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Categories: Ecology: Endangered Species, Space: Exploration

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Reducing CO2 levels in the atmosphere will take more than cutting emissions -- we will also need to capture and store the excessive volumes of already-emitted carbon. A team of plant scientists argue that arid lands such as deserts could be one answer to the carbon-capture problem.

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Balanophora shed one third of its genes as it evolved into a streamlined parasitic plant -- an extreme degree of genome shrinkage even among parasites. Along the way this subtropical plant developed the ability to induce the host plant to grow into the parasite's own flesh -- forming chimeric organs that mix host and parasite tissues.

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Scientists have mapped the reproductive strategies and life cycle of an endangered coral species, the purple cauliflower soft coral Dendronephthya australis. Lab-grown larvae have been successfully introduced back into the wild.

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New research has found that monkeys increase their use of scent markings to compensate for human noise pollution. The study has investigated how primates change their communication strategies in response to noise pollution. The researchers studied endangered pied tamarins (Saguinus bicolor), which use both vocal calls and scent markings. The researchers found that the frequency of scent marking directly increased in line with noise decibel levels.

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The first use of a novel method of analyzing Mars' gravitational force supports the idea that the planet once had an extensive northern ocean. In doing so, the method defines the scope of what scientists refer to as the northern Martian paleo-ocean in more detail.

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An international research team has used the James Webb Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array to observe the most distant galaxy protocluster to date, 13.14 billion light-years away. The team has successfully captured the 'core region' of the galaxy protocluster, which corresponds to a metropolitan area with a particularly high number density of galaxies. The team has revealed that many galaxies are concentrated in a small area and that the growth of galaxies is accelerated. Furthermore, the team used simulations to predict the future of the metropolitan area and found that the region will merge into one larger galaxy within tens of millions of years. These results are expected to provide important clues regarding the birth and growth of galaxies.

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Plants are often attributed with abilities similar to those known in the animal or human world. Trees are said to have feelings and can therefore care for their offspring, like mothers. Researchers analyzed the claims in two popular publications on forests and reached the conclusion that conjecture is equated with fact. They warn against 'anthropomorphizing' plants.

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A new study finds that most Rafflesia species, which produce the world's largest flowers, face extinction. Lack of protection at local, national, and international levels means that remaining populations are under critical threat.

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Scientists have found a plant gene that drives the growth of root hairs, the tiny structures that help plants find water and nutrients in the soil. The gene, dubbed 'BUZZ,' causes faster-growing, denser webs of roots and may also determine how plants find and use nitrates, a prime source of nitrogen essential to plant growth. Nitrates are also used in fertilizers that can pollute the environment as runoff, and this genetic discovery could ultimately help plant scientists find ways to grow crops more sustainably.

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Studying a lizard species in Arizona mountains, researchers found 70 years' worth of climate-related extinction occurred in only seven years.

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Scientists are investigating the previously largely unknown biosynthetic pathway that leads to the formation of cardenolides in plants. In a new study, they present two enzymes from the CYP87A family as key enzymes that catalyze the formation of pregnenolone, the precursor for the biosynthesis of plant steroids, in two different plant families. The discovery of such enzymes should help to develop platforms for the cheap and sustainable production of high quality steroid compounds for medical use.

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A team recently calculated that most of the Moon's permanently shadowed regions (PSRs) are at most around 3.4 billion years old and can contain relatively young deposits of water ice. Water resources are considered key for sustainable exploration of the Moon and beyond, but these findings suggest that current estimates for cold-trapped ices are too high.

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The research team generated a series of fire susceptibility maps. These show the proportion of Australia experiencing 'high' or 'very high' fire susceptibility increasing from 14.9% now to 15.66% by 2070 -- while fire susceptibility of areas suitable for the plants that koalas depend on is tipped to jump from 39.56% to 44.61% by 2070.

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Mice treated aboard the International Space Station showed significantly reduced bone loss.

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Tweaks to the mitochondrial genome hold the potential for better hybrid seed production or to introduce seedless fruits.

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Scientists have used data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) as part of the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science (CEERS) Survey to change the way we think about the universe and its distant galaxies. Astronomers authored a paper confirming very bright galaxies in the early universe, while also disproving the identification of what would have been the most distant galaxy ever found.

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• Twenty-year experiment finds that active replanting beats natural recovery for restoring logged tropical forests. • The higher the diversity of replanted tree species, the more quickly canopy area and biomass recovered. • Results emphasize the importance of preserving biodiversity in pristine forests and restoring it in recovering logged forest.

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Herbig-Haro (HH) objects are luminous regions surrounding newborn stars, formed when stellar winds or jets of gas spewing from these newborn stars form shock waves colliding with nearby gas and dust at high speeds. This image of HH 211 from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope reveals an outflow from a Class 0 protostar, an infantile analog of our Sun when it was no more than a few tens of thousands of years old and with a mass only 8% of the present-day Sun (it will eventually grow into a star like the Sun).

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Lab-based studies reveal how carbon atoms diffuse on the surface of interstellar ice grains to form complex organic compounds, crucial to reveal the chemical complexity in the universe.

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Planetary scientists have discovered that high energy electrons in Earth's plasma sheet are contributing to weathering processes on the Moon's surface and, importantly, the electrons may have aided the formation of water on the lunar surface.