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News from Latin America

Updates every hour. Last Updated: 4-May-2025 08:09 ET (4-May-2025 12:09 GMT/UTC)

Tropical forest diversity increased during ancient global warming event

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Carlos Jaramillo, staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, and colleagues report in the journal Science that nearly 60 million years ago rainforests prospered at temperatures that were 3-5 degrees higher and at atmospheric carbon dioxide levels 2.5 times today's levels.

Journal: Science
Funder: the Smithsonian Institution and the SI Women’s Committee, the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research, ICP-Ecopetrol S.A., Fundación Banco del la República de Colombia, the National Geographic Society

Supercomputer makes it possible to develop a Brazilian Global Climate System Model

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo
Business Announcement

The Brazilian Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas Espaciais (INPE, National Institute for Space Research), operating under the auspices of the Ministério da Ciencia e Tecnologia (MCT, Ministry of Science and Technology), began the installation of a supercomputer to be used for the development and implementation of the Brazilian Global Climate System Model. The new supercomputer will be used by researchers involved in the Global Climate Change Research Program, launched in 2008 by FAPESP, Sao Paulo Research Foundation.

2010 awards World Cultural Council

Consejo Cultural Mundial
Grant and Award Announcement

The World Cultural Council will celebrate the 27th Award Ceremony on Wednesday Dec. 8, in the Universidad Autonoma del Estado de Mexico, Toluca, State of Mexico, with the host of the Government of the State of Mexico.

Smithsonian reports regional sea temperature rise and coral bleaching event in Western Caribbean

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute's Bocas del Toro Research Station and Galeta Point Marine Laboratory are reporting an anomalous sea temperature rise and a major coral bleaching event in the Western Caribbean.

Earth's highest coastal mountain on the move

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The rocks of Colombia's Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta -- the highest coastal mountain on Earth -- tell a fascinating tale: Tthe mountain collides and then separates from former super-continents. Volcanoes are born and die. The mountain travels from Peru to northern Colombia and finally rotates in a clockwise direction to open up an entirely new geological basin. Smithsonian scientists were part of a four-year project to study Santa Marta's geological evolution.

Journal: Journal of South American Earth Sciences

Frog killer caught in the act

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The first before-and-after view of an amphibian die-off has just been published by scientists working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama. Genetic barcoding of the entire amphibian community revealed a 33 percent loss of amphibian evolutionary history at the site.

Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Funder: Bay and Paul Foundations, National Science Foundation

Tropical biodiversity is about the neighbors

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Rare plant species are much more negatively affected by the presence of their own species as neighbors than are common species. This may explain how biodiversity arises and is maintained.

Funder: HSBC Climate Partnership, National Science Foundation, Packard Fellowship for Science and Engineering, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

Biodiversity's holy grail is in the soil

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Peer-Reviewed Publication

The answer to one of life's great unsolved mysteries lies underground, according to a study published in the journal, Nature based on work at the Smithsonian's Barro Colorado Island in Panama.

Journal: Nature
Funder: National Science Foundation, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute

Inducing a safety memory in the brain

University of Puerto Rico, Medical Sciences Campus
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers at the University of Puerto Rico, School of Medicine have found a way to pharmacologically induce a memory of safety in the brain of rats. Administering brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) into the prefrontal cortex prevented rats from expressing fear to a tone that had been previously paired with a shock. Rats given BDNF acted as if they had received repeated presentations of the tone without the shock, a procedure called extinction.

Journal: Science
Funder: NIH/National Institute of Mental Health

A prognostic and predictive biomarker for nonsmall cell lung cancer

Publicase International
Peer-Reviewed Publication

Researchers in Brazil found a protein that can be used to indicate which patients in the early stages of nonsmall cell lung cancer (NSCLC) have a good prognosis and which do not. High levels of this protein correlate with resistance to certain anticancer drugs, especially cisplatin and carboplatin. This new finding may help doctors decide on the best course of action for each NSCLC patient, which may greatly impact survival rates.

Journal: Cancer