Autophagy (self eating) has long been considered a kind of indiscriminate Pac-man like process of waste disposal. Now scientists at Washington University have shown that apart from conditions of cell starvation, it is carefully regulated: both in plants and yeast and most likely in people. The finding is relevant to aggregation-prone pathologies, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases.
The soils in which we grow food needs to be fed—and fed the right nutrients! The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) August 1 Soils Matter blog post explains how soils change over time and use, and how precise soil nutrition can make a difference.
Already it’s known that many deadly diseases that afflict humans were originally acquired through contact with animals. However new research from the University of Warwick shows that pathogens can also jump the species barrier to move from humans to animals.
Marsh plant biomass had dropped 35 percent over 30 years
In a study published in Scientific Reports, scientists discovered impressive abundance and diversity among the creatures living on the seafloor in the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ)--an area in the equatorial Pacific Ocean being targeted for deep-sea mining. The study, lead authored by Diva Amon, a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), found that more than half of the species they collected were new to science, reiterating how little is known about life on the seafloor in this region.
A new study by an international team of scientists reveals the exact timing of the onset of the modern monsoon pattern in the Maldives 12.9 million years ago, and its connection to past climate changes and coral reefs in the region. The analysis of sediment cores provides direct physical evidence of the environmental conditions that sparked the monsoon conditions that exist today around the low-lying island nation and the Indian subcontinent.
Climate and energy scientists have developed a new method to pinpoint which electrical service areas will be most vulnerable as populations grow and temperatures rise.
Researchers at West Virginia University studied drilling wastes produced at two research wells near Morgantown and found they are well below federal guidelines for radioactive or hazardous waste.
Scientists at the University of Georgia’s Marine Institute at Sapelo Island have found that the amount of vegetation along the Georgia coast has declined significantly in the last 30 years, spurring concerns about the overall health of marshland ecosystems in the area.
New research from the University of British Columbia suggests evolution is a driving mechanism behind plant migration, and that scientists may be underestimating how quickly species can move.
Suddenly, a roundworm overhauls an array of survival strategies all at once, and researchers suspect multiple mutations caused them. But they're surprised when they trace the sweeping changes back to one tiny mutation on a single gene. It's a great hint at a genetic regulator of so-called life history trade-offs, a much observed natural phenomenon.
Effective carbon capture and storage or "CCS" in underground reservoirs is one possible way to meet ambitious climate change targets demanded by countries and international partnerships around the world. But are current technologies up to the task of securely and safely corralling buoyant carbon dioxide (CO2) for at least 10,000 years - the minimum time period required of most agreements?
The study revealed many other consumer preferences about mushrooms. For instance, consumers prefer fresh mushrooms over processed ones, but their choice to buy and eat mushrooms may also be a matter of taste, texture, price and nutritive values.
The world’s protected areas do benefit a broad range of species – scientists from a collaborative research project led by the University of Sussex have discovered for the first-time.
Video surveillance is the most effective method for detecting animals flying around solar power towers, according to a study of various techniques by the U.S. Geological Survey and its partners at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System facility in southeastern California.
In recent decades, the plight of Atlantic cod off the coast of New England has been front-page news. Since the 1980s in particular, the once-seemingly inexhaustible stocks of Gadus morhua -- one of the most important fisheries in North America -- have declined dramatically.
Environmental studies and sciences professor Kurt Smemo and student researchers Daniel Casarella ’18 and Jen Cristiano ’18 have embarked on an ambitious, multiyear study to identify a primary factor for controlling organic-matter decomposition in forest ecosystems—processes that either capture or release carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and therefore mediate our climate system.
The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is pleased to announce that the WCS Chile program has been nominated for the 2016 Latinoamérica Verde Awards, an event that recognizes work to address the most critical environmental issues of the region since 2013.
A study of the the first clean cookstove intervention in India financed through the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism found expected benefits from newer, more "efficient" stoves — based on their performance in lab tests — did not materialize in the field.
The European Commission’s narrow criteria for endocrine-disrupting chemicals will make it nearly impossible for scientists to meet the unrealistically high burden of proof and protect the public from dangerous chemicals, the Endocrine Society said in a response sent to the Commission today.
Researchers develop an affordable way to monitor rivers and stream flow, 24/7, using open source products.
Robert Ferl, who researches how plants can grow in space, won the award. Specifically, Ferl was cited for conducting cutting-edge space biology research and for mentoring others in spaceflight research, pushing the boundaries of where biology can travel.
A DNA analysis of living and extinct species of mysterious New Zealand wrens may change theories around the country’s geological and evolutionary past.
MADISON – In molten sandstone extracted by prospectors a century ago, an international team of scientists has discovered microscopic crystals telling of unimaginable pressures and temperatures when an asteroid formed Meteor Crater in northern Arizona some 49,000 years ago.
A top engineer from the city of Los Angeles visited Cornell University this month as researchers tested a new earthquake-resilient pipeline designed to better protect southern California’s water utility network from natural disasters. The test mimicked a fault rupture that can occur during an earthquake when global plates begin to slip past each other, causing the ground to shift and deform.
A new citizen science project uses satellite images to get first-ever, comprehensive count of Weddell seals in Antarctica. Counting seals will help scientists better protect and conserve the pristine Ross Sea and wildlife in the area.
NSU research scientist collaborated with colleague to study the male sexual organ of barnacles, which it turns out is a marine creature that has been studied dating all the way back to Charles Darwin.
First discovered in 2009, there are now a total of six known UK infestations of the Lasius neglectus which thrive in greenhouses and domestic gardens. Originating from Asia, they are likely to have arrived in the UK through the import of plants from infected areas.
Many in the general public think scientific and technological innovations bring helpful change to society, but they are more concerned than excited when it comes to the potential use of emerging technologies to make people's minds sharper, their bodies stronger and healthier than ever before, according to a new Pew Research Center survey.
Bears, wolves and other large carnivores are frightening beasts but the fear they inspire in their prey pales in comparison to that caused by the human ‘super predator.’
Argonne National Laboratory, with the support of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Clean Cities program, has relaunched IdleBox, an electronic education and outreach toolkit aimed at promoting idling reduction across the country. The new IdleBox is now available to anyone seeking an authoritative resource on idling reduction.
Well designed and executed emergency warnings can save lives, so risk experts are urging steps to create the most effective warnings for hurricanes, wildfires, and other environmental hazards.
Polar oceans pump organic carbon down to the deep sea about five times as efficiently as subtropical waters, because they can support larger, heavier organisms. The finding helps explain how the oceans may function under climate change.
Time to smash the beaker when thinking about oxygen concentrations in water, at the time when animal life first evolved. Oceans stacked O2 here and depleted it there, as this novel model demonstrates. It may well toss a wrench into the way we have dated the evolution of the earliest animals.
MADISON — Serotonin is best known for eliciting feelings of happiness in the human brain, but scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have found the hormone plays a role in milk production in dairy cows — and may have health implications for breastfeeding women.
A new species of extinct flesh-eating marsupial that terrorised Australia's drying forests about 5 million years ago has been identified from a fossil discovered in remote northwestern Queensland.
A very unusual new species of zoantharian surprised Drs Takuma Fujii and James Davis Reimer, affiliated with Kagoshima University and University of the Ryukyus.
Relatively little physical evidence exists of the early occupants and fascinating history of Beaver Island on Lake Michigan, A Northern Michigan University summer archaeology field school is gradually filling that void while giving students hands-on experience in excavation techniques and artifact analysis.
When a monster beetle arrived in Hawaii and began chomping down palm trees, students with Wichita State University's Bug Lab took action.
Conducting the first large-scale, genome-wide analyses of ancient human remains from the Near East, an international team led by Harvard Medical School has illuminated the genetic identities and population dynamics of the world’s first farmers.
A UF/IFAS scientist has identified two areas of the sorghum genome that could boost the plant’s resistance to the anthracnose disease. Sorghum is a grain known to produce feed for livestock and biofuel.
Jason Tullis, an associate professor of geosciences at the University of Arkansas, is part of a U.S. delegation to set methodologies for nations to estimate future greenhouse gas levels.
Unfortunately, loss of plant and animal habitat leads to local species extinctions and a loss of diversity from ecosystems. Fortunately, not all of the extinctions occur at once. Conservation actions may still be able to save threatened species, according to William Newmark, a vertebrate zoologist at the Natural History Museum of Utah at the University of Utah.
Dating back nearly 150 years, a classic example of symbiosis has been the lichen: a mutually helpful relationship between an alga and a fungus.
MADISON — Understory, a company spawned by two University of Wisconsin-Madison graduate students in 2012, designs and deploys flocks of miniature weather stations that create an unprecedented level of detail on measures such as wind, hail and rain.
Instead of taking decades to recover, tropical forests are at risk of taking hundreds of years to re-grow because of lianas, which spread rapidly following extensive tree-felling.
The Royal Government of Cambodia, through a long-running partnership with Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), has sold to Disney the first carbon credits from a climate change mitigation project in Keo Seima Wildlife Sanctuary, which encompasses a total area of 292,690 hectares.
A new “food-print” model that measures the per-person land requirements of different diets suggests that, with dietary changes, the U.S. could feed significantly more people from existing agricultural land.
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