbes called Prochlorococcus, once thought to be climate survivors, may struggle as seas warm. These cyanobacteria drive 5% of Earth’s photosynthesis and underpin much of the marine ...