Restoring 30 percent of ecosystems long-since converted to agriculture and other human needs could avoid 70 percent of predicted species extinctions and absorb half the CO2 humanity has released into the atmosphere since the industrial revolution, according to an ambitious blueprint for healing the planet released Wednesday.

The relationship between the whitebark pine (Pinus albicaulis), an iconic tree of western mountaintops, and the Clark's Nutcracker (Nucifraga columbiana), a brash bird in the crow family, is often used as an example of the biological concept of mutualism: a relationship between species where both benefit. The pine provides large, nutritious seeds to the nutcracker. The nutcracker buries these...

Austria will devote 17 billion euros ($20bn) to greening its rail network despite a historic budget deficit caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the government announced Wednesday in its 2021 budget.

A Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) planetary scientist has been chosen to be among the first group to conduct NASA-funded science experiments while flying aboard a commercial spacecraft, the space agency announced today.

A new study suggests that engaging, high-quality media programming could help Democrats and Republicans see eye to eye when it comes to climate change.

The Hittites lived in Anatolia some 3,500 years ago. They used clay tablets to keep records of state treaties and decrees, prayers, myths, and summoning rituals, using a language that researchers were only able to decipher around 100 years ago. Now, the Hittites' texts, which were written in cuneiform, are being made fully accessible online. The collection will be based on around 30,000 documents,...

When permafrost thaws due to global warming, not only the greenhouse gases known to all, but also organic compounds are released from the soil. They may have a significant impact on climate change.

Taking advantage of unique properties of sediments from the bottom of Sawtooth Lake in the Canadian High Arctic, climate scientists have extended the record of Atlantic sea-surface temperature from about 100 to 2,900 years, and it shows that the warmest interval over this period has been the past 10 years.

A new set of assessment tools shows promise in capturing how the COVID-19 pandemic affects patterns of criminal activity. Hervé Borrion of University College London, U.K., and colleagues present this toolkit in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on October 14.

For a honey bee, few things are more important than recognizing your nestmates. Being able to tell a nestmate from an invader could mean the difference between a honey-stocked hive and a long, lean winter.

Scientist Ian Tannenbaum has spent most of his career working in clinical microbiology but was excited to transition to agricultural microbiology when he was offered a chance to conduct the first assessment of the perennial ryegrass microbiome and how it changes during plant maturation and seed production.

Dry, windy weather posed an extreme wildfire risk Wednesday in Northern California, where massive blazes already have destroyed hundreds of homes and killed or injured dozens of people.

There's a saying that true friendships stand the test of time. But does that apply to Facebook friendships that are tested by differing longtime political beliefs?

Norbert has been meandering around in the Eastern Pacific Ocean for several days as a tropical depression. A NASA satellite rainfall product that incorporates data from satellites and observations revealed that Norbert has regained tropical storm status after showing increased organization and deep convection.

The growing global demand for palm oil has led to a rapid spread of oil palm monoculture plantations in South East Asia. This is often associated with the loss of natural habitat and biodiversity. Oil palm monocultures are uniformly structured and therefore offer little space for different species. Diversification using indigenous tree species can contribute to maintaining biodiversity. A research...

Lustrous metallic paints are used to enhance the beauty of many products, such as home decorations, cars and artwork. But most of these pigments owe their sheen to flakes of aluminum, copper, zinc or other metals, which have drawbacks. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Omega have developed organic-only dyes that can form films resembling gold or bronze, without the need for metals.

A U.S. Naval Research Laboratory research group will use its background in space system development to help ensure future satellites have the capability to work together.

Quasars are the brightest objects in the universe and among the most energetic. They outshine entire galaxies of billions of stars. A supermassive black hole lies at the heart of every quasar, but not every black hole is a quasar. Only the black holes that are feeding most voraciously can power a quasar. Material falling into the supermassive black hole heats up, and causes a quasar to fiercely...

On Saturday, October 20, 2018, the BepiColombo space probe set off on its journey to Mercury from the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. The 6.40 meters high and 4.1 tons heavy BepiColombo space probe consists of two spacecraft: the Mercury Planetary Orbiter (MPO), which was constructed by the European Space Agency, ESA, and the Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter (MMO), which was constructed...

Discussions about immigration are heated, even antagonistic. But what happens when supporters and opponents undertake to show more empathy and engage in perspective taking, two types of behavior that can ease tension? A study carried out at the University of Geneva (UNIGE)—published in the journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications— reveals that people who support immigration are...

The impairment of adipogenesis, the process in which fat cells (also known as adipocytes) accumulate to become fat tissue, can lead to many diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and heart conditions. The process of adipogenesis is regulated by a series of signals which program the adipocytes to express specific genes and congregate into adipose tissue.

The higher temperatures expected over the next 50 years in Europe will accelerate corrosion of buildings, and will expose infrastructure to higher stresses, thus undermining the safety of constructions. CMCC researchers and members of the scientific network established by the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission, co-authored two studies, suggesting a review of the EU standards...

Drought usually originates from a deficiency of precipitation over an extended period of time and is identified as one of the extreme aspects of the hydrological cycle. Because of its destructive impacts on human life, agriculture, ecology, and physical systems of affected regions, there is increasing interest in understanding changes in drought under global warming and quantifying the role of...

Human impacts on the Lower Lakes of the Murray River estuary have made its ecosystem more vulnerable to drought, according to findings by University of Sydney geoscientists.