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Categories: Geoscience: Severe Weather, Offbeat: Plants and Animals
Published When mammoths roamed Vancouver Island
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Mammoths, the massive pre-historic ice age cousins of the modern-day elephant, have always been understood to have inhabited parts of British Columbia, but the question of when has always been a bit woolly. Now, a new study has given scientists the clearest picture yet when the giant mammals roamed Vancouver Island.
Published Fishing is causing frightened fish to flee when they should flirt
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Populations of squaretail grouper face an uncertain future as new research shows fishing that targets their spawning sites is causing males to be repeatedly scared away from their territories during their short mating meet-ups. By fleeing for safety, individuals are losing valuable time to catch the eye and court female fish.
Published Social rank may determine if animals live fast, die young
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Social rank may determine whether animals prioritize immediate fitness over long-term health, according to a study. Researchers studied macaques on a Thai island and found that the animals' unusual habit of washing their food is in fact based on social rank. Dominant monkeys quickly brush their food on their fur before eating it, along with mouthfuls of tooth-degrading sand, while lower-ranked monkeys obsessively wash their food in the surf. Citing the disposable soma hypothesis, the researchers suggest that high-ranking macaques are looking to quickly consume energy to mate and fend off challengers. But food-washing monkeys may be preserving their long-term health to produce more offspring over time. The findings could shed light on how the wear observed in the fossilized teeth of early humans relates to social structure.
Published New report on Great Barrier Reef shows coral cover increases before onset of serious bleaching, cyclones
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Coral cover has increased in all three regions on the Great Barrier Reef and is at regional highs in two of the three regions, according to a new report. But the results come with a note of caution.
Published Combined effects of plastic pollution and seawater flooding amplify threats to coastal plant species
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new study highlights how a combination of environmental stressors -- namely plastic pollution and seawater flooding -- can increase the threats faced by plants in some of the planet's critical ecosystems. It showed that both stressors had some effects on the species tested, but being exposed to both microplastics and flooding together -- a threat likely to increase as a result of climate change and plastic use -- had a more pronounced impact on their resource allocation.
Published Retreat of tropical glaciers foreshadows changing climate's effect on the global ice
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source As they are in many places around the globe, glaciers perched high in the Andes Mountains are shrinking. Now, researchers have uncovered evidence that the high-altitude tropical ice fields are likely smaller than they've been at any time since the last ice age ended 11,700 years ago.
Published When it comes to DNA replication, humans and baker's yeast are more alike than different
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Humans and baker's yeast have more in common than meets the eye, including an important mechanism that helps ensure DNA is copied correctly, reports a pair of studies. The findings visualize for the first time a molecular complex -- called CTF18-RFC in humans and Ctf18-RFC in yeast -- that loads a 'clamp' onto DNA to keep parts of the replication machinery from falling off the DNA strand.
Published Half a billion-year-old spiny slug reveals the origins of mollusks
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Exceptional fossils with preserved soft parts reveal that the earliest mollusks were flat, armored slugs without shells. The new species, Shishania aculeata, was covered with hollow, organic, cone-shaped spines. The fossils preserve exceptionally rare detailed features which reveal that these spines were produced using a sophisticated secretion system that is shared with annelids (earthworms and relatives).
Published Scientists devise method to secure Earth's biodiversity on the moon
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source New research led proposes a plan to safeguard Earth's imperiled biodiversity by cryogenically preserving biological material on the moon. The moon's permanently shadowed craters are cold enough for cryogenic preservation without the need for electricity or liquid nitrogen.
Published Climate change means that tropical cyclones in Southeast Asia are developing faster, lasting longer
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A study reveals that tropical cyclones in Southeast Asia are now forming closer to coastlines, intensifying more rapidly, and lingering longer over land.
Published Strong El Nino makes European winters easier to forecast
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Forecasting European winter weather patterns months in advance is made simpler during years of strong El Ni o or La Ni a events in the tropical Pacific Ocean, a new study has found.
Published Super-black wood can improve telescopes, optical devices and consumer goods
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Thanks to an accidental discovery, researchers have created a new super-black material that absorbs almost all light, opening potential applications in fine jewelry, solar cells and precision optical devices.
Published Injury dressings in first-aid kits provide a new technique to reveal shark species after bite incidents
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Scientists have revealed that injury dressings found in first-aid kits can reliably be used to identify shark species involved in bite incidents by deploying medical gauze to gather DNA samples from aquatic equipment, such as surfboards.
Published Platypus and chicken reveal how chromosomes balance between the sexes
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Geneticists uncover new insights into how sex chromosome systems work in the platypus and the chicken -- which will lead to better understandings of our own sex chromosome evolution and gene regulation.
Published How researchers turn bacteria into cellulose-producing mini-factories
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Researchers have modified certain bacteria with UV light so that they produce more cellulose. The basis for this is a new approach with which the researchers generate thousands of bacterial variants and select those that have developed into the most productive.
Published NASA data shows July 22, 2024 was Earth's hottest day on record
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source July 22, 2024, was the hottest day on record, according to a NASA analysis of global daily temperature data. July 21 and 23 of this year also exceeded the previous daily record, set in July 2023. These record-breaking temperatures are part of a long-term warming trend driven by human activities, primarily the emission of greenhouse gases.
Published The ancestor of all modern birds probably had iridescent feathers
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Birds tend to be more colorful in the tropics, and scientists wanted to find out how they got there: if colorful feathers evolved in the tropics, or if tropical birds have brightly-colored ancestors that came to the region from somwhere else. Scientists built a database of 9,409 birds to explore the spread of color across the globe. They found that iridescent, colorful feathers originated 415 times across the bird tree of life, and in most cases, arose outside of the tropics -- and that the ancestor of all modern birds likely had iridescent feathers, too.
Published Lampreys possess a 'jaw-dropping' evolutionary origin
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Lampreys are one of only two living jawless vertebrates Jaws are formed by a key stem cell population called the neural crest New research reveals the gene regulatory changes that may explain morphological differences between jawed and jawless vertebrates.
Published Climate change will bring more turbulence to flights in the Northern Hemisphere, study finds
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A type of invisible, unpredictable air turbulence is expected to occur more frequently in the Northern Hemisphere as the climate warms. Known as clear air turbulence, the phenomenon also increased in the Northern Hemisphere between 1980 and 2021.
Published Ancient marine animal had inventive past despite being represented by few species
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Brachiopods were evolving in new directions but this did not turn into evolutionary success in terms of the numbers of species, researchers have found.