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Trashed farmland could be conservation treasure

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Low-productivity agricultural land could be transformed into millions of hectares of conservation reserve across the world, according to University of Queensland-led research. The research team proposed a new way of understanding the conservation value of “uncontested lands” – areas where agricultural productivity is low. Dr Zunyi Xie, from UQ’s School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, … Read more

Schmidt Ocean Institute maps one million square kilometers of seafloor and joins monumental mapping initiative

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Schmidt Ocean Institute has come together with The Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed 2030 Project for the joint signing of a Memorandum of Understanding to share all of its collected mapping data with the project. According to the Seabed 2030 Project, about 32 million square kilometers or 15% of the ocean has been mapped. The million square … Read more

Neuroscientists decipher a critical switch that controls brain state

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An international team of brain researchers achieved a breakthrough in uncovering a switch-like mechanism that flips the brain between two motivational states in larval zebrafish, a model organism in neuroscience. In one state, the fish slows down its movements and focuses on hunting for prey. In the opposing state, the animal speeds up and explores … Read more

Spreading the seeds of Indigenous knowledge

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Indigenous wisdom and modern science are helping to bring a highly nutritious seed to the world’s attention. University of Queensland ethnobotanist Dr Boyd Wright has been working with the Kiwirrkurra in Western Australia’s Gibson Desert, investigating the seed of the native tree, warrilyu (Eucalyptus pachyphylla). “This seed has been eaten by the Kiwirrkurra people for … Read more

Ancient Mediterranean seawall first known defense against sea level rise and it failed

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Ancient Neolithic villagers on the Carmel Coast in Israel built a seawall to protect their settlement against rising sea levels in the Mediterranean, revealing humanity’s struggle against rising oceans and flooding stretches back thousands of years. An international team of researchers from the University of Haifa, Flinders University in Australia, the Israel Antiquities Authority and … Read more

Caribbean settlement began in Greater Antilles, say University of Oregon researchers

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A fresh, comprehensive look at archaeological data suggests that seafaring South Americans settled first on the large northernmost islands of the Greater Antilles rather than gradually moving northward from the much closer, smaller islands of the Lesser Antilles. That pattern of movement emerged as an eight-member University of Oregon team reevaluated 2,500 radiocarbon results from … Read more

Permanent oscillations

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Predator-prey cycles are among the fundamental phenomena of ecological systems: the population sizes of predators and their prey, for instance foxes and hares, are frequently subject to regular oscillations. In a long-term experiment, an international team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Bernd Blasius from the University of Oldenburg observed these oscillations in rotifer and … Read more

Membrane inspired by bone and cartilage efficiently produces electricity from saltwater

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Inspired by membranes in the body tissues of living organisms, scientists have combined aramid nanofibers used in Kevlar with boron nitride to construct a membrane for harvesting ocean energy that is both strong like bone and suited for ion transport like cartilage. The research, published December 18 in the journal Joule, overcomes major design challenges … Read more