Tag Archives: united kingdom

Major turtle nesting beaches protected in one of the UK’s far flung overseas territories

Sea turtles are not a species one would normally associate with the United Kingdom. But on the remote UK overseas territory of Ascension Island, one of the world’s largest green turtle populations is undergoing something of a renaissance.

Writing in the journal Biodiversity and Conservation, scientists from the University of Exeter and Ascension Island Government Conservation Department report that the number of green turtles nesting at the remote South Atlantic outpost has increased by more than 500 per cent since records began in the 1970s. (more…)

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Monitoring surgical quality

Distinguished statistician discusses probability and statistics in health care

William H. Woodall, a distinguished professor and statistician at Virginia Tech, spoke to a large audience on “Monitoring and Improving Surgical Quality” at the fourth annual W.L. Gore Lecture Series in Management Science last week on the University of Delaware’s Laird Campus. 

The series, hosted by the Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics and sponsored by an endowment from the Gore family, annually recognizes the role that probability, statistics and experimental design have played in the success of W.L. Gore and Associates Inc. (more…)

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Ancient Fossil Reveals Oldest Known Circulatory System

A fossil creature buried in an “invertebrate version of Pompeii” more than half a billion years ago reveals the first-known cardiovascular system in exquisitely preserved detail.

An international team of researchers from the University of Arizona, China and the United Kingdom has discovered the earliest known cardiovascular system, and the first to clearly show a sophisticated system complete with heart and blood vessels, in fossilized remains of an extinct marine creature that lived over half a billion years ago. The finding sheds new light on the evolution of body organization in the animal kingdom and shows that even the earliest creatures had internal organizational systems that strongly resemble those found in their modern descendants. (more…)

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Writers from seven countries awarded $150,000 Yale prize

The Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale has announced the winners of the Windham Campbell Literature Prizes. This year’s recipients illustrate the global scale of the prizes, with the eight winning writers hailing from seven countries. The winners in the three categories — fiction, non-fiction, and drama — will receive $150,000 each in recognition of their achievements and to support their ongoing work. (more…)

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Large Old Trees Grow Fastest, Storing More Carbon

THREE RIVERS, Calif, — Trees do not slow in their growth rate as they get older and larger — instead, their growth keeps accelerating, according to a study published in the journal Nature.

“This finding contradicts the usual assumption that tree growth eventually declines as trees get older and bigger,” says Nate Stephenson, the study’s lead author and a forest ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. “It also means that big, old trees are better at absorbing carbon from the atmosphere than has been commonly assumed.” (more…)

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Study asks: Is a ‘better world’ possible?

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…)

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Noble gases hitch a ride on hydrous minerals

The six noble gases do not normally dissolve into minerals, leaving earth scientists to wonder how they are subducted back into the Earth. Researchers at Brown have discovered that the lattice structure of minerals such as amphibole provides a way. Better yet, the multiple isotopes of noble gases could help scientists track volatiles like water and carbon.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The noble gases get their collective moniker from their tendency toward snobbishness. The six elements in the family, which includes helium and neon, don’t normally bond with other elements and they don’t dissolve into minerals the way other gases do. But now, geochemists from Brown University have found a mineral structure with which the nobles deign to fraternize. (more…)

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