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ScienceDaily: Top Environment News |
| Potential cure for tropical parasitic disease found in soil Posted: 13 Dec 2021 09:19 AM PST Combining two agents to block a parasitic worm's life cycle boosted survival from a potentially deadly tropical disease to 85% in animal models, far better than either treatment alone, according to a proof-of-concept study. |
| Climate change record in clam shells Posted: 13 Dec 2021 09:19 AM PST The tiny, pale surf clam about the size of a fingernail that most people have seen and collected on beaches around the world holds clues in its shell to Earth's past. For the first time, researchers have been able to identify the monthly, and even weekly, ocean temperatures recorded in these smooth clam shells. Because ancient civilizations consumed these ubiquitous clams and left the shells at archeological sites, researchers now have a new way to reconstruct climate and its fluctuations from nearly 3,000 years ago. |
| Want to limit carbon and curb wildfire? Create a market for small trees Posted: 13 Dec 2021 09:18 AM PST Thinning treatments reduce the risk of wildfire and provide ecological benefits for California's forests, but they also generate wood residues that are often burnt or left to decay, releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. A new analysis shows how incentivizing industries that convert wood residues into useful products -- including biofuels and construction-quality engineered lumber -- could fund forest thinning treatments while preventing the release of carbon. |
| Tooth cavities provide unique ecological insight into living primates and fossil humans Posted: 13 Dec 2021 09:18 AM PST Tooth decay is a common and unfortunate problem for many of us, but two University of Otago studies show it is also an issue for other primates, as well as our fossil relatives and ancestors. |
| Warm-bodied ties between mammals and birds more ancient than previously recognized Posted: 13 Dec 2021 09:18 AM PST The evolutionary origin of endothermy (the ability to maintain a warm body and higher energy levels than reptiles), currently believed to have originated separately in birds and mammals, could have occurred nearly 300 million years ago. |
| New copper surface eliminates bacteria in just two minutes, scientists report Posted: 13 Dec 2021 09:18 AM PST A new copper surface that kills bacteria more than 100 times faster and more effectively than standard copper could help combat the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant superbugs. |
| Scientists give new lease of life to e-waste plastics Posted: 13 Dec 2021 09:18 AM PST Plastics found in electronic waste (e-waste) are rarely recycled due to their complex composition and hazardous additives, but scientists have now developed a new use for them -- by repurposing them as an alternative to the plastics used in laboratory cell culture containers, such as petri dishes. |
| New inexpensive method to detect lime in soil Posted: 13 Dec 2021 09:18 AM PST Scientists have developed a new simple, inexpensive and fast method to detect and measure very low concentrations of agricultural lime in soils, which is generally a time consuming and difficult exercise. |
| Experiment gives rise to social conventions between baboons Posted: 13 Dec 2021 09:18 AM PST A research team has demonstrated that members of a group of baboons can establish shared social conventions -- in this case, by all agreeing on how to solve a problem in order to get a reward faster. This is the first time that such conventions have been studied experimentally in an animal species. |
| Farmed seafood supply at risk if we don’t act on climate change Posted: 13 Dec 2021 08:16 AM PST The supply of farmed seafood such as salmon and mussels are projected to drop 16 per cent globally by 2090 if no action is taken to mitigate climate change, according to a new study. Ocean-farmed seafood or mariculture is often seen as a panacea to the problems of depleted stocks of wild fish and growing human demand, and is expected to grow substantially in the coming years. But the new modelling study highlights the industry is as vulnerable to the effects of climate change as any other. If we continue to burn fossil fuels at our current rate, the amount of seafood such as fish or mussels able to be farmed sustainably will increase by only eight per cent by 2050, and decline by 16 per cent by 2090. |
| Climate-driven disease devastates seagrass health Posted: 13 Dec 2021 08:16 AM PST In an oceanic omen for climate change's intensifying effects, new research shows that seagrass suffers from a lesion-filled wasting disease through large swaths of intertidal meadows in the Pacific Northwest. The grasses' once-vibrant plant root systems are deteriorating, too. |
| Fecal transplant discovery could improve care for dangerous infections Posted: 13 Dec 2021 06:50 AM PST New research sheds light on why a fecal transplant can benefit patients with dangerous recurrent C. difficile infections -- and suggests a way to improve patient outcomes. |
| Wind turbines kill mostly female and juvenile bats Posted: 13 Dec 2021 06:49 AM PST Many bats die at wind turbines when colliding with the spinning blades. Currently it is unclear whether all age cohorts or sexes are equally vulnerable. A comparison of age, sex and geographic origin of Nathusius' pipistrelles killed at wind turbines and living conspecifics from nearby populations now reveals that juveniles are killed more frequently than adults compared to their proportion in local populations. Females are killed more frequently than males -- yet in line with their higher proportion in local populations. The high number of killed females and the elevated vulnerability of juveniles may have a negative effect on the long-term survival of populations, indicating that the current practice of wind energy production may not be ecologically sustainable. |
| Ultrarapid cooling enables the observation of molecular patterns of life Posted: 13 Dec 2021 06:48 AM PST Fluorescence light microscopy has the unique ability to observe cellular processes over a scale that bridges four orders of magnitude. Yet, its application to living cells is fundamentally limited by the very rapid and unceasing movement of molecules that define its living state. What is more, the interaction of light with fluorescent probes that enables the observation of molecular processes causes their very destruction. Ultrarapid cryo-arrest of cells during live observation on a microscope now circumvents these fundamental problems. The heart of the approach is the cooling of living cells with enormous speeds up to 200,000 °C per second to -196 °C. This enables an unprecedented preservation of cellular biomolecules in their natural arrangement at the moment of arrest. In this low temperature state, molecular movement and light-induced destruction is stopped, enabling the observation of molecular patterns of life that are otherwise invisible. |
| Life arose on hydrogen energy, researchers suggest Posted: 13 Dec 2021 05:41 AM PST How did the first chemical reactions get started at the origin of life and what was their source of energy? Researchers have reconstructed the metabolism of the last universal common ancestor, LUCA. They found that almost all chemical steps used by primordial life to piece together the molecular building blocks of cells are energy releasing reactions. This identified the long-sought source of energy needed to drive these reactions forward, which has been hiding in plain sight. The energy required to synthesize the building blocks of life comes from within metabolism itself, as long as one essential starting compound is included. The secret ingredient that releases the energy from within at life's origin is the cleanest, greenest, newest and oldest of all energy carriers: Hydrogen gas, H2. |
| Significant energy savings when electric distribution vehicles take their best route Posted: 13 Dec 2021 05:41 AM PST Range anxiety with electric commercial vehicles is real, since running out of battery can have serious consequences. Researchers have developed tools to help electric delivery-vehicles navigate strategically to use as little energy as possible. The secret lies in looking beyond just the distance traveled, and instead focusing on overall energy usage -- and has led to energy savings of up to 20 per cent. |
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