Category: Americas
NEW YORK (NOVEMBER 16, 2009) -- Recording hundreds of thousands of individual uplinks from satellite transmitters fitted on penguins, albatrosses, sea lions, and other marine animals, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and BirdLife International have released the first-ever atlas of the Patagonian Sea -- a globally important but poorly understood South American marine ecosyste
Serious hikers and backpackers tend to become supporters of
environmental and conservation groups while casual woodland tourists do
not, a new study says -- and a recent fall-off in strenuous outdoor
endeavors portends a coming decline in the ranks of conservation
backers.
A new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder indicates most of the world's low-lying river deltas are sinking from human activity, making them increasingly vulnerable to flooding from rivers and ocean storms and putting tens of millions of people at risk.
Travelers to the neotropics -- the tropical lands of the Americas -- might be forgiven for thinking that all of the colorful insects flittering over sunny puddles or among dense forest understory are butterflies. In fact, many are not. Some are moths that have reinvented themselves as butterflies, converging on the daytime niche typically dominated by their less hairy relatives.
At one time or another most of us wonder where we came from, where our parents or grandparents and their parents came from. Did our ancestors come from Europe or Asia? As curious as we are about our ancestors, for practical purposes, we need to think about the ancestry of our genes, according to Cecil Lewis, assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Oklahoma.
You probably hadn't noticed -- but the head shape and overall size of rodents has been changing over the past century. A University of Illinois at Chicago ecologist has tied these changes to human population density and climate change.
The finding is reported by Oliver Pergams, UIC research assistant professor of biological sciences, in the July 31 issue of PLoS One.
Where the first Americans came from, when they arrived and how they got here is as lively a debate as ever, only most of the research to date has focused on dry land excavations. But, last summer's pivotal underwater exploration in the Gulf of Mexico led by Mercyhurst College archaeologist Dr.
Q. What do Alain Aspect, Kip Thorne, Anton Zeilinger, Sir Martin Rees, Raymond Laflamme, Neil Turok, Joseph Emerson and Simon Singh all have in common?
A. They are sharing fresh insights from the frontiers of science at the World Conference of Science Journalists in London on June 30th, 2009.
Researchers at the University of Leeds have devised a more accurate method of dating ancient human migration -- even when no corroborating archaeological evidence exists.
Densely packed wildebeests flowing over the Serengeti, bison teeming across the Northern Plains?these iconic images extend from Hollywood epics to the popular imagination. But the fact is, all of the world's large-scale terrestrial migrations have been severely reduced and a quarter of the migrating species are suspected to no longer migrate at all because of human changes to the landscape.
Driven by rising health care costs at home, nearly 1 million Californians cross the border each year to seek medical care in Mexico, according a new paper by UCLA researchers and colleagues published today in the journal Medical Care.
Detection of Campylobacter in Air Samples May Offer New Monitoring System for Broiler Flocks
Ecologists in Australia have discovered that cane toads are far more susceptible to being killed and eaten by meat ants than native frogs. Their research - published in the British Ecological Society's journal Functional Ecology - reveals a chink in the cane toad's armour that could help control the spread of this alien invasive species in tropical Australia.
Researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have for the first time identified a molecular pathway that triggers an immune response in multiple mosquito species capable of stopping the development of Plasmodium falciparum-the parasite that causes malaria in humans.
A survey of airborne fungi and fungal spores found in Eastern Puerto Rico suggests that certain species may be a major cause of the high incidence of childhood asthma in this part of the world.
