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ScienceDaily: Top Environment News |
| How plants colonize the base of an active stratovolcano Posted: 18 May 2022 11:07 AM PDT New research in plants that colonized the base of an active stratovolcano reveals that two simple molecular steps rewired nutrient transport, enabling adaptation. |
| For wetland plants, sea-level rise stamps out benefits of higher CO2 Posted: 18 May 2022 11:07 AM PDT Wetlands across the globe are in danger of drowning from rising seas. But for decades, scientists held out hope that another aspect of climate change -- rising carbon dioxide (CO2) -- could trigger extra plant growth, enabling coastal wetlands to grow fast enough to outpace sea-level rise. That helpful side effect is disappearing, scientists have discovered. |
| Native plant gardening for species conservation Posted: 18 May 2022 10:07 AM PDT Declining native species could be planted in urban green spaces. Researchers now describe how to use this great potential for species protection. They recommend practical conservation gardening methods in a bid to restructure the horticultural industry and reverse plant species declines. |
| Scientists hone long-range forecasting of US tornadoes, hail Posted: 18 May 2022 08:39 AM PDT New research identifies three specific orientations of atmospheric phenomena occurring near the equator over the Maritime continent that increase the probability of severe U.S. weather events three to four weeks later. |
| On the road to cleaner, greener, and faster driving Posted: 18 May 2022 08:38 AM PDT Researchers have developed a technique to control a fleet of autonomous vehicles as they approach and pass through a signalized intersection in a way that reduces fuel consumption and greenhouse emissions from idling and stop-and-go traffic, while improving travel speeds. |
| Rainforest trees may have been dying faster since the 1980s because of climate change Posted: 18 May 2022 08:38 AM PDT Tropical trees in Australia's rainforests have been dying at double the previous rate since the 1980s, seemingly because of climate impacts, according to the findings of a long-term international study. This research has found the death rates of tropical trees have doubled in the last 35 years, as global warming increases the drying power of the atmosphere. |
| Oat reference genome: Insights into a uniquely healthy cereal crop Posted: 18 May 2022 08:38 AM PDT Cultivated oat (Avena sativa L.) is an old crop thought to have been domesticated over 3,000 years ago, while growing as a weed in wheat and barley fields. Oat has a low carbon footprint, substantial health benefits and the potential to replace animal-based food products. However, lack of genome resources has prevented the application modern methods of plant breeding. An international research team now presents a high-quality reference genome of A. sativa and its most closely related wild relatives. |
| Posted: 18 May 2022 08:33 AM PDT In the wild, it might seem like male animals run the show. But researchers have laid a new framework to assess power distribution between the sexes, and its application has shown that in some animal species, females rule the roost and their paths to power look very different from that of their male counterparts'. |
| Scallops swim into illuminated fishing pots Posted: 18 May 2022 07:18 AM PDT Scallops are drawn to illuminated fishing pots like moths to a flame. The study examined the effect of LED lights on crab and lobster pots used by fishing boats off the coast of Cornwall, UK, and the research team was stunned by the results. More than 500 scallops were caught -- 99.6% of them in pots with lights. |
| At-risk sea life in the Atlantic needs better protection from an increase in shipping Posted: 18 May 2022 07:18 AM PDT New research has shown a dramatic increase in shipping in the North East Atlantic. Scientists now warn that more monitoring in the area is required to help protect sea life on the at-risk register. |
| Bringing order to the chaos of sea level projections Posted: 18 May 2022 07:17 AM PDT In their effort to provide decisionmakers with insight into the consequences of climate change, climate researchers are bringing order to the large amount of sea level projections, translating climate models to expected sea level rise. |
| Posted: 18 May 2022 05:04 AM PDT A new study has found contaminants, banned decades ago, are still imperiling critically endangered California condors. The condors may be at increased risk for reproductive impairment because they consume dead marine mammals along the California coast. |
| High rates of landscape degradation not product of landscape fires Posted: 18 May 2022 05:03 AM PDT Once humans discovered how to tame fire, they began using it for heat, cooking, to scare away animals and to alter their environs, especially burning areas to plant and to restore grazing land. In Madagascar, scientists and conservationists have long believed that fire is a leading cause of high landscape degradation, but an international team of researchers have found that medium to large fires on the island are similar to those on other tropical locations. |
| New material can 'capture toxic pollutants from air' Posted: 17 May 2022 06:04 PM PDT A new material is capable of capturing trace amounts of benzene, a toxic pollutant, from the air and crucially use less energy than existing materials to do so. |
| Study gives animal testing alternatives a confidence boost Posted: 17 May 2022 06:04 PM PDT As part of a government effort to reduce animal testing, researchers have worked to produce a new protocol for screening skin allergens. The method is potentially cheaper and faster than animal testing, while maintaining a similar performance. |
| Seafloor animal cued to settle, transformed by a bacterial compound Posted: 17 May 2022 06:04 PM PDT A new study has revealed that a large, complex molecule, called lipopolysaccharide, produced by bacteria is responsible for inducing larval marine tubeworms, Hydroides elegans, to settle to the seafloor and begin the complex processes of metamorphosis. |
| Automated platform for plasmid production Posted: 17 May 2022 02:02 PM PDT Researchers have developed PlasmidMaker, a versatile automated platform for plasmid design & construction. These circular DNA molecules are used by scientists to introduce new genes into a target organism, and have extensive use in basic and applied biology. In particular, they have applications in the large-scale production of bioproducts. |
| First animals developed complex ecosystems before the Cambrian explosion Posted: 17 May 2022 12:18 PM PDT Early animals formed complex ecological communities more than 550 million years ago, setting the evolutionary stage for the Cambrian explosion, according to a new study. |
| Type-I interferon stops immune system 'going rogue' during viral infections Posted: 17 May 2022 12:18 PM PDT Researchers have discovered that Type I interferon (IFN) plays a key role in helping the immune system effectively target viruses, while stopping white blood cells from 'going rogue' and attacking the body's own organs. This opens the way to potential new treatments that can save many lives. |
| Scientists see signs of traumatic brain injury in headbutting muskox Posted: 17 May 2022 10:07 AM PDT Scientists saw for the first time hallmarks of concussions and other head trauma in the brains of deceased headbutting animals -- muskoxen and bighorn sheep. The results may contradict the commonly-held belief that ramming animals do not suffer brain injuries and support the notion that studies on animals with brains evolutionarily similar to those of humans may help researchers understand and reduce traumatic brain injuries. |
| Friendly fungi announce themselves to their hosts Posted: 17 May 2022 10:07 AM PDT Commensal fungi need to be alive and actively making proteins that stimulate our immune cells to elicit that commensal benefit, according to new findings. |
| Aerodynamics of perching birds could inform aircraft design Posted: 17 May 2022 10:07 AM PDT To uncover the mystery behind the differences in motion, a team of researchers studied the aerodynamics of bird perching maneuvers and their implications for aircraft design. |
| Scientists nail down 'destination' for protein that delivers zinc Posted: 17 May 2022 08:22 AM PDT New research describes a 'chaperone' protein that delivers zinc, a trace element essential for survival in all living things, to where it's needed. The chaperone could be especially important when access to zinc is limited -- for example in nutrient deficient diets and for growing crops on depleted soils. |
| Major infrared breakthrough could lead to solar power at night Posted: 17 May 2022 08:22 AM PDT Based on similar technology to night-vision goggles, researchers have developed a device that can generate electricity from thermal radiation. |
| Rocket engine exhaust pollution extends high into Earth's atmosphere Posted: 17 May 2022 08:22 AM PDT Researchers assessed the potential impact of a rocket launch on atmospheric pollution by investigating the heat and mass transfer and rapid mixing of the combustion byproducts. The team modeled the exhaust gases and developing plume at several altitudes along a typical trajectory of a standard present-day rocket. They did this as a prototypical example of a two-stage rocket to transport people and payloads into Earth's orbit and beyond and found the impact on the atmosphere locally and momentarily in the mesosphere can be significant. |
| Improved wind forecasts save consumers millions in energy costs Posted: 17 May 2022 08:22 AM PDT Scientists determined that by increasing the accuracy of weather forecasts over the last decade, consumers netted at least $384 million in energy savings. The researchers based their predictions on NOAA's High Resolution Rapid Refresh model, which provides daily weather forecasts for every part of the U.S. These include wind speed and direction data, which utilities can use to gauge how much energy their turbines will produce. |
| Study identifies cellular 'chaperone' for zinc Posted: 17 May 2022 08:22 AM PDT A team has described and characterized the first zinc metallochaperone: a protein that puts zinc into other 'client' proteins. The findings shed light on the public health issue of zinc deficiency and open an entirely new area of biology for exploration. |
| Phage therapy: A model to predict its efficacy against pathogenic bacteria Posted: 17 May 2022 08:17 AM PDT Antibiotic resistance represents a major public health challenge, associated with a high mortality rate. While bacteriophages -- viruses that kill bacteria -- could be a solution for fighting antibiotic-resistant pathogens, various obstacles stand in the way of their clinical development. To overcome them, researchers have developed a model to better predict the efficacy of phage therapy and possibly develop more robust clinical trials. |
| Change of temperature causes whole body reprogramming Posted: 17 May 2022 06:48 AM PDT Human beings, like most organisms, are constantly exposed to alternating colder or warmer temperatures. These environmental variations cause striking metabolic effects and require constant adaptations. While some of these adaptations confer certain beneficial effects on health, the impact of cold and warmth on the various organs in a whole-body context was not known. |
| Posted: 17 May 2022 06:48 AM PDT The capabilities of complex microbial communities are used for numerous biotechnological processes. This requires special compositions of the microbial communities. However, these are often unstable and susceptible to disruption. Researchers have now developed a 'mass transfer method with a loop' that can stabilize microbial communities in the long term. |
| Chimpanzees combine calls to form numerous vocal sequences Posted: 17 May 2022 06:48 AM PDT Compared to the complex use of human language, the way animals communicate with each other appears quite simple. How our language evolved from such a simple system, remains unclear. A group of researchers has now recorded thousands of vocalizations from wild chimpanzees in Taï, Ivory Coast. They found that the animals produced hundreds of different vocal sequences containing up to ten different call types. The order of calls in these sequences followed some rules, and calls were associated with each other in a structured manner. The researchers will now investigate if this structure may constitute a step towards human syntax and if chimpanzees use these sequences to communicate a wider range of meanings in their complex social environment. |
| Magnetic resonance makes the invisible visible Posted: 17 May 2022 06:48 AM PDT Researchers have developed an advanced NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) method to monitor fast and complicated biomolecular events such as protein folding. |
| Ecological functions of streams and rivers severely affected globally Posted: 17 May 2022 06:48 AM PDT Agriculture, loss of habitat or wastewater effluents -- human stressors negatively impact biodiversity in streams and rivers. Very little is known yet about the extent to which their capacity for self-purification and other essential ecosystem services are also impacted. An international research team has synthesized the globally available research on this topic in a meta-analysis. This study provides new initiatives for improved water management. |
| Deep ocean warming as climate changes Posted: 17 May 2022 05:30 AM PDT Much of the 'excess heat' stored in the subtropical North Atlantic is in the deep ocean (below 700m), new research suggests. |
| Validation brings new predictive capability to global megafire smoke impacts Posted: 17 May 2022 05:30 AM PDT New research modeling smoke from two recent megafires sets the stage for better forecasting of how emissions from these global-scale events will behave and impact temperatures. As huge wildfires become more common under climate change, increased attention has focused on the intensity and duration of their emissions, which rival those of some volcano eruptions. |
| New method melds data to make a 3-D map of cells' activities Posted: 16 May 2022 06:31 PM PDT Engineers are using a cell's surroundings to help biologists make more sense of gene expression information. Their new system could open the door to identifying rare cell types and choosing cancer treatment options with new precision. |
| Mars' emitted energy and seasonal energy imbalance Posted: 16 May 2022 06:31 PM PDT Seasonal imbalance between the solar energy absorbed and released by the planet Mars could be a cause of the Red Planet's dust storms, according to new research. Understanding how the system works on Mars could help scientists predict how climate change could affect Earth. |
| Posted: 16 May 2022 06:31 PM PDT The vaccinia virus uses its own machinery and not that of the cell it infects to repair ultraviolet radiation-caused damage to its DNA, according to new research. The virus repurposes an enzyme it uses for copying its DNA to repair the damage. Blocking that enzyme disrupts both the copying and repairing of viral DNA, resulting in a dramatic reduction in new virions. |
| Heavy metal pollution can increase antibiotic resistance in rivers Posted: 16 May 2022 09:40 AM PDT Scientists have shown that elevated heavy metal levels in rivers can lead to higher levels of antibiotic resistance. |
| Study provides long-term look at ways to control wildfire in sagebrush steppe ecosystem Posted: 16 May 2022 09:40 AM PDT New research provides the first long-term study of methods to control the spread of wildfire in the sagebrush steppe ecosystem that dominates parts of the western United States. |
| Striking new snake species discovered in Paraguay Posted: 16 May 2022 05:17 AM PDT A beautiful, non-venomous snake of the genus Phalotris, previously unknown to science, was discovered in Paraguay and has now been described. |
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