Combine the tree-ring growth record with historical information, climate records, and computer-model projections of future climate trends, and you get a grim picture for the future of trees in the southwestern United States. That’s the word from a team of scientists from Los Alamos National Laboratory, the U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Arizona, and…
Fish species are expected to shrink in size by up to 24% because of global warming, say scientists. Researchers modeled the impact of rising temperatures on more than 600 species between 2001 and 2050. Warmer waters could decrease ocean oxygen levels and significantly reduce fish body weight. The scientists argue that failure to control greenhouse…
The Higgs boson, the pope, and the curious interaction between organized religion and big science.
Neuroscientists have found brain cells that compute value. Why are economists ignoring them?
Hypothesis: Scientists have a superior ability to root out gender bias in their labs because they are trained to rigorously reject subjective criteria. Experimental result: Naaahhh. Yale University researchers asked 127 scientists to review a job application of identically qualified male and female students and found that the faculty members – both men and women…
Using an innocuous bacterial virus, bioengineers have created a biological mechanism to send genetic messages from cell to cell. The system greatly increases the complexity and amount of data that can be communicated between cells and could lead to greater control of biological functions within cell communities. The researchers, Monica Ortiz, a doctoral candidate in…
Move forward. High-five your neighbor. Turn around. Repeat. That’s the winning formula of one of the world’s smallest predators, the soil bacteria Myxococcus xanthus, and a new study by scientists at Rice University and the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) Medical School shows how Myxococcus xanthus uses the formula to spread,…
There seems to be little that distinguishes the indigenous Tsimane of northern Bolivia from dozens of other native Amazonian peoples. They still live in small communities, fishing daily, hunting and relying on subsistence farming. They remain relatively isolated from the outside world. They still have large families and fall victim to parasites, worms and infectious…
The climate change we are currently experiencing, while disconcerting and increasingly uncomfortable, is not unprecedented when viewed through the historical prism of life on Earth. A study led by researchers from Texas A&M University’s Department of Oceanography looks back at the water cycle that affected the Western United States in an era dating back some…
The vast majority of the world’s fisheries are declining but could recover if properly managed, according to a paper published in the journal Science. The statistical analysis marks the first time researchers have assessed the globe’s roughly 10,000 fishing areas, more than 80% of which are unregulated. The group of five American scientists who wrote…