5,531 results
5,531 results for: Forests
- Archaeology
Humans moved into African rainforests at least 150,000 years ago
This oldest known evidence of people living in tropical forests supports an idea that human evolution occurred across Africa.
- Animals
Guppies fall for a classic optical illusion. Doves, usually, do too
Comparing animals’ susceptibility to optical illusions can show how perception evolved.
- Microbes
Antarctic lake microbes have flexible survival strategies
Life teems under the Antarctic ice sheet. In subglacial Lake Mercer, it is surprisingly versatile and isolated from the rest of the world.
- Archaeology
Precolonial farmers thrived in one of North America’s coldest places
Ancestral Menominee people in what’s now Michigan’s Upper Peninsula grew maize and other crops on large tracts of land despite harsh conditions.
- Ecosystems
Extinct moa ate purple trufflelike fungi, fossil bird droppings reveal
DNA analysis reveals the big, flightless moa birds ate — and pooped out — 13 kinds of fungi, including ones crucial for New Zealand’s forest ecosystem.
- Earth
Recycled glass could help fend off coastal erosion
Sand made from recycled glass can be mixed with sediment to make a medium for plants to grow in. That can help with coastal restoration projects.
- Plants
Some tropical trees act as lightning rods to fend off rivals
Though being struck by lightning is usually bad, the tropical tree Dipteryx oleifera benefits. A strike kills other nearby trees and parasitic vines.
- Animals
The mystery of melting sea stars may finally be solved
A bacterium called Vibrio pectenicida may be melting sea stars along North America’s Pacific coast.
- Health & Medicine
‘Butt breathing’ could help people who can’t get oxygen the regular way
Takanori Takebe’s strange investigation into whether humans can use the gut for breathing has surprisingly sentimental origins: helping his dad.
- Animals
Some of Sydney’s koalas are chlamydia-free, but still at risk
Southwestern Sydney's koalas have avoided the chlamydia outbreak threatening the entire species. But their isolation has left them extremely inbred.
- Climate
Unearthed ice may be the Arctic’s oldest buried glacier remnant
Thanks to climate change, thawing permafrost in the Canadian Arctic has revealed the buried remnant of a glacier that’s 770,000 years old.
- Climate
Some trees are coping with extreme heat surprisingly well
Rising temperatures could reduce trees' ability to photosynthesize. Scientists are trying to figure out just how close we are to that point.
