Scientists are using computer programs to understand our early beginnings. Click on the link to see how they are doing…
Does giving a placebo require lying to a patient? This study concludes...no! Placebos still work even when the patient knows, at least for emotional distress.
Did you know that the modern US biomedical industry is built around the baby blue blood of horseshoe crabs? Come find out what scientists are doing to help…
Dementia is a condition that many of us are all too familiar with within friends and family. Dementia itself is a blanket term that describes several conditions…
Osteoblasts are cells that are responsible for bone formation. A lack of osteoblasts will cause osteoporosis – a disease that occurs when the body has too…
Some 66 million years ago, a 10-km diameter chunk of rock hit the Yukatan peninsula near the site of the small town of Chicxulub with the force of 100 teratons of TNT. It left a crater more than 150 km across, and the resulting megatsunami, wildfires, global earthquakes and volcanism are widely accepted to have wiped…
Long-term patterns in Earth’s climate show glacial cycles that correspond to variations in Earth’s orbital geometry and affect the overall amount of sunlight that the planet receives. Known as “Milankovitch cycles”, these variations are observed in geologic reconstructions of temperature and isotopes to show…
Climate relicts may help researchers understand climate change While hiking through the Ozarks’ characteristic oak and hickory forests as a teenager, ecologist Scott Woolbright discovered something decidedly uncharacteristic for the region: prickly pear cacti growing on an exposed, rocky ledge. In a recent paper…
Long-term studies conducted by scientists at the institute “Senckenberg am Meer” and the Senckenberg Research Institute in Frankfurt have revealed obvious changes in the North Sea’s biota. Studies during the past twenty years indicate that southern species increasingly expand northward. The associated…
Animals living on the abyssal plains, miles below the ocean surface, don’t usually get much to eat. Their main source of food is “marine snow” — a slow drift of mucus, fecal pellets, and body parts — that sinks down from the surface waters. However, researchers have long been puzzled by…
Identifying opposite patterns of climate change between the middle latitude areas Korean research team revealed conflicting climate change patterns between the middle latitude areas of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres in relation to glacial and interglacial cycles which have been puzzled for the past 60 years.…
Reducing deforestation in the tropics would significantly cut the amount of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere – by as much as one-fifth – research shows. In the first study of its kind, scientists have calculated the amount of carbon absorbed by the world’s tropical forests and the amounts of…
Phytoplankton and zooplankton biomass will decrease 6 percent and 11 percent due to climate change Sea surface temperature is expected to increase 2 ºC on average globally by 2080-2100. Some of the consequences of this increase include changes in ocean circulation and higher water column stratification, thus affecting…
A new study unequivocally points to humans as the cause of the mass extinction of large animals all over the world during the course of the last 100,000 years. Was it mankind or climate change that caused the extinction of a considerable number of large mammals about the time of the last Ice Age? Researchers at Aarhus…
WOODS HOLE, Mass.— As forests age, their ability to grow decreases, a new study by Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) scientists and colleagues has determined. Since most U.S. forests are maturing from regeneration that began about 100 years ago when extensive clear-cutting occurred, the study suggests the future…
