For years, policymakers have attempted to create communities where a diverse group of residents not only live close to one other but also interact freely – in other words, neighborhoods that are both integrated and socially cohesive.
But that might be a lost cause, a Michigan State University sociologist argues in a new study. (more…)
Using molecular simulations that modeled a potassium channel and its immediate cellular environment, atom for atom, UChicago scientists have discovered that just 12 molecules of water cause the long post-activation recovery period required by such ion channels before they can function again. The research has revealed a new mechanism in the function of a nearly universal biological structure that will have broad implications, ranging from fundamental biology to the design of pharmaceuticals.
“Our research clarifies the nature of this previously mysterious inactivation state. This gives us better understanding of fundamental biology and should improve the rational design of drugs, which often target the inactivated state of channels,” said Benoît Roux, professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, whose team’s findings were published online July 28 in Nature. (more…)
Butterflies are extremely sensitive to changes in temperature and new research has revealed that when summer weather turns bad the silver-spotted skipper battles for survival.
The butterfly, which previously faced extinction from habitat loss, is recovering following conservation efforts but the recent cool wet summers in England have almost stalled its progress.
A 27 year study by researchers at the University of Exeter in collaboration with the University of York, the University of Liverpool, Sussex Wildlife Trust, the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and the charity Butterfly Conservation has been published in the journal Ecology Letters. The study estimated changes in temperature across a range of silver-spotted skipper habitats and found that localised fluctuations in temperature lead to extreme fluctuations in the butterfly population size and in the probability of the butterflies colonising new sites. (more…)
Nearly one-third of CO2 emissions due to human activities enters the world’s oceans. By reacting with seawater, CO2 increases the water’s acidity, which may significantly reduce the calcification rate of such marine organisms as corals and mollusks, resulting in the potential loss of ecosystems. The extent to which human activities have raised the surface level of acidity, however, has been difficult to detect on regional scales because it varies naturally from one season and one year to the next, and between regions, and direct observations go back only 30 years.
By combining computer modeling with observations, an international team of scientists concluded that anthropogenic CO2 emissions, resulting from the influence of human beings, over the last 100 to 200 years have already raised ocean acidity far beyond the range of natural variations. The study is published in the January 22, 2012 online issue of Nature Climate Change. (more…)
PASADENA, Calif. – By 2100, global climate change will modify plant communities covering almost half of Earth’s land surface and will drive the conversion of nearly 40 percent of land-based ecosystems from one major ecological community type – such as forest, grassland or tundra – toward another, according to a new NASA and university computer modeling study.
Researchers from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, Calif., investigated how Earth’s plant life is likely to react over the next three centuries as Earth’s climate changes in response to rising levels of human-produced greenhouse gases. Study results are published in the journal Climatic Change. (more…)
*New computer modeling study, led by a Berkeley Lab scientist, could help revise understanding of permafrost’s role in global warming*
Billions of tons of carbon trapped in high-latitude permafrost may be released into the atmosphere by the end of this century as the Earth’s climate changes, further accelerating global warming, a new computer modeling study indicates.
The study also found that soil in high-latitude regions could shift from being a sink to a source of carbon dioxide by the end of the 21st century as the soil warms in response to climate change. (more…)
The biblical account of the parting of the Red Sea has inspired and mystified people for millennia. A new computer modeling study by researchers at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and the University of Colorado at Boulder (CU) shows how the movement of wind as described in the book of Exodus could have parted the waters.
