ENVIRO AONE

Global emissions of a potent substance notorious for depleting the Earth’s ozone layer — the protective barrier which absorbs the Sun’s harmful UV rays — have fallen rapidly and are now back on the decline, according to new research. Two international studies published today in Nature, show emissions of CFC-11, one of the many chlorofluorocarbon…

A team of researchers has concluded that different types of phytoplankton will react differently to increasing ocean temperatures resulting from the changing climate. An examination of how four key groups of phytoplankton will respond to ocean temperatures forecast to occur between 2080 and 2100 suggests that their growth rates and distribution patterns will likely be…

Scientists have reconstructed the paleoecology the Paleo-Agulhas Plain, a now-drowned landscape on the southern tip of Africa that was high and dry during glacial phases of the last 2 million years and may have been instrumental in shaping the evolution of early modern humans. In contrast to ice age environments elsewhere on Earth, it was…

Until now, research assumed that the vast forest area of the Congo Basin, like other tropical forests, releases large amounts of nitrous oxide and binds methane. Researchers have now shown that it behaves differently: methane is released, while nitrous oxide emissions are smaller than thought. Other tropical forests are known to be a major source…

Scientists have sequenced the genome of a capuchin monkey for the first time, uncovering new genetic clues about the evolution of their long lifespan and large brains. Published in PNAS, the work was led by the University of Calgary in Canada and involved researchers at the University of Liverpool. «Capuchins have the largest relative brain…

Areas with climatic conditions suitable for sustaining permafrost in the Daisetsu Mountains are projected. The size of the area in the Daisetsu Mountains where climatic conditions were suitable for permafrost were estimated to be approximately 150 km2 in 2010. Under the business-as-usual scenario, this area is projected to disappear by around 2070. Under the low-carbon…

Scientists report a vampire fish attached to the body of an Amazonian thorny catfish. Very unusually, the candirus were attached close to the lateral bone plates, rather than the gills, where they are normally found. Since the hosts were not badly harmed, and the candirus apparently derived no food benefit, scientists believe this association is…

Researchers use ‘domain adversarial’ machine learning to remove the differences between animal and human walking trajectory data. This work may help scientists better understand conditions that affect motor coordination, such as Parkinson’s disease. Machine learning algorithms, especially deep learning approaches that use multiple layers of artificial neurons, are well suited for distinguishing between different sources…