Showing 20 articles starting at article 201
< Previous 20 articles Next 20 articles >
Categories: Ecology: Research, Space: The Solar System
Published Most massive stellar black hole in our galaxy found



Astronomers have identified the most massive stellar black hole yet discovered in the Milky Way galaxy. This black hole was spotted in data from the European Space Agency's Gaia mission because it imposes an odd 'wobbling' motion on the companion star orbiting it. Astronomers have verified the mass of the black hole, putting it at an impressive 33 times that of the Sun.
Published How Pluto got its heart



The mystery of how Pluto got a giant heart-shaped feature on its surface has finally been solved by an international team of astrophysicists. The team is the first to successfully reproduce the unusual shape with numerical simulations, attributing it to a giant and slow oblique-angle impact.
Published Tropical forests can't recover naturally without fruit-eating birds



Natural forest regeneration is hailed as a cost-effective way to restore biodiversity and sequester carbon. However, the fragmentation of tropical forests has restricted the movement of large birds limiting their capacity to disperse seeds and restore healthy forests.
Published Where have all the right whales gone?



Marine researchers have mapped the density of one of the most endangered large whale species worldwide, the North Atlantic right whale, using new data to help avoid right whales' harmful exposure to commercial fisheries and vessel strikes. The resulting maps, spanning 20 years of whale observations, are publicly available to inform risk assessments, estimations of whale harm/disturbance, marine spatial planning, and industry regulations to mitigate risk to right whales.
Published Stellar winds of three sun-like stars detected for the first time



An international research team has for the first time directly detected stellar winds from three Sun-like stars by recording the X-ray emission from their astrospheres, and placed constraints on the mass loss rate of the stars via their stellar winds.
Published Exoplanets true to size



A star's magnetic field must be considered in order to correctly determine the characteristics of exoplanets from observations by space telescopes such as Kepler, James Webb, or PLATO. Researchers show that the distribution of the star's brightness over its disk depends on the star's level of magnetic activity. This, in turn, affects the signature of an exoplanet in observational data. The new model must be used in order to properly interpret the data from the latest generation of space telescopes pointed at distant worlds outside our Solar System.
Published Geobiology: New placozoan habitat discovered



Traces of DNA in the stomachs of predatory snails give a team og geobiologists new insights into the ecology of placozoans.
Published The hidden role of the Milky Way in ancient Egyptian mythology



Astrophysicists shed light on the relationship between the Milky Way and the Egyptian sky-goddess Nut. The paper draws on ancient Egyptian texts and simulations to argue that the Milky Way might have shone a spotlight, as it were, on Nut's role as the sky. It proposes that in winter, the Milky Way highlighted Nut's outstretched arms, while in summer, it traced her backbone across the heavens.
Published Ants in Colorado are on the move due to climate change



Ant species living in Boulder's foothills have shifted their habitat over the last six decades, potentially affecting local ecosystems, suggests a new study.
Published Study shedding new light on Earth's global carbon cycle could help assess liveability of other planets



Research has uncovered important new insights into the evolution of oxygen, carbon, and other vital elements over the entire history of Earth -- and it could help assess which other planets can develop life, ranging from plants to animals and humans.
Published Deforestation harms biodiversity of the Amazon's perfume-loving orchid bees



A survey of orchid bees in the Brazilian Amazon, carried out in the 1990s, is shedding new light the impact of deforestation on the scent-collecting pollinators, which some view as bellwethers of biodiversity in the neotropics.
Published 'Teacher Toads' can save native animals from toxic cane toads



Scientists from Macquarie University have come up with an innovative way to stop cane toads killing native wildlife by training goannas to avoid eating the deadly amphibians.
Published Impact of climate change on marine life much bigger than previously known



Fish and invertebrate animals are far more affected by warmer and more acidic seawater than was previously known. The big gain of the new method is that more details become known about effects of climate change on species.
Published Humans can increase biodiversity, archaeological study shows



Through the ages, the presence of humans has increased the heterogeneity and complexity of ecosystems and has often had a positive effect on their biodiversity.
Published Scientists discover new phage resistance mechanism in phage-bacterial arms race



Scientists describe a new mechanism impacting the phage-bacterial arms race, a nanosized epibiotic parasite, TM7x, which helps its host bacterium (a Schaalia odontolytica strain called XH001) achieve resistance to lytic phages.
Published How the moon turned itself inside out



Linking analyses of the moon's gravity field with models of its earliest evolution, scientists tell a story of the moon turning itself inside out after it solidified from a primordial magma ocean. The process left behind a vestige of dense, titanium-rich material beneath its Earth-facing side that makes its presence known by gravity anomalies.
Published Climate change threatens Antarctic meteorites



Antarctica harbors a large concentration of meteorites imbuing the icy continent with an unparalleled wealth of information on our solar system. However, these precious meteorites are rapidly disappearing from the ice sheet surface due to global warming, according to a new study.
Published Common loons threatened by declining water clarity



The Common Loon, an icon of the northern wilderness, is under threat from climate change due to reduced water clarity, according to a new study. The study followed up an earlier paper that showed substantial reproductive decline in the author's study area in northern Wisconsin.
Published eDNA methods give a real-time look at coral reef health



The study underscores the crucial role of microbes in maintaining coral reef health, akin to the human gut microbiome. Hurricanes and disease outbreaks affect coral reef water microbial communities, leading to changes that may support further reef decline. Microbial analysis enables prompt assessment of disturbances' impacts on coral reefs, facilitating timely interventions to support reef ecosystems. Environmental DNA (eDNA) analysis offers a noninvasive approach to study coral microbial communities and diagnose reef health.
Published Neutron stars are key to understanding elusive dark matter



Scientists may be one step closer to unlocking one of the great mysteries of the universe after calculating that neutron stars might hold a key to helping us understand elusive dark matter.