Researchers find that the global carbon pool in seagrass beds is as much as 19.9 billion metric tons
Seagrasses are a vital part of the solution to climate change and, per unit area, seagrass meadows can store up to twice as much carbon as the world’s temperate and tropical forests. (more…)
ANN ARBOR, Mich.— Across history and cultures, religion increases trust within groups but also may increase conflict with other groups, according to an article in Science. (more…)
The findings provide insight into the chemical processes taking place on Mars and will help aid future quests for evidence of ancient or modern Martian life.
Carbon in some Martian meteorites came from Mars but not from life on Mars, according to new research from an international team that includes a University of Arizona geoscientist. (more…)
UD’s McCarthy part of group that films rare striped rabbit in Sumatra
With cameras set up in Sumatra looking for medium- and small-sized wild cats, such as leopards, a research group involving the University of Delaware’s Kyle McCarthy, found images of something else entirely — a rabbit. Not just any ordinary rabbit, but a Sumatran striped rabbit, one of the world’s rarest species and one that had been captured on film only three times before. (more…)
Environmental change is the selective force that preserves adaptive traits in organisms and is a primary driver of evolution. However, it is less well known that evolutionary change in organisms also trigger fundamental changes in the environment.
Yale University researchers found a prime example of this evolutionary feedback loop in a few lakes in Connecticut, where dams built 300 years ago in Colonial times trapped a fish called the alewife.
In a study published May 23 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Academy B, the Yale team describes how this event fundamentally changed the structure of the alewife and, with it, the water flea that the alewife feeds upon and the food chain that supports them both. (more…)
The first overt indications of the impending global financial crisis manifested themselves in August 2007, when BNP Paribas announced it was severing ties with three hedge funds specializing in mortgage debt for American real estate properties. The crisis was exacerbated by the immediate freeze on credit by banks to their customers – and to each other. The crisis came to a head in 2008 when the United States government refused to rescue investment firm Lehman Brothers from financial collapse. Subsequent actions by the American government and by foreign governments, as well as actions taken by commercial enterprises world wide, have been focused on repairing the financial damage to sovereign economies and to individuals thrown out of work – and out of their homes. (more…)
Seamless Across Multiple Devices, Axis Re-defines Searching and Browsing
SUNNYVALE, Calif. — Yahoo!, the premier digital media company, today announced the availability of Yahoo! Axis, a new experience that re-imagines how people search and browse on the web. Axis offers the only search experience that allows you to enter your search, see and interact with visual results, all without ever leaving the page you are on. Axis seamlessly integrates with your favorite desktop browser and automatically connects your online experiences across multiple devices. Axis is available today for download across iOS devices and as a desktop plug-in for HTML5-enabled browsers.
“Our search strategy is predicated on two core beliefs—one, that people want answers, not links and two, that consumer-facing search is ripe for innovative disruption,” said Shashi Seth, senior vice president, Connections, Yahoo! Inc. “With Axis, we have re-defined and re-architected the search and browse experience from the ground up.” (more…)
Pollination could be a chaotic disaster. With hundreds of pollen grains growing long tubes to ovules to deliver their sperm to female gametes, how can a flower ensure that exactly two fertile sperm reach every ovule? In a new study, Brown University biologists report the discovery of how plants optimize the distribution of pollen for successful reproduction.
PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Next Mother’s Day, say it with an evolved model of logistical efficiency — a flower. A new discovery about how nature’s icons of romance manage the distribution of sperm among female gametes with industrial precision helps explain why the delicate beauties have reproduced prolifically enough to dominate the earth.
In pollination, hundreds of sperm-carrying pollen grains stick to the stigma suspended in the middle of a flower and quickly grow a tube down a long shaft called a style toward clusters of ovules, which hold two female sex cells. This could be a chaotic frenzy, but for the plant to succeed, exactly two fertile sperm should reach the two cells in each ovule — no more, no less. No ovule should be left out, either because too many tubes have gone elsewhere, or because the delivered sperm don’t work. (more…)
