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Categories: Offbeat: Earth and Climate, Paleontology: Climate

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Societies and political structures, like the humans they serve, appear to become more fragile as they age, according to an analysis of hundreds of pre-modern societies. A new study, which holds implications for the modern world, provides the first quantitative support for the theory that the resilience of political states decreases over time. 

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How do you create strong, yet quick-release connections between living and non-living tissues? This is a question that continues to puzzle bioengineers who aim to create materials that bond together for advanced biomedical applications. Looking to nature for inspiration, this research zeroed in on the marine mussel byssus, a fibrous holdfast, which these bivalve mollusks use to anchor themselves in seashore habitats.

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An international multidisciplinary team consisting of solar physicists, geophysicists, and historians from nine countries analysed observations of an extreme solar-terrestrial storm reported in historical records from February 1872. Their findings confirm that a moderate sunspot group triggered one of the largest magnetic storms ever recorded, almost covering the entire night sky with colourful aurorae in both hemispheres. If such an extreme storm occurred today, it would severely disrupt modern technological infrastructure. Their study emphasizes the importance of looking at historical records in light of modern scientific knowledge.

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Scientists sequenced the genome of the East Asian pitcher plant, Nepenthes gracilis, a species of carnivorous plant related to Venus flytraps, as well as sundews, beets and spinach.

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In sea fireflies' underwater ballet, the males sway together in perfect, illuminated synchronization, basking in the glow of their secreted iridescent mucus.

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Identifying how and why Antarctica's major ice sheets behaved the way they did in the early Miocene could help inform understanding of the sheets' behavior under a warming climate. Together, the ice sheets lock a volume of water equivalent to more than 50 meters of sea level rise and influence ocean currents that affect marine food webs and regional climates. Their fate has profound consequences for life nearly everywhere on Earth.  

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A recent study demonstrates how dripstones can be crucial for reconstructing past climates. The new approach can provide a detailed picture of the climate around early human occupations in South Africa.

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Through an emerging technology called distributed fiber optic sensing, cables bringing high-speed internet to American households can be used to detect temperature changes, vibrations, and even sound. And periodical cicadas -- the insects that emerge by the billions every 13 or 17 years and make a racket with their mating calls -- are loud enough to be detected. A new study shows how fiber optic sensing could open new pathways for charting populations of these famously ephemeral bugs.

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Researchers have discovered that the waxy protective barrier around plants might play a role in sending chemical signals to other plants and insects.  

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The San Joaquin Valley in California has experienced vast variability in climate extremes, with droughts and floods that were more severe and lasted longer than what has been seen in the modern record, according to a new study of 600 years of tree rings from the valley.

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A landmark study into the geological timescale distribution of sediment and nutrients over 500 million years shows that species biodiversity on Earth is driven by landscape dynamics.

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Scientists have made a surprising discovery that sheds new light on the role that oceanic deoxygenation (anoxia) played in one of the most devastating extinction events in Earth's history. Their finding has implications for current day ecosystems -- and serves as a warning that marine environments are likely more fragile than apparent. New research, published today in leading international journal Nature Geosciences, suggests that oceanic anoxia played an important role in ecosystem disruption and extinctions in marine environments during the Triassic--Jurassic mass extinction, a major extinction event that occurred around 200 million years ago.  Surprisingly however, the study shows that the global extent of euxinia (an extreme form of de-oxygenated conditions) was similar to the present day.

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The national park of Koli in eastern Finland is home to a famous, 34-metre-long crevice cave known as Pirunkirkko, or Devil's Church in English. A new study investigates the acoustics of the Devil's Church and explores whether the acoustic properties of the cave could explain the beliefs associated with it, and why it was chosen as a place for activities and rituals involving sound.

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A new form of wave devouring propulsion (WDP) could power ships and help to cut greenhouse gas emissions in the maritime industry.

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When bacteria build communities, they cooperate and share nutrients across generations. Researchers have been able to demonstrate this for the first time using a newly developed method. This innovative technique enables the tracking of gene expression during the development of bacterial communities over space and time.

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Using 700 years' worth of wave data from more than a billion waves, scientists have used artificial intelligence to find a formula for how to predict the occurrence of these maritime monsters. Long considered myth, freakishly large rogue waves are very real and can split apart ships and even damage oil rigs.

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Using historical records from around Australia, an international team of researchers have put forward the most accurate prediction to date of past Antarctic ice sheet melt, providing a more realistic forecast of future sea level rise.   The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest block of ice on earth, containing over 30 million cubic kilometers of water.   Hence, its melting could have a devasting impact on future sea levels. To find out just how big that impact might be, the research team turned to the past.  

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Researchers take a look at data that has so far been mostly discarded as contamination, revealing the previously underestimated role of extracellular vesicles (EVs). These are important for the exchange of genetic information between cells and thus for the microbial community in the sea.

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Ancient cycad lineages that survived the extinction of the dinosaurs may have done so by relying on symbiotic bacteria in their roots to fix atmospheric nitrogen. The finding came from an effort to understand ancient atmospheres, but became an insight into plant evolution instead.

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Researchers present evidence of previously unknown luminosity in 10 deep-sea species, suggesting underestimated diversity. These new discoveries include a member of the order Molpadia, which was previously thought not to be luminescent. The authors stress the importance of considering the ecological role of bioluminesence and the need for conservation.