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Categories: Computer Science: Encryption, Environmental: Ecosystems

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Traction is important. Humans have been continually interested in discovering how to better move across wet or frozen surfaces safely -- whether to improve shoes for walking on sidewalks or tires to maneuver the roadways. But what makes it possible for some Arctic animals to walk and run across the ice so effortlessly and gracefully without slipping and falling? Researchers took a deep dive into the paws of polar bears to find out. What the team discovered was that all bears (except sun bears) have papillae on their paw pads, but that the papillae on polar bears were taller -- up to 1.5 times. And, that the taller papillae of polar bears help to increase traction on snow relative to shorter ones. Even though polar bears have smaller paw pads compared to the other species (likely because of greater fur coverage for heat conservation), the taller papillae of polar bears compensate for their smaller paw pads, giving them a 30-50% increase in frictional shear stress.

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New study examines the flow of ecological energy across old-growth forests, logged forests and oil palm. The study surveys mammal and bird species across these landscapes to calculate food energetic pathways: how photosynthetic energy cascades from sunlight to be distributed among organisms. Relative to energy flow in old-growth forests, study finds 2.5 times more total energy flows in logged forests. The study findings question the use of the word 'degraded' to describe logged tropical forests.

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Study uses lab-grown coral clones to determine why some coral thrive when transplanted onto coral reefs and others die.

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A new automated approach to detect doxing -- a form of cyberbullying in which certain private or personally identifiable information is publicly shared without an individual's consent or knowledge -- may help social media platforms better protect their users, according to researchers.

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An international collaboration of scientists has created the first inventory of flora introduced to the tropics, filling a knowledge gap about invasive plants in the tropics.

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New study finds very few deep reefs have any form of protection, and face a multitude of threats, set only to escalate in the near future. Deep reefs are found below 30m and have a larger geographic range than shallow reefs. Deep reefs are biological hotspots, essential for climate change resilience, ocean health and food security, and a refuge for ocean life threatened in shallow waters.

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The biochemical process by which cyanobacteria acquire nutrients from rocks in Chile's Atacama Desert has inspired engineers at the University of California, Irvine to think of new ways microbes might help humans build colonies on the moon and Mars.

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European forest-dwelling bats require complex woodland structures at both the micro-habitat and the landscape level for successful breeding in summer. Particularly, the results from Kharkiv region (Eastern Ukraine) demonstrate that large stands of mature forests older than 90 years improved the breeding activity of bats, their abundance and overall species richness. Abundance and species richness increased from upland plots surrounded by agricultural lands to riverine or waterside plots with high forest cover.

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Kelp forests are one of the most diverse and productive natural ecosystems on the planet, but in the past 50 to 100 years significant swaths have been lost and many of the remaining systems show a declining trajectory.

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Researchers have been studying the effects of the sudden decrease in global temperatures that occurred about 8,200 years ago, the so-called 8.2-kiloyear event, with the help of mineral deposits present in White Moon Cave in Northern California. New indications show that oscillations between extreme wetness and aridity in California were closely linked with the occurrence of wildfires. The researchers have concluded that such events are likely to become more common in the face of human-induced climate change.

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Reef corals provide an accurate, high-resolution record of the influence of the El Niño Southern Oscillation on rainfall, flooding and droughts in the Mekong River Delta, Vietnam.

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The ability of tropical forests to grow and store carbon is limited, in part, by herbivory. Insects and other animals prefer to feed on nitrogen-fixing trees, reducing the success of fixers and the nitrogen they provide. Experts now recommend accounting for herbivory constraints on nitrogen-fixing trees in climate models and projections of the tropical forest carbon sink.

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Devastating megafires are becoming more common, in part, because the planet is warming. But a new study suggests bringing 'good fire' back to the U.S. and other wildfire fire-prone areas, as Native Americans once did, could potentially blunt the role of climate in triggering today's wildfires.

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New research highlights the risks of countries relying on nature-based solutions to achieve net-zero. National climate strategies set out how countries plan to reduce emissions, for example by phasing out fossil-fuel use, to get to net-zero in 2050. The study found, once the bulk of emissions have been reduced, countries plan to 'cancel out' the left-over difficult to decarbonise emissions, such as those from agriculture, by using forests and soils to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

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A new, low-cost staining method enables visual tracking of coral larvae as they disperse and settle in coral reefs, according to a study.

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An almost limitless supply of fresh water exists in the form of water vapor above Earth's oceans, yet remains untapped, researchers said. A new study suggests an investment in new infrastructure capable of harvesting oceanic water vapor as a solution to limited supplies of fresh water in various locations around the world.

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A forest's resilience, or ability to absorb environmental disturbances, has long been thought to be a boost for its odds of survival against the looming threat of climate change. But a new study suggests that for some Western U.S. forests, it's quite the opposite. The results of one of the first large-scale studies of its kind show that while high ecosystem resilience correlates with low mortality in eastern forests, it is linked to high mortality in western regions.

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More and more trees are suffering the consequences of decades of human-made climate change. The growth of the European beech has so far suffered decline mainly in southern Europe. European beech is Germany's most important native forest tree species and it is most commonly found in Central Europe. A research team has now been able to show that the European beech is suffering from increasing drought stress in summer in northern Germany as well. This climate stress is particularly pronounced at warmer sites, when there is a higher density of these trees together, and on very sandy soils.

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Years of research show that climate change signals are amplified in the Arctic, and that sea ice in this region is sensitive to increases in Arctic warming. Sea ice greatly modifies the exchanges of heat, momentum and mass between the atmosphere and the ocean. So, the timings of the sea ice melt and freeze onsets, as well as the length of the melt and freeze seasons, play a key role in the 'heat budget' of the atmosphere-ice-ocean system.

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What happens to a coral's microbiome while it hibernates? A new study found microbial communities shift while a coral sleeps, which may inform coral health and recovery efforts.