Ecosystems

Life

Victorian zoological map redrawn

Species distribution patterns that inspired Darwin and Wallace get an update.

Tech

Antarctic test of novel ice drill poised to begin

Any day now, a team of 40 scientists and support personnel expects to begin using a warm, high pressure jet of water to bore a 30 centimeter hole through 83 meters of ice. Once it breaks through to the sea below, they’ll have a few days to quickly sample life from water before the hole begins freezing up again. It's just a test. But if all goes well, in a few weeks the team will move 700 miles and bore an even deeper hole to sample for freshwater life that may have been living for eons outside even indirect contact with Earth’s atmosphere.

Humans

Warning to bats: Cuddle not

Ecologist Kate Langwig of Boston University and her colleagues want Eastern bats to listen up: No more cuddling — at least during hibernation. Just keep those wings to yourselves.

Ecosystems

Changing seasons inspire science

Researchers are tapping into the wealth of observations being made by citizen scientists nationwide. One of the largest repositories of such data is maintained by the USA National Phenology Network.

Life

Blue-green algae release chemical suspected in some amphibian deformities

Retinoic acid levels high in waterways rich in cyanobacteria blooms.

Animals

Bat killer hits endangered grays

The news on white-nose syndrome just keeps spiraling downward. The fungal infection, which first emerged six years ago, has now been confirmed in a seventh species of North American bats — the largely cave-dwelling grays (Myotis grisecens). The latest victims were struck while hibernating this past winter in two Tennessee counties.

Ecosystems

Darwin’s Devices

What Evolving Robots Can Teach Us About the History of Life and the Future of Technology, by John Long.

Animals

Better bird nesting also good for giant manta rays

Disrupting tree canopies on a Pacific atoll discourages big fish off shore through a long chain of ecological consequences.

Life

Climate change may leave many mammals homeless

In some places over the next century, projected warming threatens the survival of more than one in three species.

Humans

Bat killer is still spreading

Since 2006, some 6 million to 7 million North American bats have succumbed to white-nose syndrome, a virulent fungal disease. That figure, issued in January by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, at least sextupled the former estimate that biologists had been touting. But the sharp jump in the cumulative death toll isn’t the only disturbing new development. On April 2, scientists confirmed that white-nose fungus has apparently struck bats hibernating in two small Missouri caves. The first signs of clinical disease have also just emerged in Europe.

Humans

Yet another study links insecticide to bee losses

Since 2006, honeybee populations across North America have been hammered by catastrophic losses. Although this pandemic has a name — colony collapse disorder, or CCD — its cause has remained open to speculation. New experiments now strengthen the case for pesticide poisoning as a likely contributor.

Life

Rising carbon dioxide confuses brain signaling in fish

Nerve cells respond to acidifying waters.