According to a new NASA-led study, the world has lost 561 square miles (1,453 square kilometers) of salt marshes over the past 20 years.
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Coupled Computer Modeling Can Help More Accurately Predict Coastal Flooding, Study Demonstrates
LSU researchers used a unique coupled computer modeling approach to accurately recreate the coastal flooding that occurred during Hurricane Florence, demonstrating that it is more accurate than traditional modeling approaches.
Megadrought: How the Current Southwestern North American Megadrought Is Affecting Earth’s Upper Atmosphere
New research, based on two decades’ worth of data, shows that in the ten years after its onset in 2000, the Southwestern North American (SWNA) megadrought caused a 30% change in gravity wave activity in Earth’s upper atmosphere.
World’s simplest animals get their place in the tree of life
The group with the world's simplest animals -- tiny blob-like life forms with no organs and just a few cell types -- finally has a fleshed-out family tree. The study comes more than 100 years after the discovery of these ameboid animals called placozoans and represents the first -- and...
Americans flocking to fire: National migration study
Americans are leaving many of the U.S. counties hit hardest by hurricanes and heatwaves -- and moving towards dangerous wildfires and warmer temperatures, says one of the largest studies of U.S. migration and natural disasters. These results are concerning, as wildfire and rising temperatures are projected to worsen with climate...
Ancient stone tools from China provide earliest evidence of rice harvesting
A new study analyzing stone tools from southern China provides the earliest evidence of rice harvesting, dating to as early as 10,000 years ago. The researchers identified two methods of harvesting rice, which helped initiate rice domestication.
Reading the room: Humans struggle to identify aggression in dogs, other humans
Researchers showed participants videos of human, dog, and macaque pairs to determine how well humans assess social interactions.
New virus discovered in Swiss ticks
The Alongshan virus was discovered in China only five years ago. Now researchers have found the novel virus for the first time in Swiss ticks. It appears to be at least as widespread as the tickborne encephalitis virus and causes similar symptoms. The team is working on a diagnostic test...
Countries bet on forests and soils to reach net-zero
New research highlights the risks of countries relying on nature-based solutions to achieve net-zero. National climate strategies set out how countries plan to reduce emissions, for example by phasing out fossil-fuel use, to get to net-zero in 2050. The study found, once the bulk of emissions have been reduced, countries...
Meteorites plus gamma rays could have given Earth the building blocks for life
Even as detailed images of distant galaxies from the James Webb Space Telescope show us more of the greater universe, scientists still disagree about how life began here on Earth. One hypothesis is that meteorites delivered amino acids -- life's building blocks -- to our planet. Now, researchers have experimentally...