By Gabriel Popkin The heat-trapping gases humans release into the air are warming the planet. But humble soil-dwelling bacteria and fungi also release heat-trapping gases, and those gases could determine just how hot it gets. Now new research adds to the worry that the microbes will make climate change worse. Soil microbes digest dead plants
react-empty: 219 react-text: 223 By Miriam Wasser The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report Wednesday detailing how climate change is affecting oceans and the frozen world. It’s the final of three special reports, and, like the previous two, it has implications for New England. If you’re picturing a polar bear standing on a
MBL Ecosystems Center scientists Jim Tang and Faming Wang are among the authors of this research, which was conducted at a Cape Cod salt marsh. By Elizabeth Pennisi, Science LOUISVILLE, KENTUCKY– Experts consider salt marshes foot soldiers in the battle against climate change: In the U.S. Northeast alone, they sop up enough carbon every year
By Boris Tsand For most people, the mention of plastic pollution conjures up images of large garbage patches floating in the open ocean, thanks in part to the proliferation of such images on social media. The public’s preoccupation with these forms of pollution is mirrored in academia; studies in plastic pollution often focus on ocean
By Steven Withrow Human beings now have the technology to rewrite our genetic codes and the codes of every organism on Earth. What is more, this technology has been around for billions of years—bacteria naturally evolved it as a mechanism to fight off viral invaders—only to be discovered in the early 2000s by researchers working
By Eric Boodman You’ve swum with one, stepped on one, maybe swallowed one. This unsung invertebrate could teach us about aging WOODS HOLE, Mass. — In case you were wondering, Kristin Gribble is not a basher of fruit flies or roundworms. She wants to be clear: She bears no ill will toward those invertebrates so
An octopus’s garden! WBUR and Science Friday’s video producer Luke Groskin talks all-things cephalopods with Carrie Albertin and Bret Grasse, both from the Marine Biological Laboratory, and aquarist Bill Murphy from the New England Aquarium. This “Cephalopod Week” event was held at WBUR Cityspace on June 24.
Science Friday wrapped up its “eight-day squid-and-kin appreciation extravaganza,” Cephalopod Week, by interviewing MBL Hibbitt Fellow Carrie Albertin, who gives Ira Flatow “a tour of the complex genomes of octopuses, and how understanding cephalopod genetics could lead to greater insights into human health.” … Read more and hear broadcast … Source: Closing Out The Cephalo-Party
By Paul Caine University of Chicago paleontologist Neil Shubin takes us behind some of the most recent stories making headlines in the world of science. Stories include … Hydra revealed Researchers at the University of Chicago’s Marine Biological Laboratory and Columbia University believe they may have achieved a world first by mapping the full-body muscle
.entry-header By Johanna Mayer We wish could ask cephalopod scientists questions for eight days straight, but the next best thing is an hour-long reddit AMA. Roger Hanlon (of MBL), Louise Allcock, and Mike Vecchione are authors of Octopus, Squid, and Cuttlefish: A Visual, Scientific Guide to the Oceans’ Most Advanced Invertebrates—and they know a lot