Trees may turn golden for reasons that have nothing to do with the onset of autumn: Eucalyptus trees can hold grains of gold, potentially helping reveal buried treasure, scientists now find. Many plants root deep into the Earth, drawing up nutrients and minerals they need for life. Researchers hope this fact could one day help miners unearth gold, especially since discoveries of new deposits of the precious metal have dropped 45 percent over the last 10 years....
By Brian Switek of Nature magazineAbout 13,800 years ago, a mastodon in North America met a somewhat ironic end. It died at the hands of humans wielding a bone projectile made from the skeleton of another mastodon. A study of the remains of this unfortunate trunk-bearing beast add weight to the theory that the downfall of the megafauna may have been more gradual than previously proposed.The skeleton of the mastodon (Mammut americanum) was excavated from the Manis site in Washington state in the late 1970s....
Regular meals of rotting flesh would poison most animals. But vultures seem to have adapted by producing unusually destructive gastric juices, and by hosting a gut flora that helps them to prosper on a diet of carrion, a study of the birds’ microbial communities suggests. Vultures — both the New World ones that live in the Americas and the similar but unrelated ones found in Europe, Asia and Africa — are notorious scavengers, circling the skies on the lookout for decomposing creatures....
Dear EarthTalk: I’ve heard that there are plans to build a large repository for nuclear waste in Yucca Mountain in Nevada, but that plans have been slow and are very controversial. Where is our nuclear waste kept now and what dangers does it pose? – Miriam Clark, Reno, NV Plans to store the majority of our nation’s spent nuclear fuel and other highly radioactive waste at a central repository underneath Yucca Mountain in the Nevada desert 80 miles from Las Vegas were first hatched in the mid-1980s....
Wojciech Makalowski, a Pennsylvania State University biology professor and researcher in computational evolutionary genomics, answers this query. Our genetic blueprint consists of 3.42 billion nucleotides packaged in 23 pairs of linear chromosomes. Most mammalian genomes are of comparable size—the mouse script is 3.45 billion nucleotides, the rat’s is 2.90 billion, the cow’s is 3.65 billion—and code for a similar number of genes: about 35,000. Of course, extremes exist: the bent-winged bat (Miniopterus schreibersi) has a relatively small 1....
Democrats emerged from United Nations climate talks in Glasgow, Scotland, bubbling with optimism about their prospects to deliver legislation to slash greenhouse gas emissions, but significant hurdles remain for Congress to back up U.S. diplomacy with action. The global community will be watching Congress closely after the talks, known as COP 26, closed this weekend, as Democrats attempt to finalize a social spending package that would be the most ambitious climate bill ever passed in the United States....
By Victoria Cavaliere (Reuters) - Residents of southern California were rattled by a 4.1 magnitude earthquake Saturday afternoon, the largest of more than 100 aftershocks following Friday’s 5.1 rumbler that caused light scattered damage around the Los Angeles area. Saturday’s quake rippled through an area near Rowland Heights, California, about 2:32 p.m., according to the U.S. Geological Survey. The temblor was considered relatively shallow with a depth of 5.6 miles, the USGS said....
The private spaceflight company revealed the first life-size mockup of its new lunar lander, named “Blue Moon,” at the Washington Convention Center yesterday (May 9). “This is an incredible vehicle, and it’s going to the moon,” Blue Origin founder and chief executive Jeff Bezos told a room full of spectators after the curtain dropped to reveal the big, shiny spacecraft. Before launching astronauts to the moon, Blue Origin would first test out the lunar lander with an uncrewed mission, Bezos said....
View slideshow of invasive species. Gray squirrel may look cute and harmless with their twitchy noses, piercing peepers and oh-so-bushy tails. But an international team of scientists recently named the furry beasties one of Europe’s 100 worst environmental offenders. Their crime? Driving the equally adorable European red squirrel toward extinction. The problem of invasive alien species is not unique to Europe. From reindeer on the sub-Antarctic island of South Georgia to mouflon sheep in Hawaii and cane toads in Australia, biological invaders are flourishing around the globe, devastating native plants and animals in their wakes....
THE WONDER YEARS Changing Brains www.changingbrains.org DVD ($9.95); or watch it online for free The most exciting moments in a brain’s lifetime happen in early childhood. The film Changing Brains, produced by scientists from the University of Oregon’s Brain Development Lab, details how parents, teachers and caretakers can help shape the young brain by understanding how it develops and which activities promote learning. Changing Brains explains that at age two, a toddler has twice as many neuron connections as an adult....
Researchers have modified a common bacterium to spit out an entire rainbow of dyes for food, clothing, cosmetics, and more. The proof-of-concept research also detailed the natural production of two colors—green and navy blue—for the first time. Some dyes can be produced naturally from plants. Indigo, for example, is extracted from leaves of species in the genus Indigofera. But the task is labor-intensive, with variable results. Synthetic alternatives can involve toxic precursors and by-products, sometimes released as pollutants....
Some years ago two nutrition experts went grocery shopping. For a dollar, Adam Drewnowski and S. E. Specter could purchase 1,200 calories of potato chips or cookies or just 250 calories worth of carrots. It was merely one example of how an unhealthy diet is cheaper than a healthy one. This price difference did not spring into existence by force of any natural laws but largely because of antiquated agricultural policies....
New York City is lousy with birds, and I mean that in a good way: I once counted 20 species in an hour in my backyard in the Bronx, with rufous-sided towhees and American redstarts making cameo appearances beside the usual mourning doves and sparrows. The city is also clearly a human-dominated landscape. So the American Museum of Natural History was a good choice to host a late April conference called “Conserving Birds in Human-Dominated Landscapes....
By Jonathan Kaminsky DARRINGTON, Washington (Reuters) - At least 25 people were confirmed dead almost a week after landslide sent mud crashing into dozens of rural Washington state homes, searchers said, as locals faced up to the prospect that some of the 90 still missing might never be found. As the death toll ticked slowly higher late on Wednesday, a deeply traumatized community rallied round to comfort the bereaved and support rescue crews with everything from free food to prayer vigils....
This week’s episode is for listener Stephanie from Adelaide, South Australia, who sent me a lovely email that inspired me when I was dragging. We’ve all been there. We’re minding our own business when we get a call, an email, or a “whaaaat’s happening?” Office Space-style cubicle visit, and that other f-word gets lobbed at us: favor. Sometimes, of course, we say yes. We’re delighted to help out—it’s fun, rewarding, or win-win....
When Hurricane Irma tore through Florida in early September, 40 scientists took shelter in the Archbold Biological Station, a fortified research facility in the south-central part of the state. They huddled there with friends, family and pets while floods and pounding winds destroyed homes across the state. It will take months for those researchers and others to assess the extent of the destruction left behind by both Irma and Hurricane Harvey, which blasted through the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico....
Hybrid power systems — such as those that combine solar arrays with battery storage — could help the United States fight climate change and meet rising demands for electricity, according to new research. But the findings by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory suggest more work needs to be done to better understand how to make the pieces fit together. “These integrated power systems are increasingly being lauded as key to unlocking maximum efficiency and cost savings in future decarbonized grids,” according to an NREL write-up of the work....
When the Airbus A320 took off from New York City’s LaGuardia Airport yesterday, the air temperature outside was well below freezing—around 20 degrees Fahrenheit (–6.7 degrees Celsius). The 150 passengers on board no doubt assumed they would spend the next hour and a half in the cushioned seats of a cozy, warm airplane cabin en route to Charlotte, N.C. Little did they know that just minutes after takeoff they would instead be bobbing on the frigid waters of the Hudson River off Manhattan’s west side....
“You are not special,” the character Tyler Durden warns his followers in the movie Fight Club and in the namesake novel by Chuck Palahniuk. “You are not a beautiful or unique snowflake. You’re the same decaying organic matter as everything else.” Durden’s harsh but not inaccurate assessment lays the foundation for that story’s subsequent tumult. The same idea under the name the “Copernican principle” also happens to have been a linchpin of science for the past four centuries....
U.S. EPA’s planned toughening of health standards for nitrogen dioxide (NO2) emissions is not tough enough for some advocacy groups. The EPA proposal would set a new one-hour maximum NO2 limit to prevent spikes in air pollution. The proposal also involves setting up new monitors in locations with the highest concentrations, like major roads in urban areas. The agency is proposing to retain the current annual average standard of 53 parts per billion (ppb)....
