Earth

Coral bleaching, which often results in the mass mortality of corals and in the collapse of coral reef ecosystems, has become an important issue around the world, with the number of coral reefs decreasing annually, according to associate Professor Kazuhiko Koike and Ms. Lisa Fujise of Hiroshima University and collaborators. They have proposed mechanisms that might cause coral bleaching and damage.

When the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve, champagne bottles get popped all around the world.

So what is it exactly that sends that cork flying? And what's the best way to pour your bubbly?

Credit: The American Chemical Society

This week, Reactions gives you plenty of champagne facts and tips to impress your fellow partygoers as you ring in the New Year.

Researchers at the Integrative Prehistory and Archaeological Science center (IPAS) at the University of Basel examined samples from the "Basel-Gasfabrik" Celtic settlement, at the present day site of Novartis. The settlement was inhabited around 100 B.C. and is one of the most significant Celtic sites in Central Europe. The team found the durable eggs of roundworms (Ascaris sp.), whipworms, (Trichuris sp.) and liver flukes (Fasciola sp.). The eggs of these intestinal parasites were discovered in the backfill of 2000 year-old storage and cellar pits from the Iron Age.

An increase in human-made carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could initiate a chain reaction between plants and microorganisms that would unsettle one of the largest carbon reservoirs on the planet -- soil.

University of Guelph researchers hope a new discovery will help combat a disease killing honeybee populations around the world. The researchers have found a toxin released by the pathogen that causes American foulbrood disease -- Paenibacillus larvae (P. larvae) -- and developed a lead-based inhibitor against it.

Scientists report they they have 'turned back the clock on human cells' and created primordial germ cells - the embryonic cells that give rise to sperm and ova - in the lab, the first time that human cells have been programmed into this early developmental stage.

The results published in Cell could help provide answers as to the causes of fertility problems.

They slither, they hiss, they... fly.

Don't let their wingless bodies fool you--some snakes can glide as far as 100 feet through the air, jumping off tree branches and rotating their ribs to flatten their bodies and move from side to side. New research from a George Washington University professor investigates the workings behind the flight and whether they can be applied to mechanical issues.

A mouse study finds that a high-fat diet and obesity during pregnancy compromise the blood-forming, or hematopoietic, stem cell system in the fetal liver responsible for creating and sustaining lifelong blood and immune system function.

The life-long burden of a western-style diet on the heart and circulatory system have long been appreciated. However, prior to this study, no one had considered whether the developing blood stem cells might be similarly vulnerable to prenatal high-fat diet and/or maternal obesity. The findings are published in the journal Molecular Metabolism.

About one tenth of the world's ants are close relatives; they all belong to just one genus out of 323, called Pheidole. "If you go into any tropical forest and take a stroll, you will step on one of these ants," says Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University's Professor Evan Economo. Pheidole fill niches in ecosystems ranging from rainforests to deserts.

There is a belief that human echolocation operates as a viable "sense," working in tandem with other senses to deliver information to people with visual impairment, and a new paper finds proof for the vision-like qualities of echolocation in blind echolocators wrongly judging how heavy objects of different sizes felt.

Stable, frozen ground has long been recognized a logger's friend, capable of supporting equipment and trucks in marshy or soggy forests. Now, a comprehensive look at weather from 1948 onward shows that the logger's friend is melting.

Results of an early-stage clinical trial of two experimental vaccines against Ebola and Marburg viruses, the first to be completed in an African country, showed that they were safe and induced immune responses in healthy Ugandan adult volunteers.

Retail sales increase by nearly 50 per cent when shops are upgraded, according to a new marketing analysis.

Researchers from Monash University's Department of Marketing looked at the effect on both first-time visitors and existing customers when retailers undertake major remodeling of their premises.

Professor Tracey Danaher said stores were remodeled every seven to 10 years on average. As shopping is an important part of daily life for many people, the financial return on investment had the potential to be substantial.

Russian scientists from the Space Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), together with their French and American colleagues, have created a 'map' of the distribution of water vapour in Mars' atmosphere. Their research includes observations of seasonal variations in atmospheric concentrations using data collected over ten years by the Russian-French SPICAM spectrometer aboard the Mars Express orbiter. This is the longest period of observation and provides the largest volume of data about water vapour on Mars.

Researchers have found that a Rocky Mountain mustard plant alters its physical appearance and flowering time in response to different environmental conditions, suggesting some species can quickly shape-shift to cope with climate change without having to migrate or evolve.

The findings appear in the journal Global Change Biology. A PDF is available on request. The study was conducted by researchers from Dartmouth College and the University of South Carolina at the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory.