Earth & Climate News

October 25, 2025

Top Headlines

Earth Is Splitting Open Beneath the Pacific Northwest

Oct. 25, 2025 — For the first time, scientists have seen a subduction zone actively breaking apart beneath the Pacific Northwest. Seismic data show the oceanic plate tearing into fragments, forming microplates in a slow, step-by-step collapse. This process, once ...

El Niño Could Soon Turn Deadly Predictable, Scientists Warn

Oct. 24, 2025 — Scientists have discovered that El Niño and La Niña could become far more powerful and predictable as the planet warms. By 2050, the tropical Pacific may hit a tipping point, locking ENSO into strong, rhythmic oscillations that synchronize with ...

“Lost” Giant Rat Found Alive in Papua Mountains After 30 Years

Oct. 23, 2025 — In the mist-shrouded mountains of New Guinea, a Czech researcher has achieved a world-first — capturing photos, video, and data of the elusive Subalpine Woolly Rat, Mallomys istapantap. Once known only from museum specimens, this giant, shaggy ...

China’s Coastal Cities Are Sinking as Seas Rise at Record Speed

Oct. 23, 2025 — Sea levels are rising faster than at any time in 4,000 years, scientists report, with China’s major coastal cities at particular risk. The rapid increase is driven by warming oceans and melting ice, while human activities like groundwater pumping ...

They Were Drilling Off Oregon. What They Found Could Shake All of California

Oct. 23, 2025 — Scientists have uncovered evidence that megaquakes in the Pacific Northwest might trigger California’s San Andreas Fault. A research ship’s navigational error revealed paired sediment layers ...

Atlantic Dolphins Are Dying Much Younger. Scientists Sound the Alarm

Oct. 22, 2025 — Common dolphins in the North Atlantic are living significantly shorter lives, with female longevity dropping seven years since the 1990s. Researchers found this decline by analyzing stranded dolphins, revealing a 2.4% drop in population growth ...

Scientists Say Dimming the Sun Could Spark Global Chaos

Oct. 21, 2025 — Scientists are taking the once-radical concept of dimming the sun through stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) seriously, but a Columbia University team warns that reality is far messier than models suggest. Their study reveals how physical, ...

Scientists Just Found Hidden Life Thriving Beneath the Arctic Ice

Oct. 21, 2025 — Melting Arctic ice is revealing a hidden world of nitrogen-fixing bacteria beneath the surface. These microbes, not the usual cyanobacteria, enrich the ocean with nitrogen, fueling algae growth that supports the entire marine food chain. As ice ...

Glowing Sugars Show How Microbes Eat the Ocean's Carbon

Oct. 19, 2025 — Researchers have developed a light-emitting sugar probe that exposes how marine microbes break down complex carbohydrates. The innovative fluorescent tool allows scientists to visualize when and where sugars are degraded in the ocean. This ...

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 ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:32am EDT

A Clue to Ancient Life? What Scientists Found Inside Mars’ Frozen Vortex

Oct. 19, 2025 — Mars’ north polar vortex locks its atmosphere in extreme cold and darkness, freezing out water vapor and triggering a dramatic rise in ozone. Scientists found that the lack of sunlight and moisture ...

MIT Finds Traces of a Lost World Deep Within Planet Earth

Oct. 17, 2025 — Researchers have discovered chemical fingerprints of Earth's earliest incarnation, preserved in ancient mantle rocks. A unique imbalance in potassium isotopes points to remnants of “proto Earth” ...

Asteroid Ryugu’s Hidden Waters Could Explain How Earth Got Its Oceans

Oct. 16, 2025 — Ryugu’s samples reveal that water activity on asteroids lasted far longer than scientists thought, possibly reshaping theories of how Earth gained its oceans. A billion-year-old impact may have ...

A Giant Asteroid Hit Earth, but Its Crater Is Missing

Oct. 16, 2025 — Researchers discovered a new field of ancient tektites in South Australia, revealing a long-forgotten asteroid impact. These 11-million-year-old glass fragments differ chemically and geographically ...

Forged in Fire: The 900°C Heat That Built Earth’s Stable Continents

Oct. 16, 2025 — New research reveals that Earth’s continents owe their stability to searing heat deep in the planet’s crust. At more than 900°C, radioactive elements shifted upward, cooling and strengthening ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

Earlier Headlines

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 ...

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 ...

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

Oct. 4, 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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 molecules, and specialized bacteria can act as bridges, ...

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 ...