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.
If current climate and crop-improvement trends continue into the future, Midwestern corn growers who today rely on rainfall to water their crops will need to irrigate their fields, a new study finds. This could draw down aquifers, disrupt streams and rivers, and set up conflicts between agricultural and other human and ecological needs for water, … Read more
Large predator fish such as snappers and very small fish such as damselfish dramatically reduced in number and were largely replaced by seaweed-loving fish like rabbitfish. Publishing in the journal Global Change Biology, researchers show clear evidence that coral bleaching back in 1998 has led to changes in biodiversity and permanent shifts in the range of … Read more
Some dinoflagellate plankton species are bioluminescent, with a remarkable ability to produce light to make themselves and the water they swim in glow. Now, researchers reporting in Current Biology on June 17 have found that for one dinoflagellate species (Lingulodinium polyedra), this bioluminescence is also a defense mechanism that helps them ward off the copepod grazers that … Read more
While a host of fascinating innovations are primed to change the face of agriculture, there remains a stubborn limiting factor for plant breeding. This is the long generation times of crops that allow only one or two generations per year. Unless this changes it is unlikely that we will be able to feed the 10 … Read more
Most fishing communities from North Carolina to Maine are projected to face declining fishing options unless they adapt to climate change by catching different species or fishing in different areas, according to a study in the journal Nature Climate Change. Some Maine fishing communities were at greatest risk of losing their current fishing options, according to … Read more
A recent study published in the peer-reviewed journal PeerJ – the Journal of Life and Environmental Sciences highlights the fact that the economic benefits of commodity export for primate habitat countries has been limited relative to the extreme environmental costs of pollution, habitat degradation, loss of biodiversity, continued food insecurity and the threat of emerging diseases. The world’s primate … Read more
A team of researchers from the University of Konstanz’s CRC 1214 “Anisotropic Particles as Building Blocks: Tailoring Shape, Interactions and Structures”, which has been funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) since 2016, has demonstrated a new aqueous polymerization procedure for generating polymer nanoparticles with a single chain and uniform shape, which, as another difference … Read more
New research published in the Journal of Natural History indicates that zebras’ stripes are used to control body temperature after all – and reveals for the first time a new mechanism for how this may be achieved. The authors argue it is the special way zebras sweat to cool down and the small-scale convection currents created between … Read more
Amazonian forests are unlikely to provide enough timber to meet current demand over the long term, even with the use of improved logging practices. That is a key finding of a new study led by the Tropical managed Forests Observatory (TmFO), published today in Environmental Research Letters. Dr Camille Piponiot, junior scientist from the University of … Read more
Intensifying climate change will increase the future risk of violent armed conflict within countries, according to a study published today in the journal Nature. Synthesizing views across experts, the study estimates climate has influenced between 3% and 20% of armed conflict risk over the last century and that the influence will likely increase dramatically. In … Read more