NOAA has published a peer-reviewed State of the Monument report that was jointly produced by the co-trustees of Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. The report includes information on the status and trends of living resources, habitats, ocean conditions, maritime and cultural archaeological resources, and the human activities and natural events that affect them.

Since the 1950s, "Africanized" honeybees have spread north and south across the Americas until apparently coming to a halt in California and northern Argentina. Now genome sequencing of hundreds of bees from the northern and southern limits shows a gradual decline in African ancestry across hundreds of miles, rather than an abrupt shift.

New radio images from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) show for the first time the direct effect of volcanic activity on the atmosphere of Jupiter's moon Io.

Biodegradable chewing-gum, a chick-pea dessert and drinks made from cocoa shells were all singled out for recognition by a food fair focused on ecology and affordability this year.

Cucurbit downy mildew is a devastating disease affecting economically important crops such as cucumber, cantaloupe, squash, pumpkins, and watermelon. Previously effective fungicide have been failing in the United States and Europe, making accurate and early diagnosis critical for timely disease management.

A study published in Cell Reports shows how next generation genetic sequencing can track mutations in the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which can in effect help with transmission tracing, diagnostic testing accuracy and vaccine effectiveness.

Climate change pushes species distribution areas northward. However, the expansion of species ranges is not self-evident due to e.g. habitat degradation and unsustainable harvesting caused by human activities. A new study led from the University of Turku, Finland, suggests that protected areas can facilitate wintering waterbird adaptation to climate warming by advancing their range shifts towards...

The virus wreaking havoc on our lives is an efficient infection machine. Comprised of only 29 proteins (compared to our 400,000), with a genome 1/200,000 the size of ours, SARS-CoV-2 is expertly evolved to trick our cells to contribute its machinery to assist in its propagation.

The time has come for reform on how the United States deals with the electoral process, the environment and social justice, according to a new national poll released today by the UMass Lowell Center for Public Opinion that takes an in-depth look at the views of Americans age 18 to 39.

How life works may come down to dumbbell-like bits of DNA.

The identification of human migration driven by climate change, the spread of COVID-19, agricultural trends, and socioeconomic problems in neighboring regions depends on data—the more complex the model, the more data is required to understand such spatially distributed phenomena. However, reliable data is often expensive and difficult to obtain, or too sparse to allow for accurate predictions.

Virtual worlds may reflect social and economic behavior in the real world, according to a study published October 21, 2020 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Andres M. Belaza and colleagues from Ghent University, Belgium.

For hundreds of thousands of years, early humans in the East African Rift Valley could expect certain things of their environment. Freshwater lakes in the region ensured a reliable source of water, and large grazing herbivores roamed the grasslands. Then, around 400,000 years ago, things changed. The environment became less predictable, and human ancestors faced new sources of instability and...

The capacity for language is built upon our ability to understand combinations of words and the relationships between them, but the evolutionary history of this ability is little understood. Now, researchers from the University of Warwick have managed to date this capacity to at least 30-40 million years ago, the last common ancestor of monkeys, apes and humans.

Releasing captive-bred Atlantic salmon into the ocean, a long-standing practice to boost stocks for commercial fishing, reduces the rate at which wild populations reproduce and may ultimately do more harm than good, researchers cautioned Wednesday.

Britain's most advanced polar research ship in decades was set to begin technical sea trials on Wednesday before making its maiden voyage to Antarctica next year.

Environmental groups asked a federal court Wednesday to throw out the Trump administration's assessment of oil and gas activity's likely effects on endangered species in the Gulf of Mexico, saying it dismisses the chance of another disastrous blowout like the BP spill of 2010.

Some people love spicy food—the hotter, the better. Others go out of their way to avoid the palate-singeing burn of capsaicin, the compound that gives chili peppers their kick. Now, researchers have developed a portable device (whimsically shaped like a chili pepper) that can reveal how much capsaicin a pepper contains, before biting into it. They report their results in ACS Applied Nano...

According to the Mayo Clinic, about 15% of couples are infertile, and male infertility plays a role in over one-third of these cases. Often, problems with sperm development are to blame. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Nano have found a way to deliver a protein important for sperm cell production directly to mouse testicles, where it restored normal sperm development and allowed previously...

Chameleons can famously change their colors to camouflage themselves, communicate and regulate their temperature. Scientists have tried to replicate these color-changing properties for stealth technologies, anti-counterfeiting measures and electronic displays, but the materials have limitations. Now, researchers have developed a flexible film that changes color in response to stretching, pressure...

As part of its foreign policy, Germany hopes to promote energy transitions abroad through international energy partnerships. A new study by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) analyzes these bilateral energy partnerships. Building on its reputation as an energy transition frontrunner, Germany is currently pursuing a soft power strategy aimed at winning over foreign countries...

The newly published thesis research of University of Guam Master of Environmental Science graduate Benjamin Deloso now adds to the body of knowledge about asexual propagation of the most endangered plant group in the world, cycads. His work was part of a set of UOG studies, all focused on improving the asexual propagation of cycads, published in the September 2020 issue of HortScience, one of the...

A new study led by scientists at IUPUI and Indiana University Bloomington is the first to describe a biochemical mechanism that increases the activity of a molecule whose presence is observed in many types of cancer.

An international team of astrophysicists under Dutch leadership has demonstrated with an improved model that colliding neutron stars can emit gamma rays. Old models did not predict this and faltered since the merging of two neutron stars in 2017 that released gamma rays. The researchers publish their findings in the The Astrophysical Journal.