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Categories: Biology: Zoology, Geoscience: Geography
Published Scientists CT scanned thousands of natural history specimens, which you can access for free
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Natural history museums have entered a new stage of scientific discovery and accessibility with the completion of openVertebrate (oVert), a five-year collaborative project among 18 institutions to create 3D reconstructions of vertebrate specimens and make them freely available online.
Published Bee-2-Bee influencing: Bees master complex tasks through social interaction
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Bumblebees successfully learned a two-step puzzle box task through social observation. This task was too complex for individual bees to learn on their own. Observing trained demonstrator bees performing the first unrewarded step was crucial for successful social learning. Individual bees failed to solve the puzzle without previous demonstration, despite extensive exposure.
Published Herbivores, displaced by ocean warming, threaten subtropical seagrass meadows
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The findings suggest that subtropical seagrasses are less resilient to heavy grazing from marine herbivores, in part because they receive less sunlight relative to their tropical counterparts. As tropical herbivores move into subtropical waters, overgrazing may prevent subtropical seagrass meadows from persisting in these environments.
Published Invasive plant time bombs: A hidden ecological threat
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Invasive plants can stay dormant for decades or even centuries before rapidly expanding and wreaking ecological havoc, finds a new study.
Published Do some electric fish sense the world through comrades' auras?
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source It would be a game-changer if all members of a basketball team could see out of each other's eyes in addition to their own. Biologists have found evidence that this kind of collective sensing occurs in close-knit groups of African weakly electric fish, also known as elephantnose fish. This instantaneous sharing of sensory intelligence could help the fish locate food, friends and foes.
Published Sinking land increases risk for thousands of coastal residents by 2050
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new study provides a new comprehensive look at the potential for flooding in a combined 32 cities along the Atlantic, Pacific, and Gulf coasts. It predicts as many as 500,000 people will be affected by flooding alongside 1 in 35 privately owned properties within the next three decades, and it highlights the racial and socioeconomic demographics of those potentially affected.
Published Short-term exposure to high levels of air pollution kills 1 million globally every year
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Every year, more than one million deaths globally occur because of exposure to short-term (hours to days) fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in air pollution, according to a new report, with Eastern Asia reporting more than 50% of deaths attributable to short-term PM2.5 globally.
Published Lab-grown liver organoid to speed up turtle research, making useful traits easier to harness
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers developed protocols for growing organoids that mimic a turtle liver, the first organoids developed for a turtle and only the second for any reptile. The discovery will aid deeper study of turtle genetics, including the cause of traits with potential medical applications for humans such as the ability to survive weeks without oxygen.
Published Fossils of giant sea lizard with dagger-like teeth show how our oceans have fundamentally changed since the dinosaur era
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Fossils of a strange new species of marine lizard with dagger-like teeth that lived 66 million years ago, show a dramatically more biodiverse ocean ecosystem to what we see today.
Published Conservation actions for SA's white shark population now a matter of urgency
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A group of marine biologists specializing in shark ecology, genetics and fisheries have challenged the findings from a recent study suggesting that South Africa's white shark population has not decreased, but simply redistributed eastwards to flee predation from orcas.
Published After decades of Arctic sea ice getting faster and more hazardous for transport, models suggest a dramatic reversal is coming
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Will ice floating in the Arctic Ocean move faster or slower over the coming decades? The answer to this question will tell us whether marine transportation can be expected to get more or less hazardous. It might also have important implications for the rate of ice cover loss, which is hugely consequential for Northern Indigenous communities, ecosystems, and the global climate system. While observational data suggest the trend has been towards faster sea ice speeds, climate models project that those speeds will slow down during the summer season. This contrast has led to some questions around the plausibility of the model projections.
Published We know the Arctic is warming -- What will changing river flows do to its environment?
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists recently combined satellite data, field observations and sophisticated numerical modeling to paint a picture of how 22.45 million square kilometers of the Arctic will change over the next 80 years. As expected, the overall region will be warmer and wetter, but the details -- up to 25% more runoff, 30% more subsurface runoff and a progressively drier southern Arctic, provides one of the clearest views yet of how the landscape will respond to climate change.
Published Fossil named 'Attenborough's strange bird' was the first in its kind without teeth
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new fossil, named 'Attenborough's strange bird' after naturalist and documentarian Sir David Attenborough, is the first of its kind to evolve a toothless beak. It's from a branch of the bird family tree that went extinct in the mass extinction 66 million years ago, and this strange bird is another puzzle piece that helps explain why some birds -- and their fellow dinosaurs -- went extinct, and others survived to today.
Published Arctic could become 'ice-free' within a decade
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source While summer sea ice loss in the Arctic is inevitable, it can be reversed if the planet cools down, researchers say.
Published 8 in 10 lizards could be at risk due to deforestation
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source These reptiles move around tree trunks to seek warmth or shade. With trees disappearing, they would have trouble controlling their body temperature, a new study shows.
Published Less ice in the Arctic Ocean has complex effects on marine ecosystems and ocean productivity
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Most of the sunlight reaching the Arctic Ocean is reflected to space by sea ice, effectively shielding ocean ecosystems from sunlight. As the Arctic sea ice continues its downward trend, larger areas of the ocean become exposed to sunlight for longer periods, potentially allowing more primary production on the seafloor. However, according to a new study, this anticipated increase in primary production does not seem to be occurring uniformly across the Arctic Ocean.
Published Antarctica's coasts are becoming less icy
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists found unexpected evidence the area of polynyas around Antarctica is increasing dramatically, and it follows an intriguing cycle, growing and shrinking roughly every 16 years.
Published New research shows migrating animals learn by experience
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Individual white storks incrementally straightened their migration routes to find more direct ways to move between destinations during the spring migration to summer breeding and nesting grounds, suggesting that experiential learning is an important part of successful migration.
Published The crow's best friend: Humans
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new study has found that when humans are suddenly absent from the urban environment, the activity of the crows and ringneck parakeets that 'live' in the area reduces significantly. Conversely, the graceful prinias, who are generally considered shy, increased their activity.
Published Humans have driven the Earth's freshwater cycle out of its stable state
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source New analysis shows that the global freshwater cycle has shifted far beyond pre-industrial conditions.