Earth
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Climate
Desert songbirds increasingly at risk of dehydration
With no efforts to curb climate warming, hot spots in the U.S. Southwest could turn uninhabitable for some songbirds.
By Susan Milius -
Oceans
Fleeting dead zones can muck with seafloor life for decades
Low-oxygen conditions can fundamentally disrupt seafloor ecosystems and increase carbon burial, new research shows.
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Earth
Dual magma plumes fueled volcanic eruptions during final days of dinosaurs
Two magma plumes fueled the Deccan volcanic eruptions around the time of the dinosaur extinction 66 million years ago.
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Climate
Hot nests, not vanishing males, are bigger sea turtle threat
Climate change overheating sea turtle nestlings may be a greater danger than temperature-induced shifts in their sex ratios.
By Susan Milius -
Earth
Oxygen flooded Earth’s atmosphere earlier than thought
The Great Oxidation Event that enabled the eventual evolution of complex life began 100 million years earlier than once thought, new dating of South African rock suggests.
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Anthropology
DNA points to millennia of stability in East Asian hunter-fisher population
Ancient hunter-gatherers in East Asia are remarkably similar, genetically, to modern people living in the area. Unlike what happened in Western Europe, this region might not have seen waves of farmers take over.
By Meghan Rosen -
Genetics
CRISPR used in cows to help fight tuberculosis
Chinese researchers used a CRISPR/Cas 9 gene editor to make cows more resistant to tuberculosis.
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Genetics
CRISPR used in cows to help fight tuberculosis
Chinese researchers used a CRISPR/Cas 9 gene editor to make cows more resistant to tuberculosis.
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Oceans
Cone snails wander in circles, lose focus with boosted CO2
Deadly cone snails wander in circles and become less capable hunters when exposed to higher levels of carbon dioxide in seawater.
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Oceans
Cone snails wander in circles, lose focus with boosted CO2
Deadly cone snails wander in circles and become less capable hunters when exposed to higher levels of carbon dioxide in seawater.
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Earth
3-billion-year-old crystals hint at lost continent’s fate
Zircon crystals from a long-gone continent called Mauritia may have resurfaced during volcanic eruptions on the island of Mauritius in the Indian Ocean.
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Oceans
Climate change may boost toxic mercury levels in sea life
Increased runoff to the ocean due to climate change could raise neurotoxic mercury in coastal sea life by disrupting the base of the food web.