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Categories: Geoscience: Earth Science, Space: Astronomy

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Findings more than a decade in the making reveal a rich diversity of beneficial fungi living in boreal forest trees, with implications for the health of forests.

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An international team analyzed 656 lakes across five continents to provide empirical evidence supporting a long-held theory regarding low deep-water oxygen concentrations, or anoxia.

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In a new study, paleontologists describe the oldest-known leaf-nosed bat fossils, which were found along the banks of the Panama Canal. They're also the oldest bat fossils from Central America, preserved 20-million years ago when Panama and the rest of North America were separated from southern landmass by a seaway at least 120 miles wide.

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A thousand kilometers south of Tokyo, far into the largest ocean on Earth, lies a chain of small, volcanic islands -- the Ogasawara Islands. Nature has been able to develop on its own terms here, far from both humans and the warm Kuroshio current, which acts like a shuttle, moving marine species from Taiwan, over the Ryukyu Islands, and up the Pacific coast of mainland Japan. With upwards of 70 % of trees and many animal species being endemic to the archipelago, the islands have been dubbed 'the Galapagos of the East', as they are valuable as both a biodiversity hotspot and a cradle of scientific discovery.

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Researchers analyzed archival samples of bacteria and archaea populations taken from the Beaufort Sea, bordering northwest Canada and Alaska. The samples were collected between 2004 and 2012, a period that included two years -- 2007 and 2012 -- in which the sea ice coverage was historically low. The researchers looked at samples taken from three levels of water: the summer mixed layer, the upper Arctic water below it and the Pacific-origin water at the deepest level. The study examined the microbes' genetic composition using bioinformatics and statistical analysis across the nine-year time span. Using this data, the researchers were able to see how changing environmental conditions were influencing the organisms' structure and function.

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A few years ago, astronomers uncovered one of the Milky Way's greatest secrets: an enormous, wave-shaped chain of gaseous clouds in our sun's backyard, giving birth to clusters of stars along the spiral arm of the galaxy we call home. Naming this astonishing new structure the Radcliffe Wave, the team now reports that the Radcliffe Wave not only looks like a wave, but also moves like one -- oscillating through space-time much like 'the wave' moving through a stadium full of fans.

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Armed with a catalog of hundreds of thousands of DNA and RNA virus species in the world's oceans, scientists are now zeroing in on the viruses most likely to combat climate change by helping trap carbon dioxide in seawater or, using similar techniques, different viruses that may prevent methane's escape from thawing Arctic soil.

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Anoxic marine basins may be among the most viable places to conduct large-scale carbon sequestration in the deep ocean, while minimizing negative impacts to marine life. As we explore ways to actively draw down the levels of carbon in the atmosphere, sending plant biomass to these barren, oxygen-free zones on the seafloor becomes an option worth considering.

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A new paradigm is taking shape in the space industry as the countries and entities accessing space continue to grow and diversify. This dynamic landscape creates both competition and potential for scientific collaboration, as well as the challenges and opportunities of progress.

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A new measure that compares earthquake-related fatalities to a country's population size concludes that Ecuador, Lebanon, Haiti, Turkmenistan, Iran and Portugal have experienced the greatest impact from fatalities in the past five centuries.

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Researchers propose a framework for integrating online digital data into biodiversity monitoring.

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New research has shown that the tropical subsurface ocean gained oxygen during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (commonly referred to as PETM). During this short-lived interval of time in Earth s history that occurred 56 million years ago the average temperatures rose by up to six degrees within a few thousand years.

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A team found evidence for hydrothermal or metamorphic activity within the icy dwarf planets Eris and Makemake, located in the Kuiper Belt. Methane detected on their surfaces has the tell-tale signs of warm or even hot geochemistry in their rocky cores, which is markedly different than the signature of methane from a comet.

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Africa's forested areas -- an estimated 14 % of the global forest area -- are continuing to decline at an increasing rate -- mostly because of human activities to convert forest land for economic purposes. As natural forests are important CO2 and biodiversity reservoirs, this development has a significant impact on climate change and effects the integrity of nature.

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Researchers have discovered a solid material that rapidly conducts lithium ions. Consisting of non-toxic earth-abundant elements, the new material has high enough Li ion conductivity to replace the liquid electrolytes in current Li ion battery technology, improving safety and energy capacity. The research team have synthesized the material in the laboratory, determined its structure and demonstrated it in a battery cell.

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A new model bridges the rules of life at the individual scale and the ecosystem level, which could open new avenues of exploration in ecology, global change biology, and ultimately ecosystem management.

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A geologist has revealed intriguing insights into the volcanic activity on Mars. He proposes that Mars has significantly more diverse volcanism than previously realized, driven by an early form of crust recycling called vertical tectonics. The findings shed light on the ancient crust of Mars and its potential implications for understanding early crustal recycling on both Mars and Earth.

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If gravitational condensate stars (or gravastars) actually existed, they would look similar to black holes to a distant observer. Two theoretical physicists have now found a new solution to Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, according to which gravitational stars could be structured like a Russian matryoshka doll, with one gravastar located inside another.

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Our planet's lithosphere is broken into several tectonic plates. Their configuration is ever-shifting, as supercontinents are assembled and broken up, and oceans form, grow, and then start to close in what is known as the Wilson cycle.

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A new study offers a glimpse into the possible impact of climate change on coastal wetlands 50 years or longer into the future. Scientists are usually forced to rely on computer models to project the long-term effects of rising seas, but an unexpected set of circumstances enabled a real-world experiment along the Gulf Coast.