Earth
Ithaca, N.Y.-- Most of the money for protecting and conserving wildlife and habitat comes from government programs, philanthropic organizations, or the public. But conserving Earth's ecosystems and species requires hundreds of billions dollars more than what is currently spent. Fortunately, there might be another way. A new report called Innovative Finance for Conservation: Roles for Ecologists and Practitioners, explores how private investment could boost conservation in a big way.
LAWRENCE - Music educator Martin J. Bergee thought that if he could just control his study for the myriad factors that might have influenced previous ones - race, income, education, etc. -- he could disprove the notion of a link between students' musical and mathematical achievement.
Why do some people age faster than others? One potential answer, a new UCLA-led study indicates, is that a mother's stress prior to giving birth may accelerate her child's biological aging.
The researchers found evidence that maternal stress adversely affects the length of a baby's telomeres -- the small pieces of DNA at the ends of chromosomes that act as protective caps, like the plastic tips on shoelaces. Shortened telomeres have been linked to a higher risk of cancers, cardiovascular and other diseases, and earlier death.
Researchers at ETH Zurich have identified a self-?regulating mechanism in European deciduous trees that limits their growing-?season length: Trees that photosynthesise more in spring and summer lose their leaves earlier in autumn.
After the scientists of the Borexino experiment succeeded in detecting neutrinos from the sun's proton-proton chain in 2014, they now could also measure neutrinos from the sun's second fusion process, the Carbon Nitrogen Oxygen cycle (CNO cycle).
This means that all of the theoretical predictions on how energy is generated within the sun have now also been experimentally verified. The findings are the result of years of efforts devoted to bringing the background sources in the energy range of the CNO neutrinos under control.
Non-indigenous or alien species need to be appreciated for their potential benefits and not just the negative impacts they can have on the environment, according to new research.
In recent decades, there have been numerous examples of non-indigenous species (NIS) establishing a foothold and then causing harm in new environments. Meanwhile, others have had benefits for fisheries or replaced lost ecological functions.
Water sustains life on earth. The first life originated in an ancient sea, and since then, nearly every species that has existed in the past or lives today depends on the exact balance of salt and water (~145 mM; called body-fluid homeostasis or salt homeostasis) for survival. Humans can go weeks without food but will not last more than a few days without water, stressing the importance of this liquid.
The UK has is facing an uphill battle if it is to meet its ambitious target of halving maternal mortality by 2030 against a backdrop of increased social inequalities, increasing maternal age and obesity together with a rising number of caesarean sections, all contributory risk factors for maternal morbidity and mortality.
A research team from Kumamoto University in Japan has found that the combination of weak pulsed electrical current and heat exerts anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic effects in the kidneys, as well as a protective effect against nephrotic syndrome (NS) by inhibiting apoptosis (cell death) of kidney cells. Clinical data have shown that this type of physical treatment is safe and effective for humans. The researchers believe that it can be applied clinically to simultaneously target multiple NS factors.
As a complement to silicon-based photonic chips, lithium niobate thin film (LNOI) has become a research hotspot in the field of optoelectronic integration due to its outstanding nonlinear, electro-optic, acousto-optic, piezoelectric and other physical properties. On-chip integrated frequency multipliers, modulators, and filters based on lithium niobate thin films have been developed, but the on-chip integrated communication band light source is still in urgent need of development.
Japan -- Of all the exciting topics in the field of material and biochemical research, one of the hottest by far is unraveling the mysteries of spider silk.
Often claimed to be 'stronger than steel', the protein-based fibers have the potential to change the material world as we know it. However, despite decades of research, nobody has been able to mass produce spider silk, primarily because the exact method of how it's made is still shrouded in mystery.
Tree rings, with their special characteristics of precise dating, annual resolution, long time series and climate sensitivity, have been widely considered a useful proxy for past climate variations.
Researchers at the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences have given an overview on using tree rings to identify climate regime shifts in a perspective paper entitled "Tree rings circle an abrupt shift in climate," which was published in Science on Nov. 26.
Using barcodes to label and identify everyday items is as familiar as a trip to the supermarket. Imagine shrinking those barcodes a million times, from millimetre to nanometre scale, so that they could be used inside living cells to label, identify and track the building blocks of life or, blended into inks to prevent counterfeiting. This is the frontier of nanoengineering, requiring fabrication and controlled manipulation of nanostructures at atomic level - new, fundamental research, published in Nature Communications, shows the possibilities and opportunities ahead.
Mongolia's semi-arid plateau may soon become as barren as parts of the American Southwest due to a "vicious cycle" of heatwaves -- that exacerbates soil drying, and ultimately produces more heatwaves -- according to an international group of climate scientists.
Over the past 40,000 years, ice sheets thousands of kilometres apart have influenced one another through sea level changes, according to research published today in Nature. New modelling of ice sheet changes during the most recent glacial cycle by a McGill-led team offers a clearer idea of the mechanisms that drive change than had previously existed and explains newly available geological records. The study demonstrates, for the first time, that during this period, changes in the Antarctic ice sheet were driven by the melting ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere.