Insect attack may have finished off dinosaurs
Asteroid impacts or massive volcanic flows might have occurred around the time dinosaurs became extinct, but a new book argues that the mightiest creatures the world has ever known may have been brought down by a tiny, much less dramatic force - biting, disease-carrying insects. view more (2008-01-03)
Extinction threat growing for mankind's closest relatives
Mankind's closest relatives - the world's monkeys, apes and other primates - are disappearing from the face of the Earth, with some literally being eaten into extinction. view more (2008-08-05)
University of Copenhagen
Unchecked global warming would leave ocean dwellers gasping for breath. Dead zones are low-oxygen areas in the ocean where higher life forms such as fish, crabs and clams are not able to live. In shallow coastal regions, these zones can be caused by runoff of excess fertilizers from farming. view more (2009-01-26)
Refining the date of the K/T boundary and the dinosaur extinction
Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Berkeley Geochronology Center have pinpointed the date of the dinosaurs' extinction more precisely than ever thanks to refinements to a common technique for dating rocks and fossils. view more (2008-04-25)
Smithsonian perspective: Biodiversity in a warmer world
Will climate change exceed life's ability to respond? Biodiversity in a Warmer World, published in the Oct. 10, 2008 issue of the journal, Science, illustrates that cross-disciplinary research fostered by the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama clearly informs this urgent debate. view more (2008-10-10)
Forget all about it: Traumatic memories can be erased
It is well known that fear memories are permanent. However, a recent paper in Science, evaluated by three Faculty Members for F1000, reports an extraordinary finding that supports the use of a drug to control recollections of traumatic incidents. view more (2009-11-10)
Is the Sagittarius dwarf galaxy a debris of the Large Magellanic Cloud?
The Sagittarius dwarf galaxy is our nearest neighbor. Yet it has been discovered only recently, in 1994, being hidden by the stars and dust in our own Galaxy, the Milky Way. It is however possible today to better know this companion galaxy, thanks to variable stars, the RR Lyrae, in which Sgr-dw is particularly rich. In a recent paper, Patrick... view more... (2002-02-25)
The last European hadrosaurs lived in the Iberian Peninsula
Spanish researchers have studied the fossil record of hadrosaurs, the so-called 'duck-billed' dinosaurs, in the Iberian Peninsula for the purpose of determining that they were the last of their kind to inhabit the European continent before disappearing during the K/T extinction event that occurred 65.5 million years ago. view more (2009-11-06)
Study shows competition, not climate change, led to Neanderthal extinction
In a recently conducted study, a multidisciplinary French-American research team with expertise in archaeology, past climates, and ecology reported that Neanderthal extinction was principally a result of competition with Cro-Magnon populations, rather than the consequences of climate change. view more (2008-12-29)
Alien predators are more dangerous than native predators
Introduced predators such as foxes and cats are twice as deadly as native predators to Australia's unique native animals, a new study has found. view more (2007-03-14)
New study reveals large scale conservation essential
Scientists were surprised with findings of a recent study that reveals many animal species believed to persist in small contained areas actually need broad, landscape level conservation to survive. view more (2008-06-10)
Bison reintroduction to Central Russia
Russian scientists are investigating the opportunity to bring wisents (Bison bonasus) back to the forests of Central Russia. Their effort has been funded by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Federal Target Scientific and Technical Program called "Conservation of Rare Species". The story of rescuing wisents (Bison bonasus)... view more... (2004-05-17)
Species Have Come and Gone at Different Rates than Previously Believed
Diversity among the ancestors of such marine creatures as clams, sand dollars and lobsters showed only a modest rise beginning 144 million years ago with no clear trend afterwards, according to an international team of researchers. This contradicts previous work showing dramatic increases beginning 248 million years ago and may shed light on... view more... (2008-07-07)
Are men in danger of extinction?
Despite having had most of the social determinants of health in their favour, men have higher mortality rates for all 15 leading causes of death and have a life expectancy about seven years shorter than women's. An editorial in this week's BMJ asks are men in danger of extinction? Men's reluctance to embrace preventive strategies has also... view more... (2001-10-31)
New space telescope aims to seek out and record explosive gamma ray bursts.
A state of the art space telescope built by scientists at UCL will make its way to the Goddard Space Flight Centre in Maryland, USA on a mission to unravel the mysteries of the universes gamma rays. The telescope - called UVOT - will be one of three telescopes on a special NASA orbiting space observatory planned for launch in 2003. The observatory... view more... (2002-05-31)
German Neanderthals together
In 1856 a group of workmen entered a cave in the Neander Valley to clean out the rubbish. Some odd bones were found which researchers Fuhlrott and Schaaffhausen recognized as being from an unknown, very old human. More Neanderthal remains were found thereafter, but the species got a very bad press. This ugly creature could by no means belong to... view more... (1999-03-09)
The lost genetic legacy of American gray wolves
A new study undertaken by researchers at UCLA, Uppsala University and National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution and published in the journal Molecular Ecology, suggests that plans to reintroduce American gray wolves to the Western US will not restore the population to the near same extent of genetic diversity it originally... view more... (2004-11-25)
Catching a killer one spore at a time
A workshop at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama has dramatically improved the ability of conservationists and regulatory agencies to monitor the spread of chytridiomycosis-one of the deadliest frog diseases on Earth. view more (2009-10-20)
Biodiversity controls ecological 'services,' report scientists in comprehenisive analysis
Accelerating rates of species extinction pose problems for humanity, according to a comprehensive study headed by a biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara and published in the journal Nature this week. view more (2006-10-26)
Why are there so many more species of insects? Because insects have been here longer
J. B. S. Haldane once famously quipped that "God is inordinately fond of beetles." Results of a study by Mark A. McPeek of Dartmouth College and Jonathan M. Brown of Grinnell College suggest that this fondness was expressed not by making so many, but rather by allowing them to persist for so long. view more (2007-04-04)
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