First GPS-collar study reveals how leopards live with people
New York NY (SPX) Nov 26, 2014 -
In the first-ever GPS-based study of leopards in India, led by WCS and partners has delved into the secret lives of these big cats, and recorded their strategies to thrive in human-dominated areas. The study concludes that leopards in human areas are not always 'stray' or 'conflict' animals but residents, potentially requiring policy makers to rethink India's leopard-management strategies.
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Can stress management help save honeybees?
Udine, Italy (SPX) Nov 26, 2014 -
Honeybee populations are clearly under stress--from the parasitic Varroa mite, insecticides, and a host of other factors--but it's been difficult to pinpoint any one of them as the root cause of devastating and unprecedented losses in honeybee hives.
Researchers writing in the Cell Press journal Trends in Parasitology on November 24th say that the problem likely stems from a complex and po ...
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Climate Change Could Affect Future of Lake Michigan Basin
Reston VA (SPX) Nov 25, 2014 -
Climate change could lengthen the growing season, make soil drier and decrease winter snowpack in the Lake Michigan Basin by the turn of the century, among other hydrological effects.
A new U.S. Geological Survey precipitation and runoff model shows that by 2100, maximum daily temperature in the Lake Michigan Basin could increase by as much as seven degrees Fahrenheit, and the minimum dail ...
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Brain's reaction to virtual reality should prompt further study
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Nov 25, 2014 -
UCLA neurophysicists have found that space-mapping neurons in the brain react differently to virtual reality than they do to real-world environments. Their findings could be significant for people who use virtual reality for gaming, military, commercial, scientific or other purposes.
"The pattern of activity in a brain region involved in spatial learning in the virtual world is completely ...
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Seed dormancy already existed 360 million years ago
Granada, Spain (SPX) Nov 25, 2014 -
An international team of scientists, coordinated by a researcher from the University of Granada, finds this phenomenon to be as old as the seeds themselves. Seed dormancy is a phenomenon that has intrigued naturalists for decades, since it conditions the dynamics of both natural vegetation and agricultural cycles
An international team of scientists, coordinated by a researcher from the U. ...
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Polyethylene mulch creates optimal conditions for soil solarization
Tucson AZ (SPX) Nov 26, 2014 -
Soil solarization, a process that uses solar radiation to rid the soil of pests, is most common in regions with high solar radiation and high temperatures during the summer season. An alternative to soil fumigation, the process is used either alone or in combination with fumigants.
To accomplish solarization, solar radiation is used to passively heat moist soil covered with clear plastic s ...
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Biology trumps chemistry in open ocean
Boothbay ME (SPX) Nov 26, 2014 -
Single-cell phytoplankton in the ocean are responsible for roughly half of global oxygen production, despite vast tracts of the open ocean that are devoid of life-sustaining nutrients.
While phytoplankton's ability to adjust their physiology to exploit limited nutrients in the open ocean has been well documented, little is understood about how variations in microbial biodiversity - the nu ...
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