| ScienceDaily: Top Environment News |
- Why some hummingbirds choose to balloon up before flying south
- Ornamental plants for conserving bees, beneficial insects
- What’s that? New study finds jumping spiders can hear more than you think
- Extraterrestrial impact preceded ancient global warming event
- Drivers of evolution hidden in plain sight
- Wave energy researchers dive deep to advance clean energy source
- Knowledge increases awareness of biodiversity despite firsthand experiences
- New nematode is hermaphrodite: One of the smallest known earthworms found in Jaén
- Unique skin impressions of the last dinosaurs from what is now Europe
- Charting riches in the ocean’s depths
- New kind of local food grows in your own kitchen
- Calredoxin, a novel protein for promoting efficient photosynthesis
- Nano-spike catalysts convert carbon dioxide directly into ethanol
- Why did T. Rex have such small arms?
- Sustainable fisheries require capable fishers
- Cannabis excess linked to bone disease, fractures
- Salty snow could affect air pollution in the Arctic
- Unconventional cell division in the Caribbean Sea
- This little amoeba committed grand theft
- Calcium deficient fauna and brown water awaiting
- Anti-tuberculosis drug disrupted by botanical supplement, can lead to development of disease
| Why some hummingbirds choose to balloon up before flying south
Posted: 13 Oct 2016 12:01 PM PDT Adult ruby-throated hummingbirds choose to pack on significant weight in the four days before their long migratory flights south for the winter, new research has found. |
| Ornamental plants for conserving bees, beneficial insects
Posted: 13 Oct 2016 12:01 PM PDT Insects play a vital role in ecosystem health, helping to aerate soil, keeping the natural system in balance, and preventing detrimental pests from taking over essential natural resources. Additionally, insects provide critical biological services such as pollination and biological controls. The authors of a study say that flowering ornamental plants have the potential to support beneficial insect communities, such as pollinating bees, wasps, and predatory plant bugs. |
| What’s that? New study finds jumping spiders can hear more than you think
Posted: 13 Oct 2016 11:12 AM PDT While jumping spiders are known to have great vision, a new study proves for the first time that spiders can hear at a distance. A study describes how researchers used metal microelectrodes in a jumping spider’s poppy-seed-sized brain to show that auditory neurons can sense far-field sounds, at distances up to 3 meters, or about 600 spider body lengths. |
| Extraterrestrial impact preceded ancient global warming event
Posted: 13 Oct 2016 11:12 AM PDT A comet strike may have triggered the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a rapid warming of Earth caused by an accumulation of atmospheric carbon dioxide 56 million years ago, which offers analogs to global warming today. |
| Drivers of evolution hidden in plain sight
Posted: 13 Oct 2016 11:10 AM PDT The evolutionary history of thousands of protein modifications in 18 related species have now been reconstructed by a team of scientists. Their findings highlight a previously unknown strategy for generating the diversity needed for natural selection. |
| Knowledge increases awareness of biodiversity despite firsthand experiences
Posted: 13 Oct 2016 09:59 AM PDT Protecting an ecological paradise like the island of Santa Cruz can be challenging for its resource managers who want to maximize visitor experiences while minimizing negative impacts on the park. As the largest of five islands in Channel Islands National Park off the coast of California, Santa Cruz boasts over 2,000 species of plants and animals, some of which are not found anywhere else on earth. But a recent study says the island’s rich biodiversity may not be what’s valued most by its stakeholders. |
| New nematode is hermaphrodite: One of the smallest known earthworms found in Jaén
Posted: 13 Oct 2016 06:57 AM PDT Around nine kilometres south of the city of Jaén (Spain), Spanish scientists have found a new species of nematode in the compost at a vegetable garden. The specimens found are extremely small, with adults measuring 0.2 mm in length. Moreover, there are no males among these roundworms, making the new nematodes a rare hermaphrodite species. Nematodes are small worms that measure around 1 millimetre long and live freely in soil or water. They feed on bacteria, single-cell algae, fungi or other nematodes; they can also parasitize other animals or plants. But the most striking fact about them is their ability to adapt. |
| New kind of local food grows in your own kitchen
Posted: 13 Oct 2016 06:53 AM PDT A home appliance that grows the ingredients for a healthy meal within a week from plant cells is no longer science fiction. The first 3D-printed CellPod prototype is already producing harvests. |
| Calredoxin, a novel protein for promoting efficient photosynthesis
Posted: 13 Oct 2016 06:52 AM PDT A group of researchers reports on the structure and function of a novel protein named “Calredoxin”. Calredoxin binds calcium and catalyzes in dependence of its binding, redox reactions, particularly driving the detoxification of harmful oxygen species. The researchers are exploring how this protein functions at the crossroad of calcium- and redox-dependent reactions to promote efficient oxygenic photosynthesis. |
| Nano-spike catalysts convert carbon dioxide directly into ethanol
Posted: 12 Oct 2016 03:35 PM PDT In a new twist to waste-to-fuel technology, scientists have developed an electrochemical process that uses tiny spikes of carbon and copper to turn carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, into ethanol. |
| Why did T. Rex have such small arms?
Posted: 12 Oct 2016 12:48 PM PDT The tiny arms on the otherwise mighty Tyrannosaurus rex are one of the biggest and most enduring mysteries in paleontology. |
| Sustainable fisheries require capable fishers
Posted: 12 Oct 2016 11:09 AM PDT Full participation of thousands of small tuna fishers in fishery improvement projects require specific capabilities, like firm and collective capabilities for organizing and marketing their fish. Fishers who don’t have these capabilities are less likely to participate in projects to improve sustainability, researchers demonstrate. |
| Cannabis excess linked to bone disease, fractures
Posted: 12 Oct 2016 10:26 AM PDT People who regularly smoke large amounts of cannabis have reduced bone density and are more prone to fractures, research has found. The study also found that heavy cannabis users have a lower body weight and a reduced body mass index (BMI), which could contribute to thinning of their bones. |
| Salty snow could affect air pollution in the Arctic
Posted: 12 Oct 2016 10:26 AM PDT In pictures, the Arctic appears pristine and timeless with its barren lands and icy landscape. In reality, the area is rapidly changing. Scientists are working to understand the chemistry behind these changes to better predict what could happen to the region in the future. One team reports that sea salt could play a larger role in the formation of local atmospheric pollutants than previously thought. |
| Unconventional cell division in the Caribbean Sea
Posted: 11 Oct 2016 10:59 AM PDT Bacteria are immortal as long as they keep dividing. For decades it has been assumed that a continuous, proteinaceous ring is necessary to drive the division of most microorganisms. An international team of researchers has revealed that the symbiont of the marine roundworm breaks the ring dogma and divides without. |
| This little amoeba committed grand theft
Posted: 10 Oct 2016 03:58 PM PDT About 100 million years ago, a lowly amoeba pulled off a stunning heist, grabbing genes from an unsuspecting bacterium to replace those it had lost. Now scientists have solved the mystery of how the little amoeba, Paulinella, committed the theft. It engulfed the bacterium, kept that cell alive and harnessed its genes for photosynthesis, the process plants and algae use to convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and sugar via solar energy. |
| Calcium deficient fauna and brown water awaiting
Posted: 10 Oct 2016 03:56 PM PDT Calcium deficient fauna, poor conditions for freshwater fish and mercury in the drinking water is the long-term consequences of acid rain in the 70’s and 80’s. |
| Anti-tuberculosis drug disrupted by botanical supplement, can lead to development of disease
Posted: 10 Oct 2016 09:01 AM PDT A new study in partnership with scientists in Africa has uncovered evidence that supplements and their antioxidants may reduce the effectiveness of prescription medications. The researchers examined the effects of a widely used African botanical supplement, called Sutherlandia, and found that it may disrupt the effectiveness of a common anti-tuberculosis drug. This could lead to the development of active tuberculosis and perhaps drug resistant forms of the pathogen in some patients. |