SciGlow | All Science News In One Place
SciGlow is a newsletter of science stories from the major research labs. Headlines link to in-depth articles and editorials. SciGlow keeps scientists and others up-to-date on current research.
Lake Garda has not yet revealed all of its secrets. This attractive tourist destination, unique for its physical and environmental characteristics, is also a case study for several international research teams. One of these, made up of scientists from the universities of Trento and Utrecht, has just made a new and unexpected discovery: the planetary … Read more
Privately-owned, fragmented forests in Costa Rica can support as many vulnerable bird species as can nearby nature reserves, according to a study from the University of California, Davis. The research suggests that working with landowners to conserve or restore forests on working landscapes can help protect wildlife. In Costa Rica, working landscapes include forest patches, … Read more
Nearly one-fifth of the world’s population lives in a stressed water basin where the next climate change-driven incident could threaten access to an essential resource for agriculture, industry and life itself, according to a paper by University of California, Irvine researchers and others, published today in Nature Sustainability. The study’s authors analyzed trends in global water … Read more
Researchers at The Ohio State University have created high-resolution maps of points around the globe where groundwater meets the oceans–the first such analysis of its kind, giving important data points to communities and conservationists to help protect both drinking water and the seas. In a study published June 3 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, the … Read more
Winters in the northern hemisphere are brutal. The harsh conditions drive some species to hibernate; bears reduce their metabolic state to conserve energy until spring. Forests also endure winter by conserving energy; they shut down photosynthesis, the process by which a green pigment called chlorophyll captures sunlight and carbon dioxide (CO2) to produce the chemical … Read more
Type “sea-level rise” in an internet search engine and almost all the resulting images will show flooded cities, with ample guidance on civic options for protecting urban infrastructure, from constructing seawalls to elevating roadways. But a new review article in Nature Climate Change highlights the growing recognition that sea-level rise will mostly impact rural land–much of it … Read more
Human language and communication skills are unique in the animal kingdom. How they developed in the course of evolution is being researched, among other things, using the alarm call system of vervet monkeys. East African vervet monkeys warn their conspecifics against predators with special alarm calls that mean “leopard”, “eagle” or “snake”. In a recently … Read more
The ROSETTA-Ice project, a three-year, multi-institutional data collection survey of Antarctic ice, has assembled an unprecedented view of the Ross Ice Shelf, its structure and how it has been changing over time. In a study published today in Nature Geoscience, the ROSETTA-Ice team members detail how they discovered an ancient geologic structure that restricts where ocean … Read more
University of Exeter scientists compared the colour patterns of common shore crabs (Carcinus maenas) from rock pools with those living on mudflats. They found that crabs from mudflats closely matched the appearance of the mud they live on, while rockpool crabs did not match the background but instead relied on “disruptive colouration” – the use … Read more
Scientists have long sought to understand how coral reefs support such an abundance of fish life despite their location in nutrient-poor waters. According to a new study published May 23 in the journal Science, an unlikely group fuels these communities: tiny, mostly bottom-dwelling creatures called “cryptobenthic” reef fishes. The study shows that these fishes perform a … Read more