In the United States, rivers and their floodplains are well-documented and monitored. Ecuador’s largest river, however, remains largely mysterious.
Research led by Michigan State University is helping the South American country unravel the Napo River’s mystique to better balance its economic and environmental treasures. (more…)
Oil and gas development continues to press into the most remote corners of the western Amazon, one of the most biologically and culturally diverse zones on Earth. Now a study proposes a new 10-point, best-practice framework that combines technical engineering criteria with consideration of ecological and social concerns to reduce the negative impacts of Amazonian hydrocarbon exploration and production.
The researchers say, for example, that by using extended reach drilling (ERD), a technique to reach a larger subsurface area from one surface drilling location, it is possible to greatly reduce the total number of needed drilling platforms and access roads for a given project. (more…)
*New analytical method approaches the unstudied 99% of the human genome*
WASHINGTON, D.C., – 02 Nov 2011: Evolutionary history shows that human populations likely originated in Africa, and the Genographic Project, the most extensive survey of human population genetic data to date, suggests where they went next. A study by the Project finds that modern humans migrated out of Africa via a southern route through Arabia, rather than a northern route by way of Egypt. These findings will be highlighted today at a conference at the National Geographic Society.
National Geographic and IBM’s Genographic Project scientific consortium have developed a new analytical method that traces the relationship between genetic sequences from patterns of recombination – the process by which molecules of DNA are broken up and recombine to form new pairs. Ninety-nine percent of the human genome goes through this shuffling process as DNA is being transmitted from one generation to the next. These genomic regions have been largely unexplored to understand the history of human migration. (more…)
