Ecosystems
- Humans
Yet another study links insecticide to bee losses
Since 2006, honeybee populations across North America have been hammered by catastrophic losses. Although this pandemic has a name — colony collapse disorder, or CCD — its cause has remained open to speculation. New experiments now strengthen the case for pesticide poisoning as a likely contributor.
By Janet Raloff - Life
Rising carbon dioxide confuses brain signaling in fish
Nerve cells respond to acidifying waters.
By Janet Raloff - Ecosystems
Groundwater dropping globally
Nine-year record collected from orbit finds supply dropping mostly due to agriculture.
By Devin Powell - Tech
Hooking fish, not endangered turtles
A tuna fisherman has taken it upon himself to make the seas safer for sea turtles, animals that are threatened or endangered with extinction worldwide. He’s designed a new hook that he says will make bait unavailable to marine birds and turtles until long after it’s sunk well below the range where these animals venture to eat.
By Janet Raloff - Humans
Infected bats can recover . . . with lots of help
Researchers reported new data today confirming that with enough coddling, many heavily infected bats can recover. The rub: These scientists also pointed out that there really aren’t sufficient resources to save more than a handful this way.
By Janet Raloff - Earth
Eels point to suffocating Gulf floor
In June, scientists predicted that the Gulf of Mexico’s annual dead zone — a subsea region where the water contains too little oxygen to support life — might develop into the biggest ever. In fact, that didn’t happen. Owing to the fortuitous arrival of stormy weather, this year’s dead zone peaked at about 6,800 square miles, scientists reported on Aug. 1 — big but far from the record behemoth of 9,500 square miles that had been mentioned as distinctly possible.
By Janet Raloff - Life
Microbes may sky jump to new hosts
The role of microbes in cloud formation and precipitation may not be an accident of chemistry so much as an evolutionary adaptation by certain bacteria and other nonsentient beings, a scientist posited at the annual meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.
By Janet Raloff - Humans
Geographic profiling fights disease
Widely used to snare serial criminals, a forensic method finds application in epidemiology.
- Earth
Warming dents corn and wheat yields
Rising temperatures have decreased global grain production and may be partly responsible for food price increases.
- Chemistry
Plants and predators pick same poison
Zygaena caterpillars and their herbaceous hosts independently evolved an identical recipe for cyanide.
- Paleontology
Supersized superbunny
Fossils reveal a non-hopping giant rabbit that lived on the island of Minorca 5 million years ago.
By Susan Milius - Life
Songbird’s testosterone surges at sight of thistle blooms
Seeing the right flowers in summer temperatures triggers male goldfinches’ reproductive readiness.
By Susan Milius