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Categories: Ecology: Extinction, Engineering: Robotics Research
Published Warming stops tiny organisms working together
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Hotter conditions prevent two tiny organisms working together for mutual benefit, new research shows.
Published Towards smart cities: Predicting soil liquefaction risk using artificial intelligence
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Soil liquefaction that results in infrastructure damage has long been a point of contention for urban planners and engineers. Accurately predicting the soil liquefaction risk of a region could help overcome this challenge. Accordingly, researchers applied artificial intelligence to generate soil liquefaction risk maps, superseding already published risk maps.
Published Mass extinction 66 million years ago triggered rapid evolution of bird genomes
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Study finds that the mass extinction caused by an asteroid about 66 million years ago led to critical changes in bird genomes that ultimately sparked the incredibly diversity living birds.
Published 3D models provide unprecedented look at corals' response to bleaching events
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Marine biologists are providing a glimpse into coral 'bleaching' responses to stress, using imaging technology to pinpoint coral survival rates following multiple bleaching events off the island of Maui. Using a time series of coral reef 3D models from Maui, the researchers tracked the bleaching response of 1,832 coral colonies from 2014 to 2021. The seven-year data set provided detailed imagery of the reefs year-by-year, allowing the team to identify patterns of coral growth and survivorship through sequential bleaching events that occurred in 2015 and 2019.
Published Monarch butterflies need help, and a little bit of milkweed goes a long way
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers and community scientists monitored urban milkweed plants for butterfly eggs to learn what makes these city gardens more hospitable to monarchs. They found that even tiny city gardens attracted monarchs and became a home to caterpillars.
Published Scientists using new sound tech to save animals from extinction
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists are using new technology to help endangered animals by listening to their sounds.
Published Shape-shifting 'transformer bots' inspired by origami
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Inspired by the paper-folding art of origami, engineers have discovered a way to make a single plastic cubed structure transform into more than 1,000 configurations using only three active motors.
Published Robotics: Self-powered 'bugs' can skim across water to detect environmental data
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have developed a self-powered 'bug' that can skim across the water, and they hope it will revolutionize aquatic robotics.
Published New understanding of fly behavior has potential application in robotics, public safety
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists have identified an automatic behavior in flies that helps them assess wind conditions -- its presence and direction -- before deploying a strategy to follow a scent to its source. The fact that they can do this is surprising -- can you tell if there's a gentle breeze if you stick your head out of a moving car? Flies aren't just reacting to an odor with a preprogrammed response: they are responding in context-appropriate manner. This knowledge potentially could be applied to train more sophisticated algorithms for scent-detecting drones to find the source of chemical leaks.
Published Thousands of birds and fish threatened by mining for clean energy transition, study finds
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Our increasing demand for metals and minerals is putting over four thousand vertebrate species at risk, with the raw materials needed for clean energy infrastructure often located in global biodiversity hotspots, a study has found.
Published The ancestor of all modern birds probably had iridescent feathers
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Birds tend to be more colorful in the tropics, and scientists wanted to find out how they got there: if colorful feathers evolved in the tropics, or if tropical birds have brightly-colored ancestors that came to the region from somwhere else. Scientists built a database of 9,409 birds to explore the spread of color across the globe. They found that iridescent, colorful feathers originated 415 times across the bird tree of life, and in most cases, arose outside of the tropics -- and that the ancestor of all modern birds likely had iridescent feathers, too.
Published New Zealand's flightless birds are retreating to moa refuges
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have found New Zealand's endangered flightless birds are seeking refuge in the locations where six species of moa last lived before going extinct.
Published Ancient marine animal had inventive past despite being represented by few species
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Brachiopods were evolving in new directions but this did not turn into evolutionary success in terms of the numbers of species, researchers have found.
Published Next-gen cooling system to help data centers become more energy efficient
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Artificial intelligence (AI) is hot right now. Also hot: the data centers that power the technology. And keeping those centers cool requires a tremendous amount of energy. The problem is only going to grow as high-powered AI-based computers and devices become commonplace. That's why researchers are devising a new type of cooling system that promises to dramatically reduce energy demands.
Published It's got praying mantis eyes
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The praying mantis is one of the few insects with compound eyes and the ability to perceive 3D space. Engineers are replicating their visual systems to make machines see better.
Published Foam fluidics showcase lab's creative approach to circuit design
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Engineers have shown that something as simple as the flow of air through open-cell foam can be used to perform digital computation, analog sensing and combined digital-analog control in soft textile-based wearable systems.
Published Komodo dragons have iron-coated teeth to rip apart their prey
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists have discovered that the serrated edges of Komodo dragons' teeth are tipped with iron. The study gives new insight into how Komodo dragons keep their teeth razor-sharp and may provide clues to how dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex killed and ate their prey.
Published Scientists assess how large dinosaurs could really get
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A study looks at the maximum possible sizes of dinosaurs, using the carnivore, Tyrannosaurus rex, as an example. Using computer modelling, experts produced estimates that T. Rex might have been 70% heavier than what the fossil evidence suggests.
Published A window of opportunity for climate change and biodiversity
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source World leaders must take advantage of a pivotal window of opportunity for forging a much-needed joined-up approach to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss, say scientists. Without this, work on tackling either crisis could inadvertently harm progress on the other.
Published Tropical plant species are as threatened by climate change as widely feared, study confirms
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Biologists who set out to better understand the effects of climate change on plant species in tropical mountain regions found that even small variations in temperature and moisture can have massive impacts, threatening not only plants that live there, but also the ecosystems they support. A study based on labor-intensive fieldwork and analysis in tropical mountain regions shows that a warmer and drier climate will lead to massive losses of plant species.