ScienceDaily · Page 5

A new study reveals that the aerobic nitrogen cycle in the ocean may have occurred about 100 million years before oxygen began to significantly accumulate in the atmosphere, based on nitrogen isotope analysis from ancient South African rock cores. These…

Scientists have documented the way a single gene in the bacterium that causes bubonic plague, Yersinia pestis, allowed it to survive hundreds of years by adjusting its virulence and the length of time it took to kill its victims, but these forms of plague…

Lightweight, powerful lithium-ion batteries are crucial for the transition to electric vehicles, and global demand for lithium is set to grow rapidly over the next 25 years. A new analysis looks at how new mining operations and battery recycling could meet…

Replanting forests can help cool the planet even more than some scientists once believed, especially in the tropics. But even if every tree lost since the mid-19th century is replanted, the total effect won't cancel out human-generated warming.

A new concept of kinetic modules in biochemical networks could revolutionize the understanding of how these networks function. Scientists succeeded in linking the structure and dynamics of biochemical networks via kinetic modules, thus clarifying a systems…

New research brings together 7,000 years of history in South Arabia to show how ancient pastoralists changed placement and construction of monuments over time in the face of environmental and cultural forces.

This study measured the growth rate of coral reefs in Honaunau Bay, Hawaii, using on-site data gathering and aerial imagery. Researchers found that the reefs are being eroded by sea urchin populations which have exploded due to overfishing in the area. The…

Close to five million smuggled seahorses worth an estimated CAD$29 million were seized by authorities over a 10-year span, according to a new study that warns the scale of the trade is far larger than current data suggest. The study analyzed online seizure…

A pioneering method to simulate how microscopic particles move through the air could boost efforts to combat air pollution, a study suggests.

A new study has found that a smartphone app that tracks household water use and alerts users to leaks or excessive consumption offers a promising tool for helping California water agencies meet state-mandated conservation goals. The study found that use of the…

When formulating climate policy, too little attention is paid to social factors and too much to technological breakthroughs and economic reasons. Because citizens are hardly heard in this process, European governments risk losing public support at a crucial…

Scientists, who have spent more than a decade examining the impact of artificial light at night on the world's coasts and oceans, have shown that more than one-fifth of the global ocean -- an area spanning more than 75 million sq km -- has been the subject of…

Flowers grow stems, leaves and petals in a perfect pattern again and again. A new study shows that even in this precise, patterned formation in plants, gene activity inside individual cells is far more chaotic than it appears.

In biology, enzymes have evolved over millions of years to drive chemical reactions. Scientists have now derived universal rules to enable the de novo design of optimal enzymes. As an example, they considered the enzymatic reaction of breaking a dimer into two…

A group of fossils of elasmosaurs -- some of the most famous in North America -- have just been formally identified as belonging to a 'very odd' new genus of the sea monster, unlike any previously known. This primitive 85-million-year-old, 12 meter-long,…

A new study uses metabolic profiling to uncover ancient knowledge systems behind therapeutic and psychoactive plant use in ancient Arabia.

New international research demonstrates global-scale patterns in how El Ni o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) influences mangrove growth and degradation. Previously, impacts had only been documented at individual sites, such as a dramatic die-off in northern…

Cold-adapted animals started to evolve 2.6 million years ago when the permanent ice at the poles became more prevalent. There followed a time when the continental ice sheets expanded and contracted and around 700,000 years ago the cold periods doubled in…

New research shows how rapidly proliferating turf algae are waging 'chemical warfare' to inhibit the recovery of kelp forests along Maine's warming coast.

Research reveals that for C. elegans worms, the presence of dead members of their species has profound behavioral and physiological effects, leading them to more quickly reproduce and shortening their lifespans.