Showing 20 articles starting at article 641

< Previous 20 articles        Next 20 articles >

Categories: Anthropology: General, Geoscience: Severe Weather

Return to the site home page

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

A new study explores 'balancing selection' by analyzing thousands of modern human genomes alongside ancient hominin groups, such as Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes. The research has 'implications for understanding human diversity, the origin of diseases, and biological trade-offs that may have shaped our evolution,' says evolutionary biologists.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers have identified 26 global warming accelerators known as amplifying feedback loops that the researchers say aren't being properly included in climate models. They note that the findings add urgency to the need to respond to the climate crisis and provide a roadmap for policymakers aiming to avert the most severe consequences of a warming planet.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Slipping and sliding on snowy or icy roads is dangerous. Salt and sand help melt ice or provide traction, but excessive use is bad for the environment. And sometimes, a surprise storm can blow through before these materials can be applied. Now, researchers ave filled microcapsules with a chloride-free salt mixture that's added into asphalt before roads are paved, providing long-term snow melting capabilities in a real-world test.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Along the shores of Africa's Lake Victoria in Kenya roughly 2.9 million years ago, early human ancestors used some of the oldest stone tools ever found to butcher hippos and pound plant material, according to new research. The study presents what are likely to be the oldest examples of a hugely important stone-age innovation known to scientists as the Oldowan toolkit, as well as the oldest evidence of hominins consuming very large animals. Excavations at the site, named Nyayanga and located on the Homa Peninsula in western Kenya, also produced a pair of massive molars belonging to the human species' close evolutionary relative Paranthropus. The teeth are the oldest fossilized Paranthropus remains yet found, and their presence at a site loaded with stone tools raises intriguing questions about which human ancestor made those tools.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

The endangered Bahama Warbler may be surviving on just one island following Hurricane Dorian's devastation in 2019, according to researchers. A new study shows the bird's distribution and ecology on Grand Bahama before the hurricane struck. But the team says that the warbler may now only survive on neighboring Abaco island, after hurricane Dorian destroyed the bird's forest habitat on Grand Bahama. The research comes from the same team that found what is thought to have been the last living Bahama Nuthatch, previously thought to have been extinct.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Concerns are mounting among policymakers and utility companies amid the impact of severe weather on the nation's electrical grids. In recent months, electrical grids in Texas have been tested to the point of near failure. So it seems like perfect timing that new research identifies a new method that provides the best way to utilize 'direct load control contracts' to mitigate electricity demand surges, increase grid reliability and reduce electricity cost. All of this right down to the individual household.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The collapse of the Hittite Empire in the Late Bronze Age has been blamed on various factors, from war with other territories to internal strife. Now, scientists have used tree ring and isotope records to pinpoint a more likely culprit: three straight years of severe drought.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

New global modelling predicts the devastating socioeconomic impacts of future extreme coastal flooding for developing nations caused by climate change, with Asia, West Africa and Egypt facing severe costs in the coming decades.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers have pinpointed two intervals when ice and ocean conditions would have been favorable to support early human migration from Asia to North America late in the last ice age, a new paper shows.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

The Arctic is rapidly losing sea ice, even during winter months when temperatures are below freezing and ice should be recovering from the summer melt. A new study found powerful storms called atmospheric rivers are increasingly reaching the Arctic in winter, slowing sea ice recovery and accounting for a third of all winter sea ice decline, according to a team led by Penn State scientists.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

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.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

An interdisciplinary team of scientistshas found that rapid sea-level rise drove early settlers in Southeast Asia to migrate during the prehistoric period, increasing the genetic diversity of the region today.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

New research has revealed that the process of 'peopling' the entire continent of Sahul -- the combined mega continent that joined Australia with New Guinea when sea levels were much lower than today -- took 10,000 years. Sophisticated models show the scale of the challenges faced by the ancestors of Indigenous people making their mass migration across the supercontinent more than 60,000 years ago. This pattern led to a rapid expansion both southward toward the Great Australian Bight, and northward from the Kimberley region to settle all parts of New Guinea and, later, the southwest and southeast of Australia.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

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.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Scientists have analyzed data from Mexico's Ministry of Health to identify dengue fever hotspots. Working with epidemiologists at the University of North Texas and Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León, the team calculated environmental and socioeconomic risk factors and mapped areas where severe outbreaks occur.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

A research team examined what happens to mountain snowpacks when sunny, midwinter dry spells occur in forests impacted by severe wildfire.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Sneaker waves are likely fueled by a specific type of wave condition generated by far-off storms and paired with just the right conditions closer to shore, a new study has found.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

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.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Data stored in ice cores dating back 55 years bring new insight into atmospheric levels of a molecule that can significantly affect weather and climate.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Honey bee colony loss across the United States over the last five years is primarily related to the presence of parasitic mites, nearby pesticides, and extreme weather events as well as challenges with overwintering, according to a new study. The study took advantage of novel statistical methods and is among the first to concurrently consider a variety of potential honey bee stressors at a national scale.