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A Tale of (More Than) Two Butterflies

By Guest PostSeptember 14, 2011Nature, Scienceappalachian mountains, appalachian tiger, appalachian tiger swallowtail, battus philenor, canadian tiger swallowtail, canadian tigers, diversity of life on earth, eastern tiger, eastern tiger swallowtail, harvard university, hybrid speciation, krushnamegh kunte, larry gilbert, marcus kronforst, north american tiger swallowtail butterflies, p canadensis, p glaucus, papilio appalachiensis, pipevine swallowtail, poisonous butterfly, sam scheiner, tiger swallowtail butterfly, tom juenger, university of texas at austin

*Appalachian tiger swallowtail butterfly is hybrid of other swallowtails*

Flitting among the cool slopes of the Appalachian Mountains is a tiger swallowtail butterfly that evolved when two other species of swallowtails hybridized long ago.

It’s a rarity in the animal world, biologists have found.

They discovered that the Appalachian tiger swallowtail, Papilio appalachiensis, evolved from mixing between the Eastern tiger swallowtail, P. glaucus, and the Canadian tiger swallowtail, P. canadensis. (more…)

First Global Picture of Greenhouse Gases Emerges from Pole-to-Pole Research Flights

By Guest PostSeptember 10, 2011Environmentandy watt, anne-marie schmoltner, Antarctic, Arctic, black carbon particles, britton stephens, carbon dioxide, climate, concentrations of greenhouse gases, earth, global distribution of gases, gulfstream v aircraft, harvard university, hiaper, hiaper pole to pole observations, high performance instrumented airborne platform for environmental research, hippo, Houston, industrial age, los angeles, national science foundation, natural carbon dioxide uptake and storage, new zealand, nsf, pacific, particles in the atmosphere, portrait of greenhouse gases, ryan spackman, steven wofsy

*Three-year series of scientific missions from Arctic to Antarctic produces new views of atmospheric chemistry*

A three-year series of research flights from the Arctic to the Antarctic has successfully produced an unprecedented portrait of greenhouse gases and particles in the atmosphere.

The far-reaching field project, known as HIPPO, ends this week, and has enabled researchers to generate the first detailed mapping of the global distribution of gases and particles that affect Earth’s climate. (more…)

Farmers More Likely to be Green if They Talk to Their Neighbors

By Guest PostJuly 28, 2011Environmentenvironmental behavior, global environmental sustainability, grain-to-green program, harvard university, journal ecological modeling, michigan state university, NASA, plant and harvest, reenroll their land, rural chinese neighbors, san diego state university, southwestern china, systems integration and sustainability, wolong nature reserve, xiaodong chen

EAST LANSING, Mich. — Besides helping each other plant and harvest, rural Chinese neighbors also influence each other’s environmental behavior – farmers are more likely to reenroll their land in a conservation program if they talk to their neighbors about it.

Scientists from Michigan State University’s Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability used a simulation model to study the amount of land farmers in the Wolong Nature Reserve in southwestern China re-enrolled in the Grain-to-Green Program, which aims to reduce soil erosion by converting sloping cropland to forest or grassland. Farmers receive an annual payment of either 5,000 pounds of grain or $498 for each 2.5 acres enrolled in the program. In 2005, this was about 8 percent of the farmers’ income. (more…)

Discovery Places Turtles Next to Lizards on Family Tree

By Guest PostJuly 22, 2011Nature, Sciencebirds, body armor, classify the strange animals, creatures' shells, crocodiles and birds, dartmouth college, evolutionary tree, harvard university, lizards and snakes, paleobiologist, retractable heads, systematics, turtles, tyler lyson, yale university

Where do turtles belong on the evolutionary tree? For decades, the mystery has proven as tough to crack as the creatures’ shells. With their body armor and retractable heads, turtles are such unique creatures that scientists have found it difficult to classify the strange animals in terms of their origins and closest relatives.

“We know turtles evolved from a common ancestor along with birds, lizards and snakes about 300 million years ago, but who modern-day turtles are most closely related to is one of the biggest and most controversial questions in the field of systematics,” said Tyler Lyson, a Yale University graduate student who studies the evolutionary relationships between different animal groups. (more…)

Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg Named ‘Person of the Year’ by Time

By PravdaDecember 15, 2010Culture, Technologydefinitions of privacy, earth, editor, founder of facebook, harvard university, Mark Zuckerberg, MySpace, News Corp., person of the year, richard stengel, social networking site, sophomore, t-shirt-wearing head-of-state, third largest country, time magazine, Wall Street, zuckerberg

Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook Inc., was named Time magazine’s “Person of the Year” today for “creating a new system of exchanging information” and “changing how we all live our lives.”

Zuckerberg, 26, began the world’s largest social-networking site in 2004. The service, with more than 500 million users, has helped people connect with each other and changed definitions of privacy, Time Managing Editor Richard Stengel said in a letter on the magazine’s website. (more…)

Tag Archives: harvard university

A Tale of (More Than) Two Butterflies

First Global Picture of Greenhouse Gases Emerges from Pole-to-Pole Research Flights

Farmers More Likely to be Green if They Talk to Their Neighbors

Discovery Places Turtles Next to Lizards on Family Tree

Facebook Founder Mark Zuckerberg Named ‘Person of the Year’ by Time