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Categories: Biology: Botany, Mathematics: Statistics

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New research shows that degraded savanna ecosystems can reap lasting benefits from a single seeding of native understory plants. Once a diverse understory of savanna plants became established, its long-term persistence was relatively unaffected by environmental factors -- with one exception. Higher temperatures during the height of the growing season were associated with poorer long-term survival among some species, indicating one threat posed by a warming climate.

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Widespread tree scorch in the Pacific Northwest that became visible shortly after multiple days of record-setting, triple-digit temperatures in June 2021 was more attributable to heat than to drought conditions, researchers say.

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Around 12,000 years ago, the Neolithic revolution radically changed the economy, diet and structure of the first human societies in the Fertile Crescent of the Near East. With the beginning of the cultivation of cereals -- such as wheat and barley -- and the domestication of animals, the first cities emerged in a new social context marked by a productive economy. Now, a study analyses the evolution of wheat spikes since its cultivation began by the inhabitants of ancient Mesopotamia -- the cradle of agriculture -- between the Tigris and the Euphrates.

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Trees living in conditions where the carbon dioxide (CO2) has been artificially elevated are likely to become more efficient in conserving water.

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A study found that under more severe climate warming scenarios, the inventory of trees used for timber in the continental United States could decline by as much as 23% by 2100. The largest inventory losses would occur in two of the leading timber regions in the U.S., which are both in the South.

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Over four percent of deaths in cities during the summer months are due to urban heat islands, and one third of these deaths could be prevented by reaching a tree cover of 30%, according to a modelling study. The study results, obtained with data from 93 European cities, highlight the substantial benefits of planting more trees in cities to attenuate the impact of climate change.

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A new conceptual framework for incorporating the way plants use carbon and water, or plant dynamics, into fine-scale computer models of wildland fire provides a critical first step toward improved global fire forecasting.

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Researchers tested a large sample of the major AI technologies available today and found that not only did they reproduce human biases in facial age recognition, but they exaggerated those biases.

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High throughput sequencing (HTS) data is set to improve our knowledge of Physostegia chlorotic mottle virus biology, epidemiology, and genetic diversity.

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A new species of microalgae was found in water from a home aquarium. While analyzing DNA samples taken from the algae, researchers discovered Medakamo hakoo, whose DNA sequence didn't match any on record. This new species is the smallest known freshwater green algae, with inherent qualities which enable it to be cultured stably at high density, meaning it could be effectively used to produce useful products for food and industry.

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The speed of environmental change is very challenging for wild organisms. When exposed to a new environment individual plants and animals can potentially adjust their biology to better cope with new pressures they are exposed to -- this is known as phenotypic plasticity. New research shows that early plasticity can influence the ability to subsequently evolve genetic adaptations to conquer new habitats.

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Synthetic populations are computer-generated models that mimic real-world populations in terms of characteristics such as age, gender, and occupation; they are useful when conducting social simulations. In a recent study, researchers developed a new approach to assign workplaces to individuals in a synthetic Japanese population with household information, based on ODI (Origin-Destination-Industry) data. Their efforts will enable more accurate, realistic simulations of the day-time distribution of workers in Japan, helping to improve decision-making and planning.

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A new paper presents a mathematical model for the motion of bacteria that includes cell division and death, the basic ingredients of the cell cycle.

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A new study shows machine-learning models trained using simple symptoms, demographic features are effective in predicting COVID-19 infections.

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A new statistical method provides a more efficient way to uncover biologically meaningful changes in genomic data that span multiple conditions -- such as cell types or tissues.

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America was unprepared for the magnitude of the pandemic, which overwhelmed many counties and filled some hospitals to capacity. A new study suggests there may have been a mathematical method, of sorts, to the madness of those early COVID days.

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People often wonder why one nutritional study tells them that eating too many eggs, for instance, will lead to heart disease and another tells them the opposite. The answer to this and other conflicting food studies may lie in the use of statistics, according to a new report.

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Researchers followed the birth and death of tens of thousands of nematode worms using the 'Lifespan Machine', which collects lifespan data at unprecedented statistical resolution. They found that worms have at least two distinct 'biological ages', and that these have consistent correlations between each other, suggesting the existence of an invisible hierarchical structure that regulates the ageing process. The findings challenge the idea of living organisms having a single, universal biological age. It also means mean that biomarkers used to assess biological age can be changed by interventions such as diet, exercise, or drug treatments without actually turning a 'fast ager' into a 'slow ager'. The study calls into question the use of ageing biomarkers -- what exactly are they measuring?

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The contact.engineering platform enables users to create a digital twin of a surface and thus to help predict, for example, how quickly it wears out, how well it conducts heat, or how well it adheres to other materials.

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A commentary advocates the proper application of artificial intelligence in healthcare and warns of the dangers when machine learning algorithms are misused.