New research allows cheese quality to be checked much earlier and more precisely in the process, giving manufacturers a better chance to react to issues with the ripening process. It’s part of why cheese is so complex and expensive to make — a factory could invest lots of time and money into what they think…

A new look into the genomes of natural populations of the common house mice by a team of researchers suggests that large-scale chromosomal rearrangements play an important role in speciation. Alterations to chromosomes are considered important in speciation (the process by which new species are formed). This is because several chromosomal rearrangements can make the…

Researchers used the characteristics of owl wings to inform airfoil design and significantly reduce trailing-edge noise. The team used noise calculation and analysis software to conduct a series of detailed theoretical studies of simplified airfoils with characteristics reminiscent of owl wings. They applied their findings to suppress the noise of rotating machinery. Improving the flow…

New research shows that disruptions to Indigenous land management following Iberian colonization did not always result in widespread forest regrowth in the Americas and Asia-Pacific, as has been recently argued. A new study, published now in Nature Ecology and Evolution, draws on pollen records from tropical regions formerly claimed by the Spanish Empire in both…

The Late Devonian mass extinction (roughly 372 million years ago) was one of five mass extinctions in Earth’s history, with roughly 75% of all species disappearing over its course. It happened in two ‘pulses,’ spaced about 800,000 years apart, with most of the extinctions happening in the second pulse. However, for one group of animals…

Researchers have mapped the timescale of the Tasmanian devils’ whiskers, showing that their whiskers can capture seasonal dietary changes over at least nine months and potentially up to a year. The long, wiry whiskers on these stocky marsupials hold chemical imprints from food they’ve eaten in the past — records that can help tell broader…

Hatchery-raised steelhead trout have offspring that are good at gaining size under hatchery conditions but don’t survive as well in streams as steelhead whose parents are wild fish, new research shows. The results, published in PLOS ONE, suggest that it may be possible to change rearing methods to produce hatchery fish that are more like…

They are some of the most beautiful, and elusive, animals on the plant. Leopards. In a major scientific step, the whole genome DNA sequence of 23 individual leopards have been interpreted. These majestic animals are the only great cat species (Genus Panthera) to roam about both Africa and Asia today. Leopards are considered as highly…

The environmental impact of deep-sea mining is only partially known. Also, there is a lack of standards to regulate mining and set binding thresholds for the impact on the local organisms. Researchers have now determined that deep-sea mining-related disturbances have a long-term impact on the natural ecosystem functions and microbial communities at the seafloor. What…

Far below Bermuda’s pink sand beaches and turquoise tides, geoscientists have discovered the first direct evidence that material from deep within Earth’s mantle transition zone — a layer rich in water, crystals and melted rock — can percolate to the surface to form volcanoes. Scientists have long known that volcanoes form when tectonic plates (traveling…