• Infrared NASA satellite imagery provided cloud top temperatures of thunderstorms that make up Tropical Storm Emilia. Comparing those NASA temperature readings with another satellite’s data obtained the following day, forecasters determined that Emilia had strengthened.

  • Princeton researchers have developed a new computational method that increases the ability to track the spread of cancer cells from one part of the body to another.

  • Fabrics that resist water are essential for everything from rainwear to military tents, but conventional water-repellent coatings have been shown to persist in the environment and accumulate in our bodies, and so are likely to be phased out for safety reasons. That leaves a big gap to be filled if researchers can find safe substitutes.

  • Some people watch the competition carefully for the slightest signs of weakness. Lemurs, on the other hand, just give them a sniff.

  • Could a few seconds of warning be enough to mitigate the devastation of an impending earthquake? Tiny sensors being developed in a Simon Fraser University lab could help to give a pre-emptive head’s up.

  • Female seals don’t change their spots, according to a new study by University of Alberta biologists. In fact, individual differences in boldness remain consistent over time.

  • Scientists of the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz IZW) in Berlin analysed the spatial behaviour of cheetahs. They showed that male cheetahs operate two space use tactics which are associated with different life-history stages. This long-term study on movement data of over 160 free-ranging cheetahs in Namibia has now been published in the scientific journal ECOSPHERE.

  • A landmark international study, recently published in Nature Geoscience, shows that the Great Barrier Reef has suffered 5 death events in the last 30,000 years. The groundbreaking study of the world’s largest reef system, involving the participation of Juan Carlos Braga Alarcón, a Full Professor at the UGR’s Department of Stratigraphy and Palaeontology, reveals that these events were driven mostly by variations in sea level and associated environmental changes. 

  • It turns out that to tell the sex of a Galápagos penguin, all you need is a ruler.

    In a paper published April 5 in the journal Endangered Species Research, scientists at the University of Washington announced that, for a Galápagos penguin, beak size is nearly a perfect indicator of whether a bird is male or female. Armed with this knowledge, researchers could determine the sex of a bird quickly and accurately in the wild without taking a blood sample — speeding up field studies of this unusual and endangered seabird.

  • A new study from Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden has found that climate change may drive local extinction of mason bees in Arizona and other naturally warm climates.