articles

Los investigadores saben que las tormentas han comenzado a ocurrir con mayor frecuencia y que son más peligrosas a medida que el clima se calienta. Un equipo de científicos ha informado de una explicación, utilizando datos de satélites meteorológicos reunidos durante un período de 35 años.

A team of Michigan State University scientists has genetically sequenced two species of poisonous mushrooms, discovering that they can theoretically produce billions of compounds through one molecular assembly line. This may open the door to efficiently tackling some lethal diseases.

Phytoplankton are the foundation of ocean life, providing the energy that supports nearly all marine species. Levels of phytoplankton in an ocean area may seem like a good predictor for the amount of fish that can be caught there, but a new study by Nereus Program researchers finds that this relationship is not so straightforward.

“Using measurements of phytoplankton growth at the base of the food web to estimate the potential fish catch for different parts of the ocean has long been a dream of oceanographers,” says author Ryan Rykaczewski, Assistant Professor at University of South Carolina and Nereus Program Alumnus. “We know that these two quantities must be related, but there are several steps in the food chain that complicate the conversion of phytoplankton growth to fish growth.”

Researchers know that more, and more dangerous, storms have begun to occur as the climate warms. A team of scientists has reported an underlying explanation, using meteorological satellite data gathered over a 35-year period.

The examination of the movement and interaction of mechanical energies across the atmosphere, published Jan. 24 in the journal Nature Communications, is the first to explore long-term variations of the Lorenz energy cycle – a complex formula used to describe the interaction between potential and kinetic energy in the atmosphere – and offers a new perspective on what is happening with global warming.

An analysis of fossilized parrotfish teeth and sea urchin spines by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego showed that when there are more algae-eating fish on a reef, it grows faster.

In the new study, published in the Jan. 23 issue of the journal Nature Communication, Scripps researchers Katie Cramer and Richard Norris developed a 3,000-year record of the abundance of parrotfish and urchins on reefs from the Caribbean side of Panama to help unravel the cause of the alarming modern-day shift from coral- to algae-dominated reefs occurring across the Caribbean.

“Our reconstruction of past and present reefs from fossils demonstrates that when overfishing wipes out parrotfish, reef health declines,” said Cramer, a postdoctoral researcher at Scripps and lead author of the study.