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3 articles from ScienceNOW

Electrocuted birds are sparking wildfires

In 2014, a wildfire ripped through central Chile, destroying 2500 homes and killing at least 13 people . A year later, a blaze in Idaho burned more than 4000 hectares, an area nearly 12 times the size of New York City’s Central Park. Both conflagrations had one thing in common: Experts believe they were started by birds. Our feathered friends love to perch on...

Softening tough tissue in aging ovaries may help fight infertility

Would-be parents hoping to get pregnant face a ticking clock: The older potential mothers get, the more their fertility drops. A new study in mice may help explain why. Ovaries accumulate “stiff” tissue as they age, and researchers have found that reducing the amount of this tissue—“softening” the ovaries, as it were—restored fertility in the animals, raising the possibility...

NIH launches grant program aimed at closing the funding rate gap between Black and white investigators

After having one idea batted down last year, some National Institutes of Health (NIH) institutes are taking a new tack to bolster the success rate of Black scientists and researchers from other underrepresented groups seeking research grants. A program aiming to diversify the NIH workforce could award up to $20 million a year to neuroscience, drug abuse, and mental health investigators...