Ecosystems
- Humans
Infected bats can recover . . . with lots of help
Researchers reported new data today confirming that with enough coddling, many heavily infected bats can recover. The rub: These scientists also pointed out that there really aren’t sufficient resources to save more than a handful this way.
- Earth
Eels point to suffocating Gulf floor
In June, scientists predicted that the Gulf of Mexico’s annual dead zone — a subsea region where the water contains too little oxygen to support life — might develop into the biggest ever. In fact, that didn’t happen. Owing to the fortuitous arrival of stormy weather, this year’s dead zone peaked at about 6,800 square miles, scientists reported on Aug. 1 — big but far from the record behemoth of 9,500 square miles that had been mentioned as distinctly possible.
- Life
Microbes may sky jump to new hosts
The role of microbes in cloud formation and precipitation may not be an accident of chemistry so much as an evolutionary adaptation by certain bacteria and other nonsentient beings, a scientist posited at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
- Humans
Geographic profiling fights disease
Widely used to snare serial criminals, a forensic method finds application in epidemiology.
- Earth
Warming dents corn and wheat yields
Rising temperatures have decreased global grain production and may be partly responsible for food price increases.
- Chemistry
Plants and predators pick same poison
Zygaena caterpillars and their herbaceous hosts independently evolved an identical recipe for cyanide.
- Paleontology
Supersized superbunny
Fossils reveal a non-hopping giant rabbit that lived on the island of Minorca 5 million years ago.
- Life
Songbird’s testosterone surges at sight of thistle blooms
Seeing the right flowers in summer temperatures triggers male goldfinches’ reproductive readiness.
- Science & Society
Methane from BP spill goes missing
Latest sampling suggests either that microbes have already devoured the most abundant hydrocarbon produced by the leak — or that researchers have simply lost track of it.
- Life
Genes separate Africa’s elephant herds
Genetic work reveals forest and savanna pachyderms as distinct species.
- Earth
Bugged forests bad for climate
Trees savaged by pine beetles are slow to recover their ecological function as greenhouse gas sponges.
- Earth
Climate action could save polar bears
Cutting fossil fuel emissions soon would retain enough sea ice habitat for threatened species, scientists say.
