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Tag: "fires" at biology news

Dirty snow may warm Arctic as much as greenhouse gases

... when soot from tailpipes, smoke stacks and forest fires enters the atmosphere and falls to the ground. Soo...y and fuel combustion, while forest and open-field fires account for the rest. Because of human activity, greenhouse gas levels have increased by one-third i...

Genome archaeology illuminates the genetic engineering debate

...hts into plant genomic evolution may well fuel the fires of the genetically modified organism (GMO) controversy. "Our findings elucidate an active evolutionary process in which nature inserts genes much like modern biotechnologists do. Now we must reassess the allegations that biotechnologists perform 'u...

The subtleties of tropical forest demise

...rapidly in importance, such as destructive surface fires in tropical forests. (3) Those that are poorly understood, such as the impacts of global warming and other growing atmospheric alterations on tropical ecosystems. (4) Environmental synergisms, where two or more simultaneous threats—such as habitat fr...

Firefighters face increased risk for certain cancers

...entire body to remove soot and other residues from fires to avoid skin exposure." ...

Unraveling where chimp and human brains diverge

... engine, our findings suggest that the human brain fires like a 12-cylinder engine, while the chimp brain works more like a 6-cylinder engine," explained Geschwind. "It's possible that our genes adapted to allow our brains to increase in size, operate at different speeds, metabolize energy faster and enhan...

NASA study: Alaskan fires affected Houston air quality in 2004

... finds that smoke from Alaskan and Canadian forest fires as much as doubled ground-level ozone thousands of... to the area over the course of a week from forest fires raging in Alaska and Canada. The study is the first to quantitatively examine the impact of remotely...

Protein receptor cools passion of 'kiss and run' nerve cells

...y hinge on how "wet" the "kiss" is when one neuron fires a packet of neurotransmitter across a synapse to a...tein on a pre-synaptic nerve cell -- the side that fires the packet of neurotransmitter -- that is affected by 5-hydroxytryptamine, or 5-HT, a body chemical ...

Amazon rainforest greens up in the dry season

...tanding fire regimes in the tropics, including the fires that sometimes rage in tropical areas during El Nino years, which bring drought to many tropical areas, including the Amazon. The research team figured out when the intact forest grows by analyzing five years of satellite images from the MODIS (Mode...

The Amazon in 2050: Implementing the law could save a million square kilometers of rainforest

...or the last 21 years. His research includes forest fires and "savannization", the analysis of public policies to conserve the Amazon's natural resources, the prediction of future trends of Amazon forests and people, and the environmental certification of the region's cattle ranchers and soy farmers. Based ...

GPSDB, the free Gene and Protein Synonyms DataBase

...es Hartt. Whereas slash-and-burn methods use open fires to reduce biomass to ash, slash-and-char uses low-intensity smoldering fires covered with dirt and straw, for example, which partially exclude oxygen. Slash-and-burn, which is ...

Amazonian terra preta can transform poor soil into fertile

...es Hartt. Whereas slash-and-burn methods use open fires to reduce biomass to ash, slash-and-char uses low-intensity smoldering fires covered with dirt and straw, for example, which partially exclude oxygen. Slash-and-burn, which is ...

Satellites show Amazon parks, indigenous reserves stop forest clearing

...ide versus the inside perimeter of reserves, while fires were 4 to 9 times higher. Indigenous lands clearl...or the last 21 years. His research includes forest fires and "savannization", the analysis of public policies to conserve the Amazon's natural resources, the...

MIT chemist discovers secret behind nature's medicines

... of one of its parts. "If an enzyme is a gun that fires to cause a reaction, then we wanted to know the mechanism that pulls the trigger," Drennan said. "In chemistry, we often have to look at 'molecules in, molecules out.' With halogenated natural products, though, we couldn't figure out how it happened,...

Complex gene interactions account for autism risk

... is a neurotransmitter ?a chemical that one neuron fires at receptors on another neuron to trigger a response ?in this case an inhibitory response. GABA receptors are protein switches nestled in nerve cell membranes that are triggered by GABA to cause such inhibition. Importantly, the study found that the...

NCAR analysis shows widespread pollution from 2004 wildfires

...tional Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The fires also increased atmospheric concentrations of groun..."It is important to see how the influence of these fires can reach large parts of the atmosphere, perhaps even over the entire Northern Hemisphere," says NCA...

NASA satellite data provides rapid analysis of Amazon deforestation

...ctices to clear fields for farming result in large fires that create air pollution and release tiny particles, known as aerosols. Aerosols can both heat and cool the air, depending on size, shape and color. Building on the results of this study, Brazil's INPE has developed a near or almost real time monit...

Did humans cause ecosystem collapse in ancient Australia?

... extinctions. The researchers believe that massive fires set by the first humans may have altered the ecosy...of the food chain. Bands of people set large-scale fires for a variety of reasons, including hunting, clearing, and signaling other bands. Based on the evide...

Study uncovers dirty little secret: Soil emissions are much-bigger-than-expected component of air pollution

Nitrogen oxides produced by huge fires and fossil fuel combustion are a major component o...mily. Other satellite instruments can detect large fires and the resulting emissions also can be measured by the ozone-monitoring experiment, Jaeglé said. B...

Expanding forests darken the outlook for butterflies, study shows

...al warming--and, outside of national parks, forest fires are usually suppressed. These factors are combining to create larger forests and smaller alpine meadows. This is bad news for butterflies in the Rockies, such as the Parnasissus, which Roland studies, because they require two things that they can eas...

Oxygen increase caused mammals to triumph, researchers say

...Falkowski says many scientists believed that great fires burned over the earth about 10 million years ago, reducing the number of trees and, therefore, the amount of photosynthesis and oxygen. ...

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