Новости за 29.11.2022

Protected areas are one of the most effective tools for safeguarding biodiversity, but new research published today has found that most Asian countries failed to achieve a global minimum target of protecting at least 17% of land by 2020. Under current trends, the outlook for achieving the Global Biodiversity Framework's 2030 target to protect at least 30% of land is bleak, with Asia set to miss this by an even greater margin.

For thousands of kilometers along the western coasts of the Americas, low-oxygen waters known as oxygen minimum zones stretch out into the Pacific Ocean. In part due to climate change, this oxygen-starved region is likely to get wider and deeper, expanding by millions of cubic kilometers by the end of the century, models in a new study predict. Larger oxygen minimum zones threaten marine ecosystems and species, along with the industries that depend on them.

West Nile, Zika, dengue and malaria are all diseases spread by bites from infected mosquitoes. To track the threat of such diseases over large populations, scientists need to know where the mosquitoes are, where they've been, and where they might go.

How picky should females and males be when they choose a mate? How fiercely should they compete for mates? And how much should they engage in raising their offspring? The answers to these questions largely depend on the ratio of adult females to males in the social group, population or species.

Governments should embrace the realities of shifting biodiversity rather than "investing in futile efforts to return the natural world to its historic state," a new study argues.

Climate change can manifest in different ways: stronger tropical droughts, extreme droughts, warmer climates and highly unpredictable rainfall patterns. All these endanger the availability of food, which in turn could increase conflict over resources, which can turn violent in the absence of spaces for dialogs and negotiations to transform conflict by peaceful means. Violent conflict affects livelihoods and diminishes the capabilities of societies to cope with climate change.

The stories historians tell about society and climate typically take one of two forms: stories in which societies experience catastrophic collapse due to climate change and stories in which societies show resilience, riding out climatic disasters due to the durability of the system's structures.

A new book "Women, Work and Transport" brings together researchers with international expertise in gender and transport work, to provide original evidence of the experiences of women working in all transport modes across countries in the Global North and the Global South.

Linking the identity of wild microbes with their physiological traits and environmental functions is a key aim for environmental microbiologists. Of the techniques that strive for this goal, Stable Isotope Probing—SIP—is considered the most effective for studying active microorganisms in natural settings.

Since its launch 25 years ago, the Genomes OnLine Database (GOLD) has matured from six projects on a spreadsheet into a flagship genomic metadata repository, making curated microbiome metadata that follows community standards freely available, and enabling large-scale comparative genomics analysis initiatives.

The sustainable development of agriculture has laid a solid foundation for the birth of human civilization and countries. Early agriculture has long been a focus of archaeology. China is the only country in the world with two independent agricultural systems, that is, rice farming in the south and millet farming in the north.

Many factors can limit the size of a group, including external ones that members have no control over. Astronomers have found that groups of stars in certain environments, however, can regulate themselves.

In a recent study published in the journal National Science Review, a laboratory search for exotic spin-dependent interactions was conducted with an ensemble-NV-diamond magnetometer. New experimental constraints on two types of exotic interactions were established at the micron scale.

Pterosaurs, the flying reptiles of the dinosaur era, originated in the Late Triassic (227 million years ago) and became extinct at the end-Cretaceous extinction event (66 million years ago). With wing spans ranging from 1 to 12 meters, they dominated the world's skies for more than 160 million years.

Neurons are the fundamental units of the brain and nervous system, the cells responsible for receiving sensory input from the external world, for sending motor commands to our muscles, and for transforming and relaying the electrical signals at every step in between. Neurons, also called nerve cells, are composed of three main parts: the cell body, the dendrites and the axon—a long, thin extension that is responsible for communicating with other cells.

Kenya's education curriculum was reformed in 2017 to improve its quality—but now many Kenyans are calling for change again. Public disillusionment with the competency-based curriculum has forced a government review.

Wearable, flexible strain sensors unobtrusively monitor tiny vibrations of human skin in real time and with great accuracy, thanks to innovative fabrication techniques using composite materials. High sensitivity and a wide working range are key parameters for a high-quality strain sensor, but it's difficult to attain both characteristics on the same sensor due to limitations in structure and conductivity.

A new study by Tel Aviv University and the Interuniversity Institute for Marine Sciences in Eilat examined the effect of plastic additives on the reproductive process and larvae development of corals and other organisms commonly found in the coral reef of Eilat.

Researchers at RMIT University have found an innovative way to rapidly remove hazardous microplastics from water using magnets.

Mechanisms of plant colonization after long-distance dispersal (LDD) and current related knowledge were the topic of a review by Prof. Li Dezhu's team at the Kunming Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with researchers from the Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of CAS, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the University of Edinburgh.

The youngest stars often shine in bright bursts as they consume material from surrounding disks.

A simple breeding experiment, combined with genetic analysis, can rapidly uncover genes that promote cooperation and higher yields of plant populations, according to a new study published November 29 in the open access journal PLOS Biology, by Samuel Wuest of the University of Zurich and Agroscope, Switzerland, and colleagues. The results have the potential to quickly increase crop productivity through conventional breeding methods.

Many animals produce sound to communicate with each other, and bats are no exception. But bats are extreme when it comes to sound production.

Reforestation projects should include a variety of tree species and ensure genetic diversity within each species to maximize new forests' health and productivity, suggests a study published today in eLife.

While a lot of attention has been given to the unprecedented protests in China about the "dynamic zero COVID" policy, not much has been written about the wider political context, and particularly the young people leading the protests.