New evidence showing the level of atmospheric CO2 millions of years ago supports recent climate change predications from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
A multinational research team, led by scientists at the University of Southampton, has analysed new records showing the CO2 content of the Earth's atmosphere between 2.3 to 3.3 million years ago, over the Pliocene.
Crops and other plants are constantly faced with adverse environmental conditions, such as rising temperatures (2014 was the warmest year on record) and lessening fresh water supplies, which lower yield and cost farmers billions of dollars annually.
Nature lovers are fascinated by the increasing number of singing birds when spring is approaching. Scientists also take advantage of this seasonal phenomenon because they are able to investigate the underlying mechanism; however the evolutionary and molecularbiological background is largely unknown.
Bariatric surgery improves life expectancy for many obese diabetic patients, but it may cut life expectancy for patients who are super obese with very high body mass indexes, according to a University of Cincinnati researcher.
Here's an argument for more nuclear power instead of more biofuels. As many places in the U.S. and Europe increasingly turn to biomass rather than fossil fuels for power and heat, scientists are focusing on what this trend might mean for air quality -- and human health. One study on wood-chip burners' particulate emissions, which can cause heart and lung problems, appears in the journal Energy & Fuels.
Researchers have cracked a code that governs infections by a major group of viruses including the common cold and polio.
Until now, scientists had not noticed the code, which had been hidden in plain sight in the sequence of the ribonucleic acid (RNA) that makes up this type of viral genome.
A new genus and species of flowering plants from the custard apple family, Annonaceae, has been discovered in the jungles of Gabon by French and Gabonese botanists. The extraordinary genus was named Sirdavidia, after David Attenborough to honor his influence on the life and careers of the scientists who discovered it.
Relative sea-level rise has been a major factor driving the evolution of reef systems during the Holocene.
Most models of reef evolution suggest that reefs preferentially grow vertically during rising sea level then laterally from windward to leeward, once the reef flat reaches sea level.
Muscles necessary for breathing need a greater amount of oxygen in women than in men, according to a study published today in The Journal of Physiology.
Researchers found that at submaximal and maximal exercise intensities, respiratory muscles (muscles necessary for breathing, such as the diaphragm and muscles surrounding the ribcage) consume a greater amount of oxygen in women compared with men. This means that women use more energy when breathing because a significantly greater part of total oxygen is directed to the respiratory muscles.
The largest rodent ever to have lived may have used its front teeth just like an elephant uses its tusks, a new study led by scientists at the University of York and The Hull York Medical School (HYMS) has found.
Josephoartigasia monesi, a rodent closely related to guinea pigs, lived in South America approximately 3 million years ago. It is the largest fossil rodent ever found, with an estimated body mass of 1000 kg and was similar in size to a buffalo.
One in three people say they would risk living a shorter life instead of taking a daily pill to prevent cardiovascular disease, according to new research in Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, an American Heart Association journal.
ow a brilliant-green sea slug manages to live for months at a time "feeding" on sunlight, like a plant, is clarified in a recent study published in The Biological Bulletin.
The authors present the first direct evidence that the emerald green sea slug's chromosomes have some genes that come from the algae it eats.
These genes help sustain photosynthetic processes inside the slug that provide it with all the food it needs.
Small magnetic whirls may revolutionize future data storage and information processing if they can be moved rapidly and reliably in small structures. A team of scientists of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) and TU Berlin, together with colleagues from the Netherlands and Switzerland, has now been able to investigate the dynamics of these whirls experimentally. The skyrmions, as these tiny whirls are called after the British nuclear physicist Tony Skyrme, follow a complex trajectory and even continue to move after the external excitation is switched off.
Volcanic ash poses a significant hazard for areas close to volcanoes and for aviation. For example, the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland, clearly demonstrated that even small-to-moderate explosive eruptions, in particular if long-lasting, can paralyze entire sectors of societies, with significant, global-level, economic impacts.
In this open-access Geology article, Irene Manzella and colleagues present the first quantitative description of the dynamics of gravitational instabilities and particle aggregation based on the 4 May 2010 eruption.
Lab-on-a-chip (LOC) systems have registered tremendous progress over the past 20 years. Myriad "chip" schemes have already emerged, ranging from the lung-on-a-chip and heart-on-a-chip to the liver-on-a-chip and kidney-on-a-chip.
However, an ideal embryo-on-a-chip has not yet been developed due to challenges in condensing so many life factors inside a conventional LOC.