The Surprising Organization of Avian Brains Some birds can perform amazing cognitive feats - even though their forebrains seem to just consist of lumps of grey cells, while mammalian forebrains harbour a highly complex neocortex. A study reveals for the first time amazing similarities between the neocortex of mammals and sensory brain areas of birds: both are arranged in horizontal layers and vertical ... RELATED TOPICS Animal Learning and Intelligence

Mice

Bird Flu Research

Marine Heatwaves Are Human-Made Heatwaves in the world's oceans have become over 20 times more frequent due to human influence. This is what researchers are now able to demonstrate. Marine heatwaves destroy ecosystems and damage ... RELATED TOPICS Marine Biology

Global Warming

Fish

Switching Up: Marine Bacteria Shift Between Lifestyles to Get the Best Resources Researchers have found that marine bacteria exploit resource patches efficiently by switching between attached and planktonic lifestyles, and fine-tuning the time spent on patches depending on their quality. Bacteria stayed longer on higher-quality patches, as predicted by patch use theory. Future studies in this area could help to predict the ... RELATED TOPICS Bacteria

Geochemistry

Microbiology

How Earthquake Swarms Arise A new fault simulator maps out how interactions between pressure, friction and fluids rising through a fault zone can lead to slow-motion quakes and seismic ... RELATED TOPICS Earthquakes

Geology

Natural Disasters

Island-Building in Southeast Asia Created Earth's Northern Ice Sheets Tectonic processes are thought to have triggered past ice ages, but how? A new analysis of mountain building in the maritime tropics of Southeast Asia attributes the last ice age, which reached a maximum 15,000 years ago, to increasing rock weathering in the rising island arc from Sumatra to New Guinea over the past 15 million years, with the first ice sheets in the Northern Hemisphere appearing ... RELATED TOPICS Climate

Global Warming

Fossils

Driven by Climate, More Frequent, Severe Wildfires in Cascade Range Reshape Forests New research found that while the increased wildfire activity is causing widespread changes in the structure and composition of these mid-to-high elevation forests, the new landscapes are also likely more resilient to projected upward trends in future fire activity and climate ... RELATED TOPICS Forest

Wildfires

Trees

Camera Traps Show Impact of Recreational Activity on Wildlife The COVID-19 pandemic has fired up interest in outdoor activities in our parks and forests. Now a new study highlights the need to be mindful of how these activities may affect wildlife living in protected areas. All wildlife tended to avoid places that were recently visited by recreational users. And they avoided mountain bikers and motorized vehicles significantly more than they did hikers and ... RELATED TOPICS Sustainability

Land Management

Ecology

Y Chromosomes of Neanderthals and Denisovans Now Sequenced An international research team led by Martin Petr and Janet Kelso of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, has determined Y chromosome sequences of three Neandertals and two Denisovans. These Y chromosomes provide new insights into the relationships and population histories of archaic and modern humans, including new evidence for ancient gene flow from early ... RELATED TOPICS Human Evolution

Early Humans

Ancient DNA