Showing 20 articles starting at article 821

< Previous 20 articles        Next 20 articles >

Categories: Geoscience: Geography, Paleontology: Fossils

Return to the site home page

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new study appearing in Science Advances compares Pleistocene vegetation communities around Lake Baikal in Siberia, Russia, to the oldest archeological traces of Homo sapiens in the region. The researchers use the 'remarkable evidence' to tell a compelling story from 45,000-50,000 years ago with new detail: how the first humans migrated across Europe and Asia.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Researchers reveal rapid fluvial incision attributed to the growth of high topography in China's Yangtze River.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Palaeontologists have discovered X-ray evidence of proteins in fossil feathers that sheds new light on feather evolution.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Violence was a consistent part of life among ancient communities of hunter-gatherers, according to a new study that looked for signs of trauma on 10,000-year-old skeletal remains from burial sites in northern Chile.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

As renewable energy sources like wind and solar ramp up, they can be used to sustainably generate hydrogen fuel. But implementing such a strategy on a large scale requires land and water dedicated to this purpose.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

A groundbreaking study has provided new insights into the extensive impact of metal mining contamination on rivers and floodplains across the world, with an estimated 23 million people believed to be affected by potentially dangerous concentrations of toxic waste. The study used a new georeferenced global database of 185,000 metal mines compiled by the team alongside a combination of process-based modelling and empirical testing to predict the dispersal of mine waste in river systems to offer a comprehensive understanding of the environmental and health challenges associated with metal mining activities, examining both historical and active mining operations. With the rapid growth of metal mining crucial to the world making the transition to green energy, the study provides governments, mining companies, environmental regulators, and communities impacted by mining operations with a tool to understand the impacts of environmental impact of mining. Ultimately it is hoped that this will make it easier to mitigate the environmental effects of historical and present mining and help to minimise the impacts of future mining development on communities, while also protecting food and water security.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Multiyear La Niña events have become more common over the last 100 years, according to a new study. Five out of six La Nina events since 1998 have lasted more than one year, including an unprecedented triple-year event.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

New research shows that mussels are pretty crafty sea creatures: able to withstand marine heatwaves by adjusting their heart rate and other physiological functions, boding well for their survival in future decades as the world heats up.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

In the 'weather kitchen,' the interplay between the Azores High and Icelandic Low has a substantial effect on how much warm water the Atlantic transports to the Arctic along the Norwegian coast. But this rhythm can be thrown off for years at a time. Experts finally have an explanation for why: Due to unusual atmospheric pressure conditions over the North Atlantic, low-pressure areas are diverted from their usual track, which disrupts the coupling between the Azores High, the Icelandic Low and the winds off the Norwegian coast. This finding is an important step toward refining climate models and more accurately predicting the fate of Arctic sea ice in the face of progressing climate change.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

People experiencing a high degree of social vulnerability are also more exposed to wildfires in Oregon and Washington as wildfire risk increases, a new study shows.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

The world's first study of the increase in pollution from landscape fires across the globe over the past two decades reveals that over 2 billion people are exposed to at least one day of potentially health-impacting environmental hazard annually -- a figure that has increased by 6.8 per cent in the last ten years.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A groundbreaking study is reshaping our understanding of crocodile evolution by pinpointing the onset of slow growth rates to the Late Triassic period, much earlier than the previously assumed Early Jurassic timeline. The research highlights newly discovered fossil crocodile ancestors (known as crocodylomorphs) that exhibited slow growth rates, similar to modern-day crocodilians. Intriguingly, these early crocodylomorphs were not the lethargic, semi-aquatic creatures we are familiar with today; they were small, active, and fully terrestrial. The study also suggests that this slow-growth strategy was not a mere evolutionary quirk but a survival mechanism, as only the slow-growing crocodylomorphs managed to survive the End-Triassic mass extinction. This stands in stark contrast to the fast-growing dinosaurs of the same era, setting the stage for the divergent evolutionary paths that would later define their modern descendants.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Marine virologists analyzed sediment from the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth, and identified a new bacteriophage.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

Scientists have discovered a new technique which will shed light on the phenomena of winter monsoons -- the heavy autumn and winter rainfalls which can cause floods and landslides across southeast Asia.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

X-rays of an ancient jawless fish shows earliest-known example of internal cartilage skull, unlike that of any other known vertebrate.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

An international group of researchers have discovered a previously unknown species of large foraminifer, shedding new light on the ecological evolution and biodiversity of coral reefs in the Ryukyu Islands.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Researchers studying diamond-rich rocks from Western Australia's Argyle volcano have identified the missing third key ingredient needed to bring valuable pink diamonds to the Earth's surface where they can be mined, which could greatly help in the global hunt for new deposits.

     (via sciencedaily.com)     Original source 

A new study shows the isolation and sequencing of more than a century-old RNA molecules from a Tasmanian tiger specimen preserved at room temperature in a museum collection. This resulted in the reconstruction of skin and skeletal muscle transcriptomes from an extinct species for the first time. The researchers note that their findings have relevant implications for international efforts to resurrect extinct species, including both the Tasmanian tiger and the woolly mammoth, as well as for studying pandemic RNA viruses.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

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.

     (via sciencedaily.com) 

Results provide the first measurements of how sea-ice algae and other single-celled life adjust to the dramatic seasonal rhythms in the Southern Ocean. The results provide clues to what might happen as this ecosystem shifts under climate change.