Central America
Amphibians like frogs and toads have existed for 360 million years and survived when the dinosaurs didn't, but a new aquatic fungus is threatening to make many of them extinct, according to an article in the November issue of Microbiology Today.
Cold Spring Harbor, NY -- A four-year, multi-institutional effort co-led by three Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) scientists culminated today in publication of a landmark series of papers in the journal Science revealing in unprecedented detail the DNA sequence of maize (Zea mays).
There are approximately 40,000 species of spiders in the world, all of which have been thought to be strict predators that feed on insects or other animals. Now, scientists have found that a small Central American jumping spider has a uniquely different diet: the species Bagheera kiplingi feeds predominantly on plant food.
The world will miss its agreed target to stem biodiversity loss by next year, according to experts convening in Cape Town for a landmark conference devoted to biodiversity science.
Sept. 22, 2009 -- Sometimes to see something properly, you have to stand farther back. This is true of Chuck Close portraits where a patchwork of many small faces changes into one giant face as you back away.
It may also be true of the frogs of Central America, where the pattern of extinctions emerges clearly only at a certain spatial scale.
Leather handbags and chunks of red meat: when wildlife specialists find these items in shipping containers, luggage, or local markets, they can now use newly published genetic sequences known as "DNA barcodes" to pinpoint the species of origin.
NAIROBI, KENYA (24 August 2009) -- Although agriculture, particularly in the developing world, is often associated with massive deforestation, scientists from the World Agroforestry Centre demonstrated today, in a study using detailed satellite imagery, that almost half of all farmed landscapes worldwide include significant tree cover.
WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - If a lush, protected forest with a winding stream is considered luxury accommodation for a migratory bird, a Purdue University study shows that those birds would be just as happy with the equivalent of a cheap roadside motel.
El Niño years typically result in fewer hurricanes forming in the Atlantic Ocean. But a new study suggests that the form of El Niño may be changing potentially causing not only a greater number of hurricanes than in average years, but also a greater chance of hurricanes making landfall, according to climatologists at the Georgia Institute of Technology.
While climate change has been an emerging topic of interest to the world community, little scientific data exists on the vulnerability and resilience of households to climate-related “shocks” and events like more intense hurricanes and prolonged drought.
Fungus-farming ants have cultivated the same fungal crops for 50 million years. Each young ant queen carries a bit of fungus garden with her when she flies away to mate and establish a new nest.
Large waterfowl are not a good recipe for jet aircraft engines in flight. That much was made vividly clear by the recent “Miracle on the Hudson” in which all 155 people aboard a US Airways flight survived when the pilot made a perfect water landing after geese “fowled” both engines following a takeoff from LaGuardia.
From Canada to Central America, the many grandeurs of North America's diverse topography star in a just-released high-resolution map from NASA's Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. But a relatively obscure feature, all but hidden in the flat limestone plateau of Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, is what emerges as the initial showstopper from the mission's first released continental data set. The existence of the impact crater known as Chicxulub (Chik-sah-loob) was first proposed in 1980. In the 1990s, satellite data and ground studies allowed it to gain prominence among many scientists as the long sought-after "smoking gun" responsible for the demise of the dinosaurs and more than 70 percent of Earth's living species 65 million years ago. Now, the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission has provided the most telling visible evidence to date of a 180-kilometer (112-mile) wide, 900-meter (3,000-foot) deep impact crater, the result of a collision with a giant comet or asteroid on one of Earth's all-time worst days.
The social behavior of sex workers and transportation workers along the U.S. ? Mexico border has the potential to spread HIV and AIDS through North and Central America in much the same way the disease has spread through sub-Saharan Africa, according to a new University of Houston study. "The main thrust of the study focuses on the potential this social mechanism could play in the spread of AIDS as the virus gets into those populations of truck drivers," said the study's lead researcher. "Keep in mind that this is how the virus is believed to have spread throughout sub-Saharan Africa, as transportation workers moved through border regions."
The health of indigenous people in the Western Hemisphere was on a downward trajectory long before Columbus set foot in the Americas, Ohio researchers say. The rise of agriculture is partly to blame as the demands of tending domestic crops encouraged people to settle in larger communities, where disease was more easily spread. The current research suggests that the overall health of the average person declined with the development of agriculture, government and urbanization.
