Showing 20 articles starting at article 721

< Previous 20 articles        Next 20 articles >

Categories: Ecology: Endangered Species, Mathematics: Modeling

Return to the site home page

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Fungal spores found in dung have revealed that large animals went extinct in two 'waves' in the Colombian Andes.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers develop an early warning system that combines acoustic technology with AI to immediately classify earthquakes and determine potential tsunami risk. They propose using underwater microphones, called hydrophones, to measure the acoustic radiation produced by the earthquake, which carries information about the tectonic event and travels significantly faster than tsunami waves. The computational model triangulates the source of the earthquake and AI algorithms classify its slip type and magnitude. It then calculates important properties like effective length and width, uplift speed, and duration, which dictate the size of the tsunami.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A team of physicists has illuminated certain properties of quantum systems by observing how their fluctuations spread over time. The research offers an intricate understanding of a complex phenomenon that is foundational to quantum computing.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A research team has confirmed evidence of a previously unknown planet outside of our solar system, and they used machine learning tools to detect it. A recent study by the team showed that machine learning can correctly determine if an exoplanet is present by looking in protoplanetary disks, the gas around newly formed stars. The newly published findings represent a first step toward using machine learning to identify previously overlooked exoplanets.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists have discovered the oldest evidence of plant self-defense in wood in a 360-million-year-old fossil from south-eastern Ireland. Plants can protect their wood from infection and water loss by forming special structures called 'tyloses'. These prevent bacterial and fungal pathogens from getting into the heartwood of living trees and damaging it. However, it was not previously known how early in the evolution of plants woody species became capable of forming such defenses. Published today in Nature Plants is the oldest evidence of tylosis formation from Late Devonian (360-million-year-old) fossil wood from the Hook Head Peninsula area, Co. Wexford, Ireland.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new machine-learning system can generate protein designs with certain structural features, and which do not exist in nature. These proteins could be utilized to make materials that have similar mechanical properties to existing materials, like polymers, but which would have a much smaller carbon footprint.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Imagine the view from the western coastline of southern Africa during the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) over twenty thousand years ago: in the distance you would see at least fifteen large islands -- the largest 300 square kilometers in area -- swarming with hundreds of millions of marine birds and penguin colonies.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Plants that glow under ultraviolet (UV) light aren't only a figment of science fiction TV and movies. Roots of a traditional medicine plant called the orange climber, or Toddalia asiatica, can fluoresce an ethereal blue hue. And now, researchers have identified two coumarin molecules that could be responsible. These natural coumarins have unique fluorescent properties, and one of the compounds could someday be used for medical imaging.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new global survey of 1000 forest areas shows how climate change since the peak of the last ice age has had a major impact on the diversity and distribution of tree species we see today. The results can help us predict how ecosystems will react to future changes, thus having an impact on conservation management around the globe.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Solids can be melted by heating, but in the quantum world it can also be the other way around: An experimental team has shown how a quantum liquid forms supersolid structures by heating. The scientists obtained a first phase diagram for a supersolid at finite temperature.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

For several years, a team of researchers used underwater microphones to listen for seals at the edge of the Antarctic. Their initial findings indicate that sea-ice retreat has had significant effects on the animals' behavior: when the ice disappears, areas normally full of vocalizations become very quiet.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Insect pollination is a decisive process for the survival and evolution of angiosperm (flowering) plants and, to a lesser extent, gymnosperms (without visible flower or fruit). There is a growing interest in studies on the origins of the relationship between insects and plants, especially in the current context of the progressive decline of pollinating insects on a global scale and its impact on food production. Pollinating insects can be recognized in the fossil record, although to date, there has been no protocol for their differentiation. Fossil pollinators have been found in both rock and amber deposits, and it is in rock deposits that the first evidence of plant pollination by insects is being studied across the globe. But how can we determine which was a true insect pollinator in the past?

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Wildfires. Many see them as purely destructive forces, disasters that blaze through a landscape, charring everything in their paths. But a new study reminds us that wildfires are also generative forces, spurring biodiversity in their wakes.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

New research led by a paleobotanist provides clues about what plants existed in the Burnaby Mountain area (British Columbia, Canada) 40 million years ago during the late Eocene, when the climate was much warmer than it is today.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists have described a new species of bat based on the oldest bat skeletons ever recovered. The study on the extinct bat, which lived in Wyoming about 52 million years ago, supports the idea that bats diversified rapidly on multiple continents during this time.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have developed an electronic patch that can be applied to the leaves of plants to monitor crops for different pathogens -- such as viral and fungal infections -- and stresses such as drought or salinity. In testing, the researchers found the patch was able to detect a viral infection in tomatoes more than a week before growers would be able to detect any visible symptoms of disease.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Soil stores more carbon than plants and the atmosphere combined, and soil microbes are largely responsible for putting it there. However, the increasing frequency and severity of drought, such as those that have been impacting California, could disrupt this delicate ecosystem. Microbial ecologists warn that soil health and future greenhouse gas levels could be impacted if soil microbes adapt to drought faster than plants do.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A study of Britain's native flowering plants has led to new insights into the mysterious process that allows wild plants to breed across species -- one of plants' most powerful evolutionary forces.  When wild flowering plants are sizing up others they may often end up in a marriage between close relatives rather than neighbors, a new study has revealed.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

If infected with the Ebola virus, less than 20 percent of Africa's endangered mountain gorillas would be expected to survive more than 100 days, finds a new study.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Borrowing a page from what we know about animal behavior, archaeologists say that we should reassess our understanding of the process of plant domestication.