Most people’s experience with seagrass, if any, amounts to little more than a tickle on their ankles while wading in shallow coastal waters. But it turns out these ubiquitous plants, varieties of which exist around the world, could play a key role in protecting vulnerable shores as they face onslaughts from rising sea levels. New…

Though you might read about deep, dark woods in fairy tales, the prevailing story today is that very little European old-growth forest remains. But now a new study—and map—shows that a surprising number of these primary forests still stand. “What we’ve shown in this study is that, even though the total area of forest is…

Trade and social networking helped our Homo sapiens ancestors survive a climate-changing volcanic eruption 40,000 years ago, giving hope that we will be able to ride out global warming by staying interconnected, a new study suggests. Analyzing ancient tools, ornaments and human remains from a prehistoric rock shelter called Riparo Bombrini, in Liguria on the Italian Riviera,…

A massive decade-long study of Western Equatorial Africa’s gorillas and chimpanzees has uncovered both good news and bad about our nearest relatives. The good news: there are one third more western lowland gorillas and one tenth more central chimpanzees than previously thought. The bad news: the vast majority of these great apes (80 percent) exist…

The idea of geoengineering, also known as climate engineering, is very controversial. But as greenhouse gases continue to accumulate in our atmosphere, scientists are beginning to look at possible emergency measures. A new University of Washington study looks at the idea of marine cloud brightening, which a UW group is investigating as a promising strategy…

When does a (typically) vegetarian caterpillar become a cannibalistic caterpillar, even when there is still plenty of plant left to eat? When the tomato plant it’s feeding on makes cannibalism the best option. “It often starts with one caterpillar biting another one in the rear, which then oozes. And it goes downhill from there,” says…

Environmental influences affecting cows during pregnancy have been shown to induce life-long physical and metabolic changes in the offspring. To learn more about the effects of heat stress on calves conceived during the summer, Pablo Pinedo, from Colorado State University, and Albert De Vries, from the University of Florida, examined data from more than 150…

Bumblebees acquire a taste for pesticide-laced food as they become more exposed to it, a behaviour showing possible symptoms of addiction. This study of bumblebee behaviour indicates that the risk of pesticide-contaminated food entering bee colonies may be higher than previously thought, which can have impacts on colony reproductive success. In research published today in…

A study of drinking water in Appalachian Ohio found no evidence of natural gas contamination from recent oil and gas drilling. Geologists with the University of Cincinnati examined drinking water in Carroll, Stark and Harrison counties, a rural region in northeast Ohio where many residents rely on water from private underground wells. The time-series study…

Sunny California may be getting too sunny. Increasing summer temperatures brought on by a combination of intensifying urbanization and warming climate are driving off once common low-lying morning clouds in many southern coastal areas of the state, leading to increased risk of wildfires, says a new study. “Cloud cover is plummeting in southern coastal California,”…