Just how much Arctic permafrost will thaw in the future and how fast heat-trapping carbon dioxide will be released from those warming soils is a topic of lively debate among climate scientists. To answer those questions, scientists need to understand the mechanisms that control the conversion of organic soil carbon into carbon dioxide gas. Until now, researchers believed that bacteria were largely responsible.
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Cuando se trata del comercio ilegal de vida silvestre, una cosa siempre me ha intrigado... ¿Por qué es tan alta la demanda de marfil? Mientras que puedo no entender las demandas del mercado negro o las necesidades culturales o históricas de estos dientes de animales raros, una cosa es fácil de ver: las poblaciones de este elefante africano están disminuyendo. A pesar de las múltiples prohibiciones nacionales e internacionales sobre el comercio de marfil...
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Another reason to love bees: they might be able to help us fight cancer. While venom isn't usually known as a friendly thing, new research shows that venom from bees, snakes and scorpions could potentially be used to fight certain forms of cancer. While you wouldn't go and inject someone with a dose of venom, which could have lethal effects, researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign found that if they isolated specific proteins in the venom, these could be used in a safe way to block tumor growth.
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Los satélites se ponen en órbita para diferentes tareas. Desde el envío de señales de televisión a nuestros hogares y permitir el uso de dispositivos GPS, hasta para ayudarnos a ver el clima en una escala global, los satélites recogen información y a través de esto nos ofrecen una comodidad moderna. Un nuevo uso para un satélite programado para ser lanzado este invierno es el del monitoreo de la humedad del suelo a nivel local. Regiones de todo el mundo enfrentan...
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In a United Nations report released in May, scientists worldwide were called upon to join the war on jellyfish. According to the report, jellyfish have overwhelmed the marine ecosystem as a result of the overfishing of more competitive species, consuming fish eggs and larvae of weaker specimens and creating what the report called a "vicious cycle." So how can this cycle be stopped?
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NASA research has revealed the Earth's atmosphere contains an unexpectedly large amount of an ozone-depleting compound from an unknown source decades after the compound was banned worldwide. Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), which was once used in applications such as dry cleaning and as a fire-extinguishing agent, was regulated in 1987 under the Montreal Protocol along with other chlorofluorocarbons that destroy ozone and contribute to the ozone hole over Antarctica. Parties to the Montreal Protocol reported zero new CCl4 emissions between 2007-2012.
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