Climate change can affect life on Earth. According to new research, it can also affect the dead. A study of exceptionally preserved fossils has found that rising global temperatures and a rapidly changing climate 183 million years ago may have created fossilization conditions in the world’s oceans that helped preserve the soft and delicate bodies…

It wasn’t long after Hurricane Laura hit the Gulf Coast Thursday that people began flying drones to record the damage and posting videos on social media. Those videos are a precious resource, say researchers who are working on ways to use them for rapid damage assessment. By using artificial intelligence, the researchers are developing a…

Researchers have used molecular modelling methods to investigate the movement of nano-sized plastics in membrane structures. The results indicate that for some microplastics, passive transport through the cell membrane may be a significant gateway into the cell. The occurrence of microplastics in nature has been studied extensively, also at the University of Eastern Finland. However,…

Identifying and researching different heat stress response patterns in corals will help to protect the world’s reefs better from the effects of climate change. A new study describes the necessary test procedures and initial results. Death of corals worldwide caused by warming oceans As a result of climate change, corals all over the world are…

Researchers have revealed that a newly developed forecasting system can accurately predict flood locations 32 hours in advance. Extreme rainfall events are occurring increasingly frequently; such accurate and timely flood warnings will help to minimize their impact by providing time for measures to protect people and property. In a study published this month in Scientific…

Researchers have found that the ancestral role of the proteins KNOX and BELL is activation of zygote development in a model basal land plant species, functioning in much the same way as in a unicellular green alga. This role shifted toward the maintenance of tissue development during land plant evolution. This study will be of…

Bright colors are often considered an evolutionary tradeoff in the animal kingdom. Yes, a male peacock’s colorful feathers may help it attract a mate, but they also make it more likely to be seen by a predator. Jewel beetles and their iridescent wing cases may be an exception to the rule, researchers report. They found…

Ten years after one of the largest nuclear accidents in history spewed radioactive contamination over the landscape in Fukushima, Japan, a new study has shown that radioactive contamination in the Fukushima Exclusion Zone can be measured through its resident snakes. The team’s findings, published in the recent journal of Ichthyology & Herpetology, report that rat…

A new article compares the inner ear structures of the two main groups of bats. By examining the microscopic inner ears of bats from 19 of the 21 known bat families, the researchers were able to show that the presence of extra neurons and specialized ear structures align with a split in bat evolution revealed…

Ancient rocks on the coast of Oman that were once driven deep down toward Earth’s mantle may reveal new insights into subduction, an important tectonic process that fuels volcanoes and creates continents, according to a new study. “In a broad sense this work gives us a better understanding of why some subduction zones fail while…