Why is it that certain mammals have an exceptional sense of smell, some hibernate, and yet others, including humans, are predisposed to disease? A major international research project has surveyed and analyzed the genomes of 240 different mammals. The results show how the genomes of humans and other mammals have...
Machine Learning Helps Scientists Identify the Environmental Preferences of Microbes
Researchers have figured out a way to predict bacteria’s environmental pH preferences from a quick look at their genomes, using machine learning.
The Reasons Why Insect Numbers Are Decreasing
Throughout the world we are witnessing not just a decline in the numbers of individual insects, but also a collapse of insect diversity. Major causes of this worrying trend are land-use intensification in the form of greater utilization for agriculture and building development as well as climate change and the...
How Solid Air Can Spur Sustainable Development
The green hydrogen economy is a sustainable alternative to fossil fuels. However, one of the challenges of constructing a global hydrogen economy is hydrogen transportation by sea. A new paper proposes solid air as a medium for recycling cold energy across the hydrogen liquefaction supply chain.
Chemists tackle the tough challenge of recycling mixed plastics
Polymer chemists have been finding ways to tackle the environmental problems humans have created with plastics waste. Now, a team has come up with fundamental new chemistry that seeds a creative solution to the challenge of recycling mixed-use plastics.
New findings indicate gene-edited rice might survive in Martian soil
New research suggests future Martian botanists may be able to grow gene-edited rice on Mars.
Male California sea lions are becoming bigger and better fighters as their population rebounds
California sea lions have managed to maintain -- and, in the case of males, increase -- their average body size as their population grows and competition for food becomes fiercer. This is in contrast to other marine mammals, whose average body size tends to decrease as their numbers increase. Researchers...
Hippos Are in Trouble. Will an Endangered Listing Save Them?
Thanks to years of campaigning by wildlife conservation groups, it’s widely known that Africa’s elephants and rhinos are threatened by the trade in their valuable tusks and horns.
Naturally Fire-Prone Ecosystems Tend to Have More Species of Birds and Mammals, a New Study Reveals
Wildfires. Many see them as purely destructive forces, disasters that blaze through a landscape, charring everything in their paths.
Elephant Ecosystems in Decline
More than 3 million square kilometers of the Asian elephant’s historic habitat range has been lost in just three centuries, a new report from an international scientific team led by a University of California San Diego researcher reveals.