One answer for cleaner air, water: better agricultural practices
... Taking into consideration landscape type. For example, steep slopes shouldn't be cleared - doing so would only contribute to erosion Draining and plowing both strip soil of its carbon content. But ...Infections may trigger autoimmunity via rare, but normal process
... to seven days. This response dominates the immune landscape initially and helps to clear the infection from the body quickly. Caton and others had previously shown that self-reactive cells are effectively eliminated from this group of cells. The surprise, however, came when Caton's team examined a set of B ce...Conservation battle faces long odds in Brazilian Amazon
...ects the real impact of those causes on the Amazon landscape 20 years into the future. The results of allowing current trends to continue is devastating, they say. Non-indigenous populations in the Brazilian Amazon have increased about 10-fold since the 1960s, from two million people to 20 million. Investmen...As the grasslands change and disappear, what happens to the birds?
...reased human settlement have changed a once common landscape into one of the most endangered ecosystems in North America. A team of ecologists set out to discover how changes to the region have affected birds living in the middle of the continent. The results of their work have been published in this month's...Scientists go online to discuss threat posed by exotic forest pests
... will focus on how exotic pests impact forests and landscape trees, how they impact international trade, pests of current concern, methods of control, and possible guidelines, standards and regulations....Social scientists and biologists collaborate to address human dimensions of biodiversity
... in the wild. We are dramatically simplifying the landscape in which their intellectual lives can develop" cautions Dobson. If current rates of land use change continue, a third or more of all species could be on a path to extinction within the next decade. Scientists are increasingly concerned such extinctio......ther. If each possible state is like a valley in a landscape of valleys and ridges, he said, the trajectory from one valley to another would be like a strong rope stretching over the peaks. To find the easiest trajectory over the ridge to the desired valley, it's quicker to throw ropes over the passes and, lea...Scientists invite others to join them online to discuss exotic species threat
...l include the impact of exotic pests on forest and landscape trees, pests of particular concern and how to control them, and proposed guidelines, standards and regulations. Event organizers encourage anyone interested in the subject to log on during the interactive sessions beginning April 16 and running thro......ultural history and our environmental legacy, in a landscape where those issues are particularly urgent and evocative." In the company of 24 leading scholars, the 2001 expedition will recreate E. H. Harrimans "floating university." Researchers will reassess the time capsule of data from 1899 in the light of 2...World land database charts a troubling course
...mpact humans have had as they've remade the global landscape since the 17th century. "We're hitting a threshol... By far, the largest human influence on the global landscape is agriculture with 12 percent of the global land surface -- an area equivalent to the surface area ...Restoring wetlands much more than 'just add water'
... of weeds. Compounding the problem, the fragmented landscape prevents all but common weedy species from making the leap to the next wetland. Swales (intermittently flooded drainage areas) and rivers, however, can connect wetlands. Much remains to be discovered about how species disperse into wetlands and beco...... Prior to this study, it was believed that Earth's landscape at that time was covered with barren rocks harboring nothing more than some bacteria and possibly some algae. No undisputed fossils of the earliest land plants and fungi have been found in rocks formed during the Precambrian period, says Hedges, pos...Botanists collect, study rare Hawaiian plants
...THENS, Ohio Tourists flock to Hawaii for its lush landscape of breathtaking flora, but this summer the most re...vasive plants," he says. "The vast majority of the landscape has been altered from its native condition." Ballard concedes that any area inhabited by humans will...Better computer modeling provides a new look at large biomolecules
A new method for studying the electrical landscape of large biological molecules may enable researchers to make a leap from modeling molecules of 50,000 atoms to those of more than a million atoms. The technique, developed by Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) researchers at the University of Cal...Supercomputer paints electric landscape of cellular structures
...eins. Electrostatics describe the way in which the landscape of electrical charge is laid out in a molecular environment, for example, the electric forces that draw a taxol molecule through a microtubule and into a binding site or that tug a tRNA molecule into place on a ribosome during translation. The calcul......he lower-48 states. After breaking down the U.S. landscape by soil productivity, elevation, and broad ecological zones, the authors show that nature reserves are predominantly located in middle to high elevations in areas with less productive soils. For example, they found that 63 percent of the nature rese...Slight molecular tweak, and flu virus becomes a killer
...s to reproduce and spread. The complicated surface landscape of a virus is the key it uses to attach to host cells and co-opt their reproductive capabilities. The surface proteins of flu viruses change readily to escape detection by the human immune system. The new research suggests, however, that such change...Researchers put their heads together to understand complex world of wild plants and animals
...ays Lacher, "whereas a quantitative description of landscape patterns would give us a look at the future." The model could be used to improve landscape development, for example by selecting appropriate agricultural areas. It could also help scientists ...Blame North America megafauna extinction on climate change, not human ancestors
...als such as shrews and voles were moving about the landscape and becoming locally extinct. And there were the extinctions of some 35 genera of large North American mammals, including horses, camels, bears, giant sloths, saber-toothed cats, mastodons and mammoths. The overkill hypothesis was proposed by ret......tand the human genome is dramatically altering the landscape of biological science, medicine and health. They will examine the effects genetics research will have on social organization, whether the meaning of life itself is changing, and how we should confront new visions of what is humanly possible. Panel ...