Analysis published in Scientific Reports is based on climate models for the mid-Pliocene period, which occurred 3 million years ago and shared characteristics with present-day warming.

Toxic protein inhibits cell wall synthesis in rival bacteria. Discovery helps explain how pathogens cause imbalances in established microbial communities and could pave the way to the development of novel anti-microbial compounds.

New research looks at the swimming and sinking kinematics of nine species of warm water pteropods (sea snails) to shed light on their ecology, predator-prey interactions, and vertical distributions. By using a high-speed stereophotogrammetry system, investigators were able to focus on how the shell shape, body geometry, and body size affect their swimming behavior from a fluid mechanics perspective, while image analysis and metabarcoding related swimming behaviors to night time and daytime vertical distributions.

Project led by researchers from Brazilian and American institutions will collect primary data during the pandemic to create a repository that will serve as a basis for future studies. The findings of the comparative analysis will be published in book form.

Preserving terrestrial biodiversity requires more ambitious land-conservation targets to be established and met. At the same time, 'bending the curve' on biodiversity loss needs more efficient food production, and healthier and less wasteful consumption and trade. If undertaken with 'unprecedented ambition and coordination,' these efforts provide an opportunity to reverse terrestrial biodiversity loss by 2050.

Rising ocean temperatures cause marine heat waves, which place stress on living coral animals, as well as the photosynthetic algae on which they depend for energy. A new study led by Yvonne Sawall, assistant scientist at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), is showing potential for the use of artificial upwelling (AU)--or the application of cooler, deep water--as a way to mitigate the thermal stress on corals.

Brazilian researchers use complex training program to stimulate different motor and cognitive skills simultaneously and restore brain regions associated with freezing of gait in advanced-stage patients.

Anthropologist Fernando Santos-Granero pieced together the story of a change agent whose life spanned an important period in South American history in his book, Slavery and Utopia, now available in English and Spanish.

Through their foraging behavior across the diverse topography of the African savanna, megaherbivores may be unknowingly influencing the growth and survival of vegetation on valleys and plateaus, while preserving steep slopes as habitat refugia.

New research published in the journal Coral Reefs generates the largest characterization of coral reef spectral data to date. These data are an initial step in building a quantitative understanding of reef water clarity. With these data, coral reef scientists can begin to develop models to address fundamental questions about how reefs function, such as how much light reaches the various reef zones or how ecological zonation on reefs might be driven by light absorption.