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New research from a Florida State University scientist has revealed a surprising relationship between surging atmospheric carbon dioxide and flower blooms in a remote tropical forest.

The celebrated Great American Eclipse of August 2017 crossed the continental U.S. in 90 minutes, and totality lasted no longer than a few minutes at any one location. The event is well in the rear-view mirror now, but scientific investigation into the effects of the moon's shadow on the Earth's atmosphere is still being hotly pursued, and interesting new findings are surfacing at a rapid pace. These include significant observations by scientists at MIT’s Haystack Observatory in Westford, Massachusetts.

Facing a climate crisis, we may someday spray sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere to form a cloud that cools the Earth, but suddenly stopping the spraying would have a severe global impact on animals and plants, according to the first study on the potential biological impacts of geoengineering, or climate intervention.

Scientists at the University of Colorado, Boulder have created the first worldwide atlas of soil microbes, mapping 500 of the most common kinds of bacteria found in soil across the globe, from deserts to grasslands to wetlands.

An international team of researchers studying globally declining shark populations report today that they used carbon isotopes as biochemical markers in shark muscle tissue to identify where in the oceans the mobile predators have been feeding, in the hope that such analyses provide a useful tool for conservation. Details appear in the current issue of Nature Ecology & Evolution.