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Categories: Ecology: Endangered Species, Offbeat: Space

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Conventional wisdom among ecologists holds that the more species there are inhabiting an ecosystem, the less vulnerable any one species will be to a threat like a parasite. A new study of tadpoles illustrates how overlapping biological and environmental factors can complicate how we value protecting diverse animal communities. The researchers found that environmental pollutants like road salt influence whether increased biodiversity helps or hinders disease outbreaks in wildlife, which can complicate how we value protecting diverse animal communities.

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Magnetars are the strongest magnets in the Universe. These super-dense dead stars with ultra-strong magnetic fields can be found all over our galaxy but astronomers don't know exactly how they form. Now, using multiple telescopes around the world, researchers have uncovered a living star that is likely to become a magnetar. This finding marks the discovery of a new type of astronomical object -- massive magnetic helium stars -- and sheds light on the origin of magnetars.

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Bats gather to feast as nocturnal insects fly through mountain passes in the Pyrenees each autumn, new research shows.

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In a new study, researchers have taken an important step toward understanding how exploding stars can help reveal how neutrinos, mysterious subatomic particles, secretly interact with themselves.

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New findings have found that water use efficiency has stalled since 2001 which implies not as much CO2 was being taken in by plants and more water was consumed and that could have implications on carbon cycling, agricultural production and water resources.

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Megastorms regularly appear on Saturn, marring the relatively bland surface before disappearing. But radio observations show that the storms have long-lasting effects deeper in the atmosphere, in particular in the distribution of ammonia. Using NRAO's Very Large Array, astronomers see such impacts from storms that happened hundreds of years ago. The findings will help explain the differences between storms on the gas giants Saturn and Jupiter.

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Maize roots secrete certain chemicals that affect the quality of soil. In some fields, this effect increases yields of wheat planted subsequent to maize in the same soil by more than 4%. While the findings from several field experiments show that these effects are highly variable, in the long term they may yet help to make the cultivation of grains more sustainable, without the need for additional fertilizers or pesticides.

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Plants orient their organs in response to the gravity vector, with roots growing towards gravity and shoots growing in the opposite direction. The movement of statoliths responding to the inclination relative to the gravity vector is employed for gravity sensing in both plants and animals. However, in plants, the statolith takes the form of a high-density organelle, known as an amyloplast, which settles toward gravity within the gravity sensing cell. Despite the significance of this gravity sensing mechanism, the exact process behind it has eluded scientists for over a century.

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Rapid alkalinization factors (RALFs) are required for pollen tube germination and elongation, an essential process in plant fertilization. But their role in monocot plants remains unexplored. Scientists have now identified OsRALF17 and OsRALF19 in rice and determined their functions in pollen tube germination and growth. This study provides novel insights into the role of RALFs in rice fertilization, paving the way for enhanced grain yield.

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New observations of mud cracks made by the Curiosity Rover show that high-frequency, wet-dry cycling occurred in early Martian surface environments, indicating that the red planet may have once seen seasonal weather patterns or even flash floods.

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A classic movie was once promoted with the punchline: 'In space, no one can hear you scream'. Physicists have now demonstrated, to the contrary, that in certain situations sound can be transmitted strongly across a vacuum region!

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A 390-million-year-old moss called Takakia lives in some of Earth's most remote places, including the icy cliffs of the Tibetan Plateau. In a decade-long project, a team of scientists climbed some of the tallest peaks in the world to find Takakia, sequence its DNA for the first time, and study how climate change is impacting the moss. Their results show that Takakia is one of the fastest evolving species ever studied -- but it likely isn't evolving fast enough to survive climate change.

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Concentrations of potentially harmful chemical compounds in dust collected from air filtration systems on the International Space Station (ISS) exceed those found in floor dust from many American homes, a new study reveals.

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Poaching of two Critically Endangered Kordofan giraffes per year could result in extinction in just 15 years within Cameroon's Bénoué National Park without intervention.

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Northern muriquis, which live in the Atlantic forest of Brazil, are one of the most endangered species of monkey in the world. To better understand what goes on in the mating lives of muriquis, researchers turned to the monkeys' poop to help gain insight into how the primates choose their mates.

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A new image of the galaxy cluster known as 'El Gordo' is revealing distant and dusty objects never seen before, and providing a bounty of fresh science. The infrared image displays a variety of unusual, distorted background galaxies that were only hinted at in previous Hubble Space Telescope images.

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A newly published study describes the response to sea level rise by the silver rice rat, an endangered species only found in the Florida Keys.

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Researchers looked at the effects of declawing on larger cat species and found that declawing disproportionately impacts their muscular capabilities as compared to their smaller brethren.

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Earth is rapidly warming and scientists are developing a variety of approaches to reduce the effects of climate change. An astronomer has proposed a novel approach -- a solar shield to reduce the amount of sunlight hitting Earth, combined with a tethered, captured asteroid as a counterweight. Engineering studies using this approach could start now to create a workable design that could mitigate climate change within decades.

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Scientists have trained a machine learning model in outer space, on board a satellite. This achievement could revolutionize the capabilities of remote-sensing satellites by enabling real-time monitoring and decision making for a range of applications.