A new analysis of seven years of bird sightings by citizen scientist birdwatchers from the Seattle Audubon Society has found positive trends in several Puget Sound seabird species that had been in historic decline. The study tracked the occurrence of 18 seabird species at 62 sites around Puget Sound and found increased presence of 14 species, including cormorants, loons, rhinoceros auklets, and harlequin ducks. It also documented local hotspots for certain species, which may reflect especially important habitat or prey the birds depend on.
Earth
Dust from soil erosion due to wind can affect human health, traffic, and, on a larger scale, climate. Investigators compared different models that quantify how the wind energy spreads over an herbaceous surface using data from the Sahel region of Africa, where estimates of dust emissions remain uncertain.
They found that the modeling tools give results in reasonable agreement, indicating that vegetation can decrease the amount of dust emitted from soil erosion by 6% to 26% in mass compared with bare soil.
Finding a new species of dinosaur is pretty rare. Getting a hand in the discovery and naming of one - that's rarer still.
Or it would be for anyone other than 32-year-old Sterling Nesbitt, an assistant professor of geological sciences in the College of Science and the newest addition to Virginia Tech's paleontology team.
Nesbitt has been responsible for naming more than half a dozen reptiles (including dinosaurs) in his young career.
Scientists plumbing the depths of the ocean have made a surprise finding that could change the way we understand supernovae, exploding stars way beyond our solar system.
They have analysed extraterrestrial dust thought to be from supernovae, that has settled on ocean floors to determine the amount of heavy elements created by the massive explosions.
Researchers at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid have studied the stability of diverse arsenic species found in edible marine algae and have established the best conditions for their storage and preservation.
By developing a specific analytical method, members from the research group of Materials Technology and Environment (TEMATMA) of the School of Civil Engineering of Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM) have studied the stability of diverse chemical species of arsenic found in the edible alga Hijiki (Hizikia fusiformis) both in the dry sample and in its water extracts.
Researchers may have solved one of the biggest mysteries in geology - why tectonic plates beneath the Earth's surface, which normally shift over the course of tens to hundreds of millions of years, sometimes move abruptly.
A new paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences says the answer comes down to two things: thick crustal plugs and weakened mineral grains. Those effects, acting together, may explain a range of relatively speedy moves among tectonic plates around the world, from Hawaii to East Timor.
Earth's earliest primates have taken a step up in the world, now that researchers have gotten a good look at their ankles.
A new study has found that Purgatorius, a small mammal that lived on a diet of fruit and insects, was a tree dweller. Paleontologists made the discovery by analyzing 65-million-year-old ankle bones collected from sites in northeastern Montana.
Strategies for delaying insect resistance to transgenic crops rely on assumptions that often are overly optimistic, a new study led by UA scientists shows. Published as an advance online publication by the journal Nature Biotechnology, the findings could improve management practices for current biotech crops and promote development of new varieties that are more effective and more durable.
As the Earth warms and glaciers all over the world begin to melt, researchers and public policy experts have focused largely on how all of that extra water will contribute to sea level rise.
But another impact lurking in that inevitable scenario is carbon. More specifically, what happens to all of the organic carbon found in those glaciers when they melt?
A group of white blood cells known as B cells play a key role in the human immune response but need a protein-targeting signal called mannose 6-phosphate (M6P) in order to proliferate, differentiate, and present immune cell-activating antigens, according to a study in The Journal of Cell Biology.
A variety of wheat that is resistant to a destructive fungal disease has been found to have specialized and protective cell walls, according to research published in BMC Plant Biology. These insights could help to produce stronger, disease-resistant varieties of durum wheat for improved pasta production.
The year 2014 ranks as Earth's warmest since 1880, according to two separate analyses by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists.
The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000. This trend continues a long-term warming of the planet, according to an analysis of surface temperature measurements by scientists at NASA's Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) in New York.
The use of animal translocations as a means to mitigate construction projects and other human developments is a widespread animal-management tool. A paper published today, produced through collaboration of conservationists from San Diego Zoo Global, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, University of Kent UK, University of Newcastle and Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, reviews the success rates associated with these moves from a species-conservation standpoint.
New evidence for anthropic theory that fundamental physics constants underlie life-enabling universe
or nearly half a century, theoretical physicists have made a series of discoveries that certain constants in fundamental physics seem extraordinarily fine-tuned to allow for the emergence of a life-enabling universe.
Organic semiconductors are prized for light emitting diodes (LEDs), field effect transistors (FETs) and photovoltaic cells. As they can be printed from solution, they provide a highly scalable, cost-effective alternative to silicon-based devices. Uneven performances, however, have been a persistent problem. Scientists have known that the performance issues originate in the domain interfaces within organic semiconductor thin films, but have not known the cause. This mystery now appears to have been solved.