5,532 results
5,532 results for: Forests
- Life
We all have a (very tiny) glow of light, no movie magic needed
Normal cellular processes in living things — from germinating plants to our own cells — create biophotons, though escaping light isn’t visible to us.
- Animals
The mystery of melting sea stars may finally be solved
A bacterium called Vibrio pectenicida may be melting sea stars along North America’s Pacific coast.
- Paleontology
Sloths once came in a dizzying array of sizes. Here’s why
A new fossil and DNA analysis traces how dozens of sloth species responded to climate shifts and humans. Just two small tree-dwelling sloths remain today.
- Ecosystems
Extinct moa ate purple trufflelike fungi, fossil bird droppings reveal
DNA analysis reveals the big, flightless moa birds ate — and pooped out — 13 kinds of fungi, including ones crucial for New Zealand’s forest ecosystem.
- Archaeology
Humans moved into African rainforests at least 150,000 years ago
This oldest known evidence of people living in tropical forests supports an idea that human evolution occurred across Africa.
- Anthropology
A foot fossil suggests a second early human relative lived alongside Lucy
Foot bones and other fossils have been attributed to Australopithecus deyiremeda, a recently discovered species that may shake up the human family tree.
- Animals
Guppies fall for a classic optical illusion. Doves, usually, do too
Comparing animals’ susceptibility to optical illusions can show how perception evolved.
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Megadroughts are on the rise worldwide
One of the most extreme megadroughts has helped fuel wildfires in Los Angeles County and elsewhere in California.
- Climate
Some trees are coping with extreme heat surprisingly well
Rising temperatures could reduce trees' ability to photosynthesize. Scientists are trying to figure out just how close we are to that point.
- Microbes
Antarctic lake microbes have flexible survival strategies
Life teems under the Antarctic ice sheet. In subglacial Lake Mercer, it is surprisingly versatile and isolated from the rest of the world.
- Environment
An idea to save Mexico’s oyamel forests could help monarch butterflies too
Climate change is putting monarch butterflies’ overwintering forests in Mexico at risk. Could planting new forests solve that problem?
- Climate
Unearthed ice may be the Arctic’s oldest buried glacier remnant
Thanks to climate change, thawing permafrost in the Canadian Arctic has revealed the buried remnant of a glacier that’s 770,000 years old.
