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Over the Hump: Ecologists Use Power of Network Science to Challenge Long-Held Theory

By Guest PostSeptember 26, 2011Nature, Sciencealpine tundra, british ecologist, bugle lily, ecologists, effects of environmental change on biodiversity, elizabeth borer, emperor new clothes, global sampling, grime unimodal pattern, habitats, henry gholz, hump shaped model, j philip grime, mt gilboa, national science foundation, peter adler, plant and animal species, productivity of the habitat, scientist, South Africa, utah state university

*Global sampling of 48 sites on five continents yields unprecedented data set*

For decades, ecologists have toiled to nail down principles explaining why some habitats have many more plant and animal species than others.

Much of this debate is focused on the idea that the number of species is determined by the productivity of the habitat.

Shouldn’t a patch of prairie contain a different number of species than an arid steppe or an alpine tundra? (more…)

Primitive Birds Shared Dinosaurs’ Fate

By Guest PostSeptember 25, 2011Sciencearchaic birds, bird fossils, chicxulub meteorite, cretaceous bird, cretaceous period, dinosaurs 65 million years ago, fossil birds, nicholas longrich, team of paleontologists, yale university

A new study puts an end to the longstanding debate about how archaic birds went extinct, suggesting they were virtually wiped out by the same meteorite impact that put an end to dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

For decades, scientists have debated whether birds from the Cretaceous period — which are very different from today’s modern bird species — died out slowly or were killed suddenly by the Chicxulub meteorite. The uncertainty was due in part to the fact that very few fossil birds from the end of this era have been discovered. (more…)

Aquarius Yields NASA’s First Global Map of Ocean Salinity

By Guest PostSeptember 25, 2011Sciencehigh salinity sea, ocean salinity, ocean surface salinity, salinity data, salinity patterns

PASADENA, Calif. – NASA’s new Aquarius instrument has produced its first global map of the salinity of the ocean surface, providing an early glimpse of the mission’s anticipated discoveries. (more…)

New Understanding of How Humans and the Environment Interact

By Guest PostSeptember 25, 2011Environmentenvironmental problems, investment, natural processes, sustainability research

National Science Foundation Grants Awarded for Research on Coupled Natural and Human Systems

Water quality and environmental health in Botswana; wetlands in a working landscape; the collapse of the ancient Maya and what that has to tell us about society and environmental change today. (more…)

Anderson Forecast: U.S. Economy stalled, Employment ‘Horrible,’ but No New Recession

By Guest PostSeptember 25, 2011Economycoastal california, david shulman, domestic product growth, edward leamer, far worse, forecast economists remain, intellectual capital, no recession alarm, stall speed, the california forecast, the national forecast, ucla anderson forecast, university of california

In its third quarterly report of 2011, the UCLA Anderson Forecast says the outlook for the nation’s economy is “far worse” than it was just three months ago.

Considering the weak, revised data for the first half of the year, the forecast calls for average gross domestic product growth of just 0.9 percent on average for the five quarters — this year’s four and the first quarter of 2012.

However, Forecast economists remain steadfast in their assertion that the U.S. is not currently in a recession, nor is there a recession in the forecast through 2013. (more…)

Smells May Help Birds Identify Their Relatives

By Guest PostSeptember 25, 2011Naturebirds, captive penguins, kin discrimination, olfactory sense, sense of smell

Birds may have a more highly developed sense of smell than researchers previously thought, contend scholars who have found that penguins may use smell to determine if they are related to a potential mate. (more…)

Exeter Physicist Advances Early Universe Theory

By Guest PostSeptember 25, 2011Scienceearly universe theory, extrasolar planets, intergalactic media, magnetic fields, star formation

Research by a University of Exeter astrophysicist has helped to explain how the first stars and galaxies formed

Research led by Professor Gilles Chabrier of the University of Exeter suggests that large magnetic fields were generated shortly after the Big Bang and played a key role in the formation of the first stars and galaxies

The international team of researchers, headed by Professor Chabrier and Dr Christoph Federrath of the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Lyon (France), used three-dimensional computer simulations to make their discovery. Their simulations show that even under extreme physical conditions, magnetic fields are efficiently amplified by turbulent flows. The findings are now published in the journal Physical Review Letters. (more…)

UCLA Scientists Find H1N1 Flu Virus Prevalent in Animals in Africa

By Guest PostSeptember 24, 2011Scienceanimals in africa, h1n1 infections, immunosorbent assay, livestock in cameroon, ucla flu research

UCLA life scientists and their colleagues have discovered the first evidence of the H1N1 virus in animals in Africa. In one village in northern Cameroon, a staggering 89 percent of the pigs studied had been exposed to the H1N1 virus, commonly known as the swine flu. (more…)

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