Changes in ocean chemistry due to increased carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are expected to damage shellfish populations around the world, but some nations will feel the impacts much sooner and more intensely than others, according to a study by scientists at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI). (more…)
Organisms discovered by Yale undergraduates growing within fungi in the Amazon Rainforest can degrade polyurethane, a findings that may lead to innovative ways to reduce waste in the world’s landfills.
The paper, accepted for publication in July by the journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology, is the work of undergraduates who participated in Yale’s Rainforest Expedition and Laboratory course, funded by the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. (more…)
A University of Exeter archaeologist’s research has uncovered the largest Roman settlement ever found in Devon. The discovery could force us to rewrite the history of the Romans in Britain.
The discovery of a large Roman Settlement in Devon was the result of a chance metal detecting coin find. Danielle Wootton, the Finds Liaison Officer for the Portable Antiquities Scheme (PAS) and archaeologist at the University of Exeter was called on to investigate further. (more…)
The Pew Research Center recently reported that the wealth gap between American whites and blacks is the widest since the United States began tracking the statistic in 1984 — with whites, on average, having 20 times the net worth of blacks. However, another recent study contends traditional measures of prosperity that only look at economic factors, while important, are not the best gauges of overall well-being. (more…)
*Open, grassy environments accompanied human evolution*
Scientists using chemical isotopes in ancient soil to measure prehistoric tree cover–in effect, shade–have found that grassy, tree-dotted savannas prevailed at most East African sites where human ancestors and their ape relatives evolved during the past six million years.
“We’ve been able to quantify how much shade was available in the geological past,” says University of Utah geochemist Thure Cerling, lead author of a paper titled “Woody cover and hominin environments in the past 6 million years” on the results in this week’s issue of the journal Nature. (more…)
PASADENA, Calif. –– Observations from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter have revealed possible flowing water during the warmest months on Mars. (more…)
About 50 to 60 percent of patients with melanoma have a mutation in the BRAF gene that drives the growth of their cancer. In clinical trials, most of these patients have responded remarkably well to two novel agents that inhibit the gene, but unfortunately, the response is almost always limited in duration, as the cancer develops a resistance to the drugs. (more…)
The theory that our universe is contained inside a bubble, and that multiple alternative universes exist inside their own bubbles – making up the ‘multiverse’ – is, for the first time, being tested by physicists.
Two research papers published in Physical Review Letters and Physical Review D are the first to detail how to search for signatures of other universes. Physicists are now searching for disk-like patterns in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation – relic heat radiation left over from the Big Bang – which could provide tell-tale evidence of collisions between other universes and our own. (more…)
