Feature Channels: Nature

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Global data set shows monthly water use by irrigation, manufacturing, and other uses, helping researchers to analyze water use by region and season.

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Alien species are the main driver of recent extinctions in both animals and plants, according to a new study by UCL researchers.

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An international team of researchers from the University of Oxford, the University of Birmingham and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev have found that the way in which people use the internet is closely tied to patterns and rhythms in the natural world.

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Hunter Hines has turned to Instagram to engage audiences in scientific exchange across the world and has come up with the right formula for success. He is encouraging other scientists to follow suit. His Instagram account @microbialecology currently has 55,000 followers and at the end of 2018, his account received more than 1.4 million views in a single week. The authors share their experience and knowledge about using social media in microbiology outreach at a global scale.

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Maasai farmers do not kill lions for retribution whenever they lose sheep or cattle, new research shows.

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An international group of researchers working on a wide range of species, from elephants and crows, to whales and chimpanzees, argues that animals' cultural knowledge needs to be taken into consideration when planning international conservation efforts.

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Children who grow up with greener surroundings have up to 55% less risk of developing various mental disorders later in life. This is shown by a new study from Aarhus University, Denmark, emphasizing the need for designing green and healthy cities for the future.

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A new review of more than 140 studies explores the physiological dangers that climate change will likely have on animal life, including humans. The review is published in the journal Physiology.

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Want to help pollinators? Gardens with more woody vegetation provide additional food and shelter.

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How do fruit flies grow their wings? Rutgers scientists discovered a surprising answer that could one day help diagnose and treat human genetic diseases. Even when scientists manipulate cells to change how they divide, the shape of a fruit fly’s wing remains the same. The discovery changes the scientific understanding of how organs form, according to a Rutgers University–New Brunswick study in Current Biology.

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When a honey bee turns 21 days old, she leaves the nest to look for pollen and nectar. For her, this is a moment of great risk, and great reward. It’s also the moment at which she becomes recognizable to other bees.

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New research reveals that foreign honey bees often account for more than 90 percent of pollinators observed visiting flowers in San Diego, a global biodiversity hotspot. The monopoly may strongly affect species that are foundational to the stability of the region’s plant-pollinator interactions.

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The stripes of a zebra deter horse flies from landing on them, according to a new study published February 20, 2019 in the open-access journal PLOS One by Tim Caro of the University of California Davis, Martin How of the University of Bristol, and colleagues.

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The story that's often told about crocodiles is that they're among the most perfectly adapted creatures on the planet - living fossils that have remained virtually unchanged for millions of years.

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Simply protecting small forests will not maintain the diversity of the birds they support over the long run, a Rutgers-led study says. Forests need to be carefully monitored and managed to maintain their ecological integrity.

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American kestrel. Chinese mantis. Candleflame lichen. The highly diverse list of species spotted at Rutgers University may be unique globally. Indeed, more than 1,600 kinds of animals, insects, plants and other life forms have been reported so far at 24 Rutgers campuses and properties across New Jersey as part of a new long-term “Flora and Fauna of Rutgers University” biodiversity project.

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Thomas Crowther identifies long-disappeared forests available for restoration across the world. He will describe how there is room for an additional 1.2 trillion new trees around the world that could absorb more carbon than human emissions each year.

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Matto Mildenberger, University of California Santa Barbara explains how perceived experiences with climate change in the United States can be linked to political shifts in Congress, culture and society.

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The rich levels of biodiversity on land seen across the globe today are not a recent phenomenon: diversity on land has been similar for at least the last 60 million years, since soon after the extinction of the dinosaurs.

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Researchers at Berkeley Lab have used one of the most advanced microscopes in the world to reveal the structure of a large protein complex crucial to photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert sunlight into cellular energy. The finding will allow scientists to explore for the first time how the complex functions and could have implications for the production of a variety of bioproducts, including plastic alternatives and biofuels.

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A young squirrel lucky enough to take over territory from an adult male squirrel is like a teenager falling into a big inheritance, according to a new University of Guelph study.

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University of Washington researchers report in a paper published Jan. 23 in Animal Behaviour that, when a Magellanic penguin parent returns to its nest with fish, the parent tries to feed each of its two chicks equal portions of food, regardless of the youngsters' differences in age or size.

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The Paesani Research Group works to collect data on the properties of materials like water, apply it to machine learning, optimize the material through modifications based on simulations and then synthesize an ideal material that could be used, for example, to extract water from the atmosphere.

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WCS has announced 13 new grants to nonprofit organizations implementing on-the-ground, science-driven projects that will help wildlife and ecosystems adapt to climate change.

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A hormone called irisin – produced during exercise – may protect neurons against Alzheimer’s disease.

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A team led by Berkeley Lab scientists has gleaned new and surprising clues about the nuclear structure of an exotic form of magnesium: Mg-40.

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Molecular studies show phage-host interactions are more complicated than most laboratory studies suggest.

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Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute who developed a blood test to help diagnose autism spectrum disorder have now successfully applied their distinctive big data-based approach to evaluating possible treatments.

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A scavenger study that used fish carcasses as bait provides additional evidence that wildlife is abundant in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone.

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Scientists developed a method to better distinguish the tracks that particles leave behind in liquid argon.

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PULLMAN, Wash.--Erik Johnson has what looks like a surefire way to hurt support for spending to protect the environment: Elect a Democratic president.

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Osaka, Japan - If you've ever camped by a pond, you know frogs make a racket at night; but what you might not know is how functional and regulated their choruses really are. Frogs communicate with sound, and amid their ruckus is an internally orchestrated system that lets information get through more clearly while also permitting collective choruses and time to rest. Researchers from Osaka University and University of Tsukuba sought to leverage this amphibious acumen for mathematical and technological aims.

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Apple orchards surrounded by agricultural lands are visited by a less diverse collection of bee species than orchards surrounded by natural habitats, according to a new Cornell University-led study.

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Results, published in Nature Communications, have shown that the nature of the evolutionary forces which act on male fruit flies depend on how many mates a females has.

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Drs. Don Gammon and Nick Grishin of UT Southwestern have sequenced the genomes of the European gypsy moth and its even more destructive cousin, the Asian gypsy moth.

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Irvine, Calif., Monday, Jan. 14, 2019 – Antarctica experienced a sixfold increase in yearly ice mass loss between 1979 and 2017, according to a study published today in  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Glaciologists from the University of California, Irvine, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Netherlands’ Utrecht University additionally found that the accelerated melting caused global sea levels to rise more than half an inch during that time.

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Just as the scientific community was reaching a consensus on the dangerous reality of climate change, the partisan divide on climate change began to widen.

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• Analysis of insurance records of more than 56,000 twin pairs assesses the influence of genes and environment in 560 diseases • Going beyond the usual one-disease-at-a-time approach, the new method analyzes heritable and environmental factors across hundreds of common conditions • Insights can propel genetic and epidemiological research for a range of diseases, inform clinical decisions, health policy

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City lifestyle has been criticised for being an important reason for children being disconnected from nature. This has led to an unhealthy lifestyle in regards to active play and eating habits. Even worse, many young children do not feel well psychologically - they are often stressed and depressed. 16 per cent of pre-schoolers in Hong Kong and up to 22% in China show signs of mental health problems (Kwok SY, Gu M, Cheung AP, 2017; Zhu J, et al. 2017).

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A confounding new disease is killing beech trees in Ohio and elsewhere, and plant scientists are sounding an alarm while looking for an explanation. In a study published in the journal Forest Pathology, researchers and naturalists from The Ohio State University and metroparks in northeastern Ohio report on the emerging “beech leaf disease” epidemic, calling for speedy work to find a culprit so that work can begin to stop its spread.

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Scientists at Tufts University have designed special LED “suits” that help them understand how caterpillars crawl. Versace might dress the likes of Shakira and Beyoncé, but Guy Levy designs for a far more unusual – and wriggly – client: the tobacco hornworm caterpillar (Manduca sexta).

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A new study examines how the switch to conservation tillage has impacted a southwestern Ohio lake over the past decades. From 1994 to 2014, an unusually long timespan, the researchers measured concentrations of suspended sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorus in streams draining into Acton Lake.

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Covered in The Guardian

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When it comes to flirting, animals know how to put on a show. In the bird world, males often go to great lengths to attract female attention, like peacocks shaking their tail feathers and manakins performing complex dance moves. These behaviors often stimulate multiple senses, making them hard for biologists to quantify.

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A new study by WCS, El Colegio de Frontera Sur, Washington State University and other key regional partners has found that the white-lipped peccary (Tayassu pecari), one of the last large herding mammals of the Americas, has been eliminated from 87 percent of its historical range in Mesoamerica.

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Scientists have described a fossil plant species that suggests flowers bloomed in the Early Jurassic, more than 174 million years ago, according to new research in the open-access journal eLife.

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When the critters that live in and around streams and wetlands are settling into their nighttime routines, streetlights and other sources of illumination filter down through the trees and into their habitat, monkeying with the normal state of affairs, according to new research from The Ohio State University.