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ECOLOGICAL SCIENCES
In the 1940s, the brown tree snake reached Guam hidden in post-WWII cargo and set off a chain reaction that scientists are still measuring today; birds gone, tree seedlings down by up to 92%, and spiders multiplying up to 40-fold on an island that once had neitherAn invasive brown treesnake on Guam has decimated native bird populations, leading to a silent forest. This loss has crippled the island's ...- In 1991, 8 people shut themselves for 2 years inside an airtight Arizona dome, and the walls quietly swallowed their oxygen for 475 days before anyone figured out whyEight individuals entered Biosphere 2 in 1991, aiming to live in a self-contained ecosystem for two years. Unexpectedly, oxygen levels plum...
- A nearly 200-year-old cemetery comes alive after dark, where the dead share space with frogs, toads, and the scientists listening to themCitizen scientists are lending their ears to a crucial cause, listening for frog calls in Cambridge's historic Mount Auburn Cemetery. This ...
- 'Jurassic Park' got it wrong! Scientists just found that pterosaurs, may have had more wing-shape diversity than current reconstructions allow, changing how we picture ancient flightFor over a century, our understanding of pterosaur wings has been based on limited fossil evidence, leading to remarkably similar reconstru...
- Elephant encounters: Scientists tracked elephants for 19 years in Botswana and found that year-long droughts pushed them toward human settlements, raising the risk of dangerous encountersAfrican elephants are increasingly venturing closer to human settlements as prolonged droughts persist, a new study reveals. Research from ...
- More trees do not always mean more birds, and a Japanese study found grassland species fell by over 70% near shelterbelts, showing that restoring habitat can sometimes reduce biodiversityA surprising study reveals that planting trees as windbreaks on farms can devastate bird populations, particularly those needing open grass...
- From birth to adulthood, T. rex took 40 years growing into an eight-ton giant, and scientists think that long childhood helped it dominate the dinosaur worldNew research reveals Tyrannosaurus rex took longer to reach its massive size than previously thought, growing for about 40 years instead of...
- Are your moral views just a lie? A psychology professor explains the science behind our changing values and beliefsPsychologist Audun Dahl argues that our moral beliefs are more fluid than we realize. Rather than attributing changes to selfishness or err...
- Scientists just made an all-silk cooling textile that reflects 94.8% of sunlight and lowers skin temperature by 4.3 °CScientists have engineered a revolutionary silk fabric, dubbed SilkNT, that cools the skin by an impressive 4.3°C without any batteries or ...
- Does planting more trees on farmland actually hurt bird populations? Here's what a new study reveals about hidden risks of tree plantingNew research from Japan reveals that planting trees for conservation, while beneficial for some birds, can negatively impact species relian...
- Scientists just tracked 188 pet owners in the Netherlands for five days, and the surprising twist is that dogs and cats both lifted mood a little, but only one might be making stress worseA recent Dutch study explored how interacting with cats and dogs impacts our mood and stress. While both pets offer a brief happiness boost...
- In 2021, a British geologist dated footprints at New Mexico's White Sands to 21,000+ years old: Pushing humans' arrival in North America back 5,000 yearsExciting discoveries at White Sands National Park challenge what we know about North America's past. Unearthed ancient human footprints, es...
- China's anti-desertification drive restores 10 million hectares in five years, targets 6.7 million more by 2030China has restored over 10 million hectares of desertified land and nearly 2 million hectares of rocky desertification during the 14th Five...
- Italy planted Norway spruce across the Alps in the 1930s, a deliberate-but-naive reforestation drive, but 90 years on, plant diversity is 50% lower than in native forestsA 90-year-old reforestation project in Italy's Prealps planted Norway spruce. A new study reveals this decision drastically reduced plant d...
- Forget deadbeat dads: These devoted spiders guard their babies, and science finally knows whyCitizen science data from iNaturalist, combined with decades of fieldwork, has revealed the complex evolutionary history of parental care i...
- He shot a wolf for fun. Then something in its dying eyes turned a hunter into America's greatest conservationistAs the animal lay dying, Aldo Leopold looked into its eyes and saw what he later described as a “fierce green fire” fading away. In that mo...
- Scientists just mapped 110 quadrillion kilometers of hidden fungal threads underground, weighing about five times all humans combinedVast underground fungal networks, stretching billions of times to the sun, exist in Earth's soil. These hyphae, finer than hair, weigh more...
- From pet to pest: A 2026 experiment reveals that releasing goldfish into lakes triggers a full ecosystem regime shift, and no lake type is immuneReleasing pet goldfish into local waters causes extensive ecological damage. These fish grow large, stir up sediment, consume prey, and out...
- In the 1950s, Swiss farmers intensified and mechanized their fields; nine decades of records now reveal an unexpected divide: butterflies are still struggling, while forest beetles have fully bounced backButterflies and beetles are disappearing at an alarming rate. A Swiss study reveals significant butterfly losses since 1930, linked to farm...
- 18 koalas moved to Kangaroo Island in the 1920s; a century on, 27,000 descendants are stripping eucalyptus bare and risk mass starvationKoalas are overpopulating in South Australia's Mount Lofty Ranges. This boom threatens eucalyptus forests, their food source. Scientists pr...
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