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Secondary forests, or forests that have regrown after agriculture use, only last an average of 20 years, according to a recently released scientific paper. |
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New research suggests that protecting the Amazon rainforest from deforestation may just be shifting the damage to a less renowned neighbor. The unintended consequences are profound. |
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Treating dogs at a community level with systemic insecticide could considerably reduce the transmission of visceral leishmaniasis in Brazil, according to a modelling study led by ISGlobal, an institution supported by "la Caixa" Foundation. The results, published in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases, will help define which kind of insecticide is needed and how to apply it to achieve maximum effectiveness. |
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Noise can induce spatial and temporal order in non-linear systems, which helps to detect and amplify weak external signals that are difficult to detect by conventional amplifiers, according to an international team composed of researchers from Germany, China and Spain in which the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) is a participant. The work, published in two articles of the Physical Review Letters magazine, explains that this effect can be used in the decoding and in the creation of extremely weak signals, without the need for a reference signal and in a much shorter time than with a conventional amplifier. |
| Who doesn’t have web accounts and faces a daily challenge of having to save and remember a plethora of usernames and passwords? An international team of researchers has unveiled a new secure authentication platform for mobile devices that links all of a user’s online accounts to their identity, leaving their management to be handled by their cell phone. |
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In 2017, researchers working in the Ecuadorian Andes stumbled across a previously unknown species of hummingbird--but as documented in a new study published in The Auk: Ornithological Advances, its small range, specialized habitat, and threats from human activity mean the newly described Blue-throated Hillstar is likely already critically endangered. |
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On a recent expedition to the remote Brazilian archipelago of St. Paul's Rocks, a new species of reef fish--striped a vivid pink and yellow--enchanted its diving discoverers from the California Academy of Sciences. First spotted at a depth of 400 feet beneath the ocean's surface, this cryptic fish inhabits rocky crevices of twilight zone reefs and is found nowhere else in the world. Upon discovery, the deep-diving team was so captivated by their finned find that they didn't notice a massive sixgill shark hovering above them in an exciting moment captured on camera. The new fish description published today in Zookeys. |
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Buried alive. Butchered. Decapitated. Hacked. Mutilated. Killed. Archaeologist Samuel K. Lothrop did not obfuscate when describing what he thought had happened to the 220 bodies his expedition excavated from Panama’s Playa Venado site in 1951. The only problem is that Lothrop likely got it wrong. A new evaluation of the site’s remains by Smithsonian archaeologists revealed no signs of trauma at or near time of death. The burial site likely tells a more culturally nuanced story. |
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Researchers from the University of Salamanca have developed new fluorescent probes that will serve both for research purposes and for the diagnosis of liver and the digestive system diseases. Experts use these molecules to study the state in which the tissues are found, but those used so far offer very limited possibilities. |
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Hookworms exploit a live fast/die young strategy in their South American fur seal pup hosts, report Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers at the University of Georgia. As a result, they often kill their host, rather than finding a happy equilibrium. Scientists are concerned that this type of hookworm infection could eventually pose a risk to critically endangered populations of fur seals. |
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A study in the journal Bulletin of Marine Science describes a new, blood-red species of octocoral found in Panama. The species in the genus Thesea was discovered in the threatened low-light reef environment on Hannibal Bank, 60 kilometers off mainland Pacific Panama, by researchers at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama (STRI) and the Centro de Investigación en Ciencias del Mar y Limnología (CIMAR) at the University of Costa Rica. |
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There are currently millions of heavily underutilized devices in the World. The storage, networking, sensing and computational power of laptops, smartphones, routers or base stations grows with each new version and product release. Why not put all those extra gigabytes of memory and those powerful processing units to work collaboratively and expand the services available to all of us? |
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When you watch Kathleen Higgins care for her captive Andinobates geminisae populations, you know you have met a frog lover. This species of tiny orange frogs, discovered in Panama in 2014, is being bred in captivity at the Smithsonian’s Gamboa Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Center. |
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The cloud forests of Honduras can seem like an otherworldly place, where the trees are thick with life that takes in water straight from the air around it, and the soundscape is littered with the calls of animals singing back and forth. Otherworldly, yes, but scientists have found that the cloud forests are not immune to very down-to-earth problems of climate change and deforestation. A 10-year study of bird populations in Cusuco National Park, Honduras, shows that the peak of bird diversity in this mountainous park is moving higher in elevation. Additional land protection, unfortunately, may not be enough to reverse the trend, driven in part by globally rising temperatures. The study is published in Biotropica. |
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A quick look at the fossil record shows that no species lasts forever. On average, most species exist for around a million years, although some species persist for much longer. A new study published in Scientific Reports from paleontologists at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama shows that young species can take advantage of new opportunities more easily than older species: a hint that perhaps older species are bound to an established way of life. |
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Scientists from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have led a European R+D+I project named “eID@Cloud”, in which a model of platforms in the cloud has been developed with the objective of providing the European citizen with access to public and private national services from any state in Europe using only electronic identification from their respective countries. |
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Astronomers using ALMA, with the aid of a gravitational lens, havedetected the most-distant galactic “wind” of molecules ever observed, seen when the universe was only one billion years old. By tracing the outflow of hydroxyl (OH) molecules, which herald the presence of star-forming gas in galaxies, the researchers show how some galaxies in the early universe quenched an ongoing wildfire of starbirth. |
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A new device that combines low-intensity laser light and therapeutic ultrasound considerably reduces the pain experienced by patients with fibromyalgia. A scientific study has shown that application to the palms instead of to tender points on different parts of the body has better analgesic and anti-inflammatory effects. As a result of pain reduction, patients also sleep better and are able to perform daily tasks with less discomfort. Their overall quality of life also improves. |
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Researchers from the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) have developed a geo-localised database which enables archaeological pieces from ancient religions to be located on the Iberian Peninsula. This platform, named “The gens isiaca in Hispania”, provides a catalogue with more than 200 remains from the Roman age on Isis and other Egyptian gods. |
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Astronomers obtained the most detailed anatomy chart of a monster galaxy located 12.4 billion light-years away. Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), the team revealed that the molecular clouds in the galaxy are highly unstable, which leads to runaway star formation. Monster galaxies are thought to be the ancestors of the huge elliptical galaxies in today’s Universe; therefore, these findings pave the way to understand the formation and evolution of such galaxies. |
