5,528 results
5,528 results for: Forests
- Health & Medicine
Ebola may travel on the wing
Fruit bats can carry the Ebola virus, suggesting that they may spread it in Africa.
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Oceans reveal secrets of viruses
Scientists have completed the first survey of virus DNA in oceans around the world.
- Earth
Woods to Waters: Wildfires amplify mercury contamination in fish
Forest fires mobilize mercury from the soil and can send the toxic metal into nearby streams and lakes where it accumulates in fish.
- Animals
Extreme Tongue: Bat excels at saying ‘Aah’
The new champion among mammals at sticking out its tongue is a small bat from Ecuador.
- Ecosystems
Life Underfoot: Microbial biodiversity takes surprising twist
When it comes to numbers of bacterial species, rainforest dirt is virtually a desert, but desert dirt bursts with biodiversity.
- Health & Medicine
Debate Renewed: Diabetes drug ups heart risk
A popular diabetes drug significantly increases the risk of heart failure and heart attack in those who take it.
- Health & Medicine
Brain Sabotage: Alzheimer’s protein may spawn miniseizures
Amyloid-beta, a protein implicated in Alzheimer's disease, causes misfiring of neurons and minor brain seizures in mice.
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Jungle Down There: What’s a kelp forest doing in the tropics?
Kelp, algae that grow in cold water, turn out to be surprisingly widespread in tropical seas.
- Animals
Crowcam: Camera on bird’s tail captures bird ingenuity
Video cameras attached to tropical crows record the birds' use of plant stems as tools to dig out food.
- Anthropology
Not So Clear-Cut: Soil erosion may not have led to Mayan downfall
Hand-planted maize, beans, and squash sustained the Mayans for millennia, until their culture collapsed about 1,100 years ago. Some researchers have suggested that the Mayans’ very success in turning forests into farmland led to soil erosion that made farming increasingly difficult and eventually caused their downfall. But a new study of ancient lake sediments has […]
- Animals
Cousin Who? Gliding mammals may be primates’ nearest kin
Two species of small, little-known rain forest mammals may be primates' closest living relatives.
- Earth
Falling Behind: North American terrain absorbs carbon dioxide too slowly
North America's vegetation soaks up millions of tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, an impressive rate of sequestration that still can't keep up with the prodigious emissions of the planet-warming gas generated by human activity on the continent.
