Researchers seek to generate a green revolution from cloning plants

Mexican Researchers participate in sequencing the Genome of a Polar Bear

More data is needed to prove the discovery of Higgs Boson

U-M forecasters predict second-smallest Gulf of Mexico ´dead zone´

English Version

ANN ARBOR, Michigan.— Como resultado de una primavera sin lluvias en vastas porciones del Medio Oeste se espera que este año la “zona muerta” en el Golfo de México sea la segunda más pequeña registrada, según un pronóstico de la Universidad de Michigan, UM divulgado hoy, jueves.

Plants have the capability to smell and this helps to defend themselves from threats

Researchers create corn resistant to drought and extreme temperatures

Mystery of monarch migration takes new turn

By Carol Clark

During the fall, hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies living in eastern North America fly up to 1,500 miles to the volcanic forests of Mexico to spend the winter, while monarchs west of the Rocky Mountains fly to the California coast. The phenomenon is both spectacular and mysterious: How do the insects learn these particular routes and why do they stick to them?

The cost for not investing in renewable energy might have a three fold increase in the following decades

It's is necessary to study the ashes of the Popocatepetl to assess the risks and benefits

Yale study concludes public apathy over climate change unrelated to science literacy

By Karen N. Peart

Are members of the public divided about climate change because they don’t understand the science behind it? If Americans knew more basic science and were more proficient in technical reasoning, would public consensus match scientific consensus?

The cost of tropical cyclones

Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office

	Image: NASA

Does the La Niña Weather Pattern Lead to Flu Pandemics?

Worldwide pandemics of influenza caused widespread death and illness in 1918, 1957, 1968 and 2009. A new study examining weather patterns around the time of these pandemics finds that each of them was preceded by La Niña conditions in the equatorial Pacific. The study’s authors–Jeffrey Shaman of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health and Marc Lipsitch of the Harvard School of Public Health—note that the La Niña pattern is known to alter the migratory patterns of birds, which are thought to be a primary reservoir of human influenza. The scientists theorize that altered migration patterns promote the development of dangerous new strains of influenza.

Climate change blamed for dead trees in Africa

By Sarah Yang

Trees are dying in the Sahel, a region in Africa south of the Sahara Desert, and human-caused climate change is to blame, according to a new study led by a scientist at the University of California, Berkeley.

UF researcher: Climate change may happen more quickly than expected

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — As global temperatures continue to rise at an accelerated rate due to deforestation and the burning of fossil fuels, natural stores of carbon in the Arctic are cause for serious concern, researchers say.

‘Think globally, act locally’ also applies to extinction

Caltech-Led Astronomers Discover the Largest and Most Distant Reservoir of Water Yet

Report: Natural gas can play major role in greenhouse gas reduction

Graphic: Christine Daniloff

Solar power goes viral

In this diagram, the M13 virus consists of a strand of DNA (the figure-8 coil on the right) attached to a bundle of proteins called peptides — the virus coat proteins (the corkscrew shapes in the center) which attach to the carbon nanotubes (gray cylinders) and hold them in place. A coating of titanium dioxide (yellow spheres) attached to dye molecules (pink spheres) surrounds the bundle. More of the viruses with their coatings are scattered across the background. Image: Matt Klug, Biomolecular Materials Group

Turning bacteria into butanol biofuel factories

By Robert Sanders

University of California, Berkeley, chemists have engineered bacteria to churn out a gasoline-like biofuel at about 10 times the rate of competing microbes, a breakthrough that could soon provide an affordable and “green” transportation fuel.