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Hacking Code of Leaf Vein Architecture Solves Mysteries, Allows Predictions of Past Climate

By Guest PostMay 27, 2012Environment, Natureancient greeks, carbon dioxide, christine scoffoni, climate, conifers, cycads, Environment, ferns, flowering plants, fossil record, global ecology, hacking code, images of leaves, lawren sack, leaf fossils, leaf sizes, leaf vein architecture, leaf vein systems, mathematical equation, mathematical linkages, michael rawls, past climate, photosynthesis, photosynthetic rate, plants, prediction, respiration, scaling patterns, superhighways, theophrastus of lesbos, tropical forest tree, ucla life scientists, vein network, water transport, xylem pipes

UCLA life scientists have discovered new laws that determine the construction of leaf vein systems as leaves grow and evolve. These easy-to-apply mathematical rules can now be used to better predict the climates of the past using the fossil record.

The research, published May 15 in the journal Nature Communications, has a range of fundamental implications for global ecology and allows researchers to estimate original leaf sizes from just a fragment of a leaf. This will improve scientists’ prediction and interpretation of climate in the deep past from leaf fossils.

Leaf veins are of tremendous importance in a plant’s life, providing the nutrients and water that leaves need to conduct photosynthesis and supporting them in capturing sunlight. Leaf size is also of great importance for plants’ adaptation to their environment, with smaller leaves being found in drier, sunnier places. (more…)

Mojave Desert Tests Prepare for NASA Mars Roving

By Guest PostMay 14, 2012Sciencecalifornia, curiosity, dumont dunes, earth, Environment, gale crater, gravity of mars, human mission, mars, mars roving, michael malin, microbial life, mobility system, mojave desert, mount sharp, NASA, safe landing, tests

Team members of NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory mission took a test rover to Dumont Dunes in California’s Mojave Desert this week to improve knowledge of the best way to operate a similar rover, Curiosity, currently flying to Mars for an August landing.

The test rover that they put through paces on various sandy slopes has a full-scale version of Curiosity’s mobility system, but it is otherwise stripped down so that it weighs about the same on Earth as Curiosity will weigh in the lesser gravity of Mars. (more…)

Pigeons’ Homing Skill Not Down to Iron-Rich Beak Cells

By Guest PostApril 16, 2012Natureballs of iron, beaks, david keays, electrical signal, Environment, imaging technique, infection, iron, macrophages, magnetic cell, magnetic field, magnetic nerve cell, mark lythgoe, mechanism, migratory bird, navigation, nerve cell, pigeon, red blood cell, state-of-the-art, theory, university college london, vienna, white blood cell

The theory that pigeons’ famous skill at navigation is down to iron-rich nerve cells in their beaks has been disproved by a new study published in Nature.

The study shows that iron-rich cells in the pigeon beak are in fact specialised white blood cells, called macrophages. This finding, which shatters the established dogma, puts the field back on course as the search for magnetic cells continues. (more…)

The Emperor’s New Close-Up

By Guest PostApril 15, 2012Nature, ScienceAntarctic, antarctic ice shelves, behavior of emperor, brent pellinen, british antarctic survey, cape crozier, census, claire porter, climatic, deane morrison, ecology, emperor penguins, Environment, guano, icons, mcmurdo station, michelle larue, pansharpening, penguin poo, peter fretwell, polar geospatial center, satellite image, satellites, university of minnesota

U researchers map emperor penguin colonies by satellite

Emperor penguins may be icons of the Antarctic, but they aren’t immune to disturbances in their environment.

As climatic and other changes unfold, emperors may dwindle in numbers. But how to tell, when researchers can’t access all the emperor colonies dotting the Antarctic ice shelves and count heads every year?

Satellites, that’s how. (more…)

800-Year-Old Farmers Could Teach Us How to Protect The Amazon

By Guest PostApril 14, 2012Environmentagriculture, Amazon, amazonian forest, amazonian savannas, archaeologist, cattle ranching, charcoal, climate, columbian encounter, conservation, deforestation, doyle mckey, ecosystem, Environment, european settlers, farming, farmland sustainably, fire, francis mayle, french guiana, global warming, indigenous people, jose iriarte, mitchell power, old world diseases, paleoecologist, phytoliths, plant remains, pollen, raised field, savannas, stephen rostain, sustainable use, university of exeter, university of montpellier

In the face of mass deforestation of the Amazon, we could learn from its earliest inhabitants who managed their farmland sustainably.

Research from an international team of archaeologists and paleoecologists, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, shows for the first time that indigenous people, living in the savannas around the Amazonian forest, farmed without using fire.

Led by the University of Exeter, the research could provide insights into the sustainable use and conservation of these globally-important ecosystems, which are being rapidly destroyed. Pressure on the Amazonian savannas today is intense, with the land being rapidly transformed for industrial agriculture and cattle ranching.

By analysing records of pollen, charcoal and other plant remains like phytoliths spanning more than 2,000 years, the team has created the first detailed picture of land use in the Amazonian savannas in French Guiana. This gives a unique perspective on the land before and after the first Europeans arrived in 1492. (more…)

Thawing Permafrost 50 Million Years Ago Led To Warm Global Events, Says New Study

By Guest PostApril 7, 2012EnvironmentAntarctica, arctic permafrost, carbon, climate, climatic threshold, CO2, earth, eccentric orbits, ecosystem, Environment, floor sediment, fossil fuel, frozen-soil, greenhouse gas levels, italy, kevin schaefer, methane gas, ocean, orbit, organic matter, paleocene eocene, permafrost, permafrost thaw, petm, rob deconto, soil, source, thermal maximum, university of urbino

A new study led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst and involving the University of Colorado Boulder proposes a simple new mechanism to explain the source of carbon that fed a series of extreme warming events on Earth about 50 million years ago called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, as well as a sequence of similar, smaller warming events afterward.

“The standard hypothesis has been that the source of carbon was in the ocean in the form of frozen methane gas in ocean-floor sediments,” said lead study author Rob DeConto of the University of Massachusetts Amherst. “We are instead ascribing the carbon source to the continents in polar latitudes where permafrost can store massive amounts of carbon that can be released as CO2 when the permafrost thaws.” (more…)

Hiding in Plain Sight, A New Frog Species With A ‘Weird’ Croak is Identified in New York City

By Guest PostMarch 15, 2012Nature, Scienceamphibians, brad shaffer, bronx, cathy newman, cryptic species, dna data, ecology, Environment, evolutionary biology, jeremy feinberg, joanna burger, leopard frog, leslie rissler, long snore, manhattan, marshes, mitochondrial dna, new frog species, new jersey, new york, new york city, odd frogs, ponds, rana, rapid chuckle, Rutgers University, skyscrapers, species, staten island, statue of liberty, uc davis, ucla, university of alabama, unusual frogs, weird rana, wilds, yankee stadium

In the wilds of New York City — or as wild as you can get so close to skyscrapers — scientists have found a new leopard frog species that for years biologists mistook for a more widespread variety of leopard frog.

While biologists regularly discover new species in remote rain forests, finding this one in the ponds and marshes of Staten Island, mainland New York and New Jersey — sometimes within view of the Statue of Liberty — is a big surprise, said the scientists from UCLA, Rutgers University, UC Davis, and The University of Alabama who worked together to make the unexpected discovery. (more…)

Fukushima Lesson: Prepare for Unanticipated Nuclear Accidents

By Guest PostMarch 12, 2012Environmentalexandra navrotsky, davis, decontamination, earthquake, edward h kraus, electricity, Environment, fission, fukushima, fukushima daiichi, fukushima reactor, human health, hydrogen gas, Japan, japanese government, knowledge, magnitude, nuclear fuels, nuclear power plant, nuclear waste, peter burns, radiation, radioactive fallout, rehabilitation, rodney ewing, seawater, tepco, tsunami, university of california, university of michigan, university of notre dame, uranium dioxide, zirconium alloy

ANN ARBOR, Mich.— A year after the crisis at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, scientists and engineers remain largely in the dark when it comes to fundamental knowledge about how nuclear fuels behave under extreme conditions, according to a University of Michigan nuclear waste expert and his colleagues.

In a review article in this week’s edition of the journal Science, U-M’s Rodney Ewing and two colleagues call for an ambitious, long-term national research program to study how nuclear fuels behave under the extreme conditions present during core-melt events like those that occurred at Fukushima following the March 11, 2011, magnitude 9.0 earthquake and tsunami. (more…)

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