Earth

A new research project has shown how soybean can be bred to better tolerate soil salinity. The researchers from the University of Adelaide in Australia and the Institute of Crop Sciences in the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences in Beijing have identified a specific gene in soybean that has great potential for soybean crop improvement.

A detailed study of the motions of different stellar populations in the disk of the Andromeda galaxy has found striking differences from our own Milky Way, suggesting a more violent history of mergers with smaller galaxies in Andromeda's recent past.

The structure and internal motions of the stellar disk of a spiral galaxy hold important keys to understanding the galaxy's formation history. The Andromeda galaxy, also called M31, is the closest spiral galaxy to the Milky Way and the largest in the local group of galaxies.

In 1833, Constantin Wilhelm Lambert Gloger published his key observation that warm-blooded animals tend to be more heavily pigmented or darker the closer they live to the equator.

Everyone who has lived in snow knows it is not as white as it looks - it's rarely white at all. Mixed in with the reflective flakes are tiny, dark particles of pollution. University of Washington scientists recently published the first large-scale survey of impurities in North American snow to see whether they might absorb enough sunlight to speed melt rates and influence climate.

A team of researchers has demonstrated the therapeutic potential of triheptanoin in ten patients with Huntington's disease. Derivatives of this triglyceride, with its unique composition, might be able to slow the progression of the disease by improving the energy metabolism of the brain. This research is published in the journal Neurology.

The ability of many plant species to recognize and their own pollen enables them to avoid inbreeding and the genetic defects that brings. Plants recognize their own pollen by a molecular mechanism, known as 'self-incompatibility' or 'SI'. Previous studies revealed that plants and animals have evolved so-called one-to-one self-recognition systems where a single male protein is capable of recognizing a single female protein which can trigger a pollen rejection response.

A study has found that evolution can downgrade or entirely remove adaptations a species has previously acquired, such as limb loss in snakes, giving the species new survival advantages.

The researchers focused their attention on geckos, specifically the adhesive system that allows geckos to cling to surfaces. They found that species of geckos in which the adhesive system was either lost or simplified saw elevated rates of evolution related to morphology and locomotion.

Winter weather can mean treacherous driving across much of the country. Road crews spread rock salt all over the highways and byways.

Though environmentalists and the academics who give them cultural ammunition don't like salt on roads, it works a whole lot better than the expensive vegetable juice alternatives that get promoted. But why?

Whether you are a Pygmy in the Congolese rainforest or a hipster in Canada, certain aspects of music will touch you in exactly the same ways, according to a team of researchers from McGill, Technische Universität Berlin, and the University of Montreal. They arrived at this conclusion after traveling deep into the rainforest to play music to a very isolated group of people, the Mbenzélé Pygmies, who live without access to radio, television or electricity.

A new study has found that removing native forest and putting in farms can accelerate erosion so dramatically that in a few decades as much soil is lost as would naturally occur over thousands of years.

Had you stood on the banks of the Roanoke, Savannah, or Chattahoochee Rivers a hundred years ago, you'd have seen a lot more clay soil washing down to the sea than before European settlers began clearing trees and farming there in the 1700s. Around the world, deforestation and food productions have been blamed for increasing erosion above its natural rate.

The holidays can be a time for binge watching TV shows or movies and that's fine, and all of those hours in front of the television may lead to increased snacking, which can also be fine. It's when that happens year 'round that problems occur.

A recent University of Houston study conducted by professor Temple Northup suggests people who watch excessive amounts of TV tend to eat more unhealthy foods and might not understand the foundations of a healthy diet.

A third of oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80% of current coal reserves globally should remain in the ground and not be used before 2050 if global warming is to stay below the 2°C target agreed by policy makers, according to new research by the UCL Institute for Sustainable Resources.

The study funded by the UK Energy Research Centre and published in Nature today, also identifies the geographic location of existing reserves that should remain unused and so sets out the regions that stand to lose most from achieving the 2°C goal.

The best material to keep carbon dioxide from natural gas wells from fouling the atmosphere may be a derivative of asphalt, according to a new paper.

Rock soil droplets formed by heating are part of the evidence used to content that a disastrous cosmic impact 12,900 years ago triggered the Younger Dryas cold period.

Most likely those droplets came from Stone Age house fires, according to new research of soil from Syria.

Cirrhosis of the liver is more common than previously thought, affecting more than 633,000 adults yearly, according to a new study.

Surprisingly, 69 percent of the adults identified as possibly having cirrhosis may not know they have the disease.