Certain species of coral have surprised researchers by showing an unexpectedly successful approach towards survival when seriously bleached. Their innovative strategy is gluttony.

The discovery, derived from experiments on coral reefs in Hawaii , provides new insights into how these tiny animals face a multitude of environmental threats. The report by Ohio State University researchers is published in the current issue of the British journal Nature.

During the past dec

Research News from the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture

Fermenting beans and then cooking them not only reduces the majority of the soluble fibre that leads to flatulence, but also enhances their nutritional quality. Now we know which bacteria are important for the fermentation, reveal findings published online today in the SCI’s Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.

Beans are already an important source of nutrients, and many people would eat m

An advanced laser-based instrument to help research into climate change is being developed for one of the world’s leading atmospheric research aircraft.

Professor Paul Kaye, Dr Edwin Hirst and Dr Richard Greenaway at the University of Hertfordshire’s Science and Technology Research Institute (STRI) have been commissioned by the US University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) to build the instrument for their new HIAPER (High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform

Data gathered from last year’s NASA hurricane research mission and a NASA satellite have improved tropical storm landfall and storm strength forecasts in computer models.

Ocean surface wind data gathered from NASA’s QuikSCAT satellite were combined with data from aircraft sensors dropped into tropical storms and fed into a new generation weather research and forecasting (WRF) computer model used to predict weather. The researchers in this study also used data from the Nationa

A new internet-based mapping program is helping truckers find truck stops with idle reduction facilities—on-site systems that can substantially cut fuel use while reducing air emissions.

Idle reduction systems hold great promise for the approximately 500,000 long-haul trucks with sleeper cabs currently operating in the United States. Estimates show idle reduction technologies could reduce diesel fuel use by about 800 million gallons annually, with a potential savings to the trucking

The depths of space are much closer to home following the University of Alberta’s acquisition of a meteorite that is the only one of its kind known to exist on Earth! What makes it so rare? The meteorite is ’pristine’ – that is, still frozen and uncontaminated – and so provides an invaluable preserved record of material from when the solar system formed 4.57 billion years ago.

The Tagish Lake Meteorite is carbonaceous chondrite and, as such, represents primitive materia

The complex patterns of tropical forest structure demand more complex explanations

As global change accelerates, quantifying the role of forests in the carbon cycle becomes ever more urgent. Modelers seek simple predictors of forest biomass and carbon flux. Over the last decade, the theory of metabolic ecology generated testable explanations, derived from physical and biochemical principles, for a wide range of ecological patterns. However, in two Ecology Letters articles, Hele

While most nations excavate their skeletons using a toothbrush, the Norwegians found one using a drill.

The somewhat rough uncovering of Norway’s first dinosaur happened in the North Sea, at an entire 2256 metres below the seabed. It had been there for nearly 200 million years, ever since the time the North Sea wasn’t a sea at all, but an enormous alluvial plane.

It is merely a coincidence that the remains of the old dinosaur now see the light of day again, or more preci

An international team of scientists, including Brown University geologist John Mustard, has created the most comprehensive mineral record of Mars to date. Using data from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express mission, the record shows three distinct geological eras on the Red Planet, with the earliest marked by the presence of water. Results are published in Science.

Mars started out relatively wet and temperate, underwent a major climate shift, and evolved into a cold,

PACIFIC OCEAN, approximately 800 km west of Costa Rica¡ªAn international team of scientists aboard the research drilling ship JOIDES Resolution has¡–for the first time¡–recovered black rocks known as gabbros from intact ocean crust. Supported by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP), the scientists drilled through the volcanic rock that forms the Earth’s crust to reach a fossil magma chamber lying 1.4 kilometers beneath the seafloor.

“By sampling a complete section of the

Human-induced climate change could ultimately influence deep Earth processes

The erosion caused by rainfall directly affects the movement of continental plates beneath mountain ranges, says a University of Toronto geophysicist — the first time science has raised the possibility that human-induced climate change could affect the deep workings of the planet.

“In geology, we have this idea that erosion’s going to affect merely the surface,” says Russell Pysklywec, a professor

International collaboration brings up first samples of hard rock called gabbro in intact ocean crust

Scientists aboard the research drilling ship JOIDES Resolution have, for the first time, drilled into a fossil magma chamber under intact ocean crust. There, 1.4 kilometers beneath the sea floor, they have recovered samples of gabbro: a hard, black rock that forms when molten magma is trapped beneath Earth’s surface and cools slowly.
The scientists, affiliated with the Int

An unprecedented marsh gardening project, spanning two states and utilizing the talents of many agencies, is ready to begin this spring. Headed by Dr. Just Cebrian, Senior Marine Scientist at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab, this ambitious “greening of the estuaries” seeks to establish new, or rehabilitate existing, marsh sites.

In 2002, the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program’s Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan was approved by the Environmental Protection Agency. Thi

Latest study documents sixth species found in two-year period

Frogs and lots of them are being discovered in the Southeast Asia nation of Lao PDR, according to the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society, which says that six new frog species have been found by scientists over a two-year period.

Working in conjunction with the WCS Laos Program, scientists describe the latest three species in the recent issue of Copeia, the journal of the American Society of Herpetol

Scientist divers to investigate coral reefs for impact of global warming, pollution and population growth in and around Farasan Islands

Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation will lead an all-star team of scientist divers on an expedition to study the “rainforests” of the Red Sea. State-of-the-art technology will enable the team to complete years of coral reef research in just three weeks. The research will focus on threats to coral health such as global climate change, ecoto

British scientists have discovered rivers the size of the Thames in London flowing hundreds of miles under the Antarctica ice shelf by examining small changes in elevation, observed by ESA’s ERS-2 satellite, in the surface of the oldest, thickest ice in the region, according to an article published in Nature this week.

The finding, which came as a great surprise to the scientists, challenges the widely held assumption that subglacial lakes evolved in isolated conditions for severa