ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

Breakthrough article reveals multiple mechanisms for wing transparency in butterflies and moths; shows that wing transparency has evolved multiple times in lepidopterans.

Researchers have developed a new technique that can alter plant metabolism. Tested in tobacco plants, the technique showed that it could reduce harmful chemical compounds, including some that are carcinogenic. The findings could be used to improve the health benefits of crops.

Rapid snowmelt can be dangerous, and understanding its drivers is important for understanding the world under the influence of climate change.

Researchers deloped a new genetic circuit called the Equalizer that leads to uniform gene expression.

A new software improves data-independent acquisition proteomics by providing a computational workflow that permits highly sensitive and accurate data analysis.

The transportation sector is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, and a lot of attention has been devoted to electric passenger vehicles and their potential to help reduce those emissions.

The sharp eyes of an eagle, the extraordinary hearing of an owl - to successfully find food, the eyes and ears of birds have adapted optimally to their living conditions. Until now, the sense of smell has played a rather subordinate role. When meadows are freshly mowed, storks often appear there to search for snails and frogs. Researchers have now studied the birds' behavior and discovered that the storks are attracted by the smell of the mown grass. Only storks that were downwind and could thus perceive the smell reacted to the mowing. The scientists also sprayed a meadow with a spray of green leaf scents released during mowing. Storks appeared here as well. This shows that white storks use their sense of smell to forage and suggests that the sense of smell may also play a greater role in other birds than previously thought.

You know your dog gets your gist when you point and say 'go find the ball' and he scampers right to it. This knack for understanding human gestures may seem unremarkable, but it's a complex cognitive ability that is rare in the animal kingdom. New research comparing dog puppies to human-reared wolf pups offers some clues to how dogs' unusual people-reading skills came to be.

Australia's coastal ecosystems alone save the rest of the world costs of around 23 billion US dollar a year by absorbing CO2 from the atmosphere. Coastal ecosystems such as seagrass meadows, salt marshes and mangrove forests make an important contribution to mitigating climate change.

A diet rich in fermented foods enhances the diversity of gut microbes and decreases molecular signs of inflammation, according to researchers.

Ecologists have applied stable isotope techniques to determine whether birds in the pet trade are captive or wild-caught, a key piece of evidence required in many cases to determine whether a trade is legal or not. They have applied this technique to the yellow-crested cockatoo, a critically endangered species from Indonesia/Timor-Leste with a global population of fewer than 2,500.

Plant material that lies to rot in soil isn't just valuable as compost. In fact, agricultural crop residue plays a crucial role in sequestering carbon, which is vital for reducing global CO2 emissions.

Ancient sediments from caves have already proven to preserve DNA for thousands of years. The amount of recovered sequences from environmental sediments, however, is generally low, which complicates analyses. A study has now successfully retrieved three mammalian environmental genomes from a single soil sample of 25,000 years BP obtained from the cave of Satsurblia in the Caucasus (Georgia).

Forest clearance in Southeast Asia is accelerating, leading to unprecedented increases in carbon emissions, according to new research. The findings show that forests are being cut down at increasingly higher altitudes and on steeper slopes in order to make way for agricultural intensification.

Researchers examined the number of households unable to pay for damages from coastal flooding to reveal how sea-level rise could threaten the fabric of Bay Area communities over the next 40 years.

An international study of parks and gardens finds even the humble roadside verge plays an important role in the environment and for our health.

Scientists have produced the first fine-detail molecular blueprints of a bacterial enzyme known as Lit, which is suspected to play a 'stealthy' role in the progression of infection by reducing the immune response. Blueprints such as these allow drug designers to uncover potential weaknesses in bacterial arsenals as they seek to develop new therapeutics that may help us win the war against antibiotic resistance.