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El impacto que los seres humanos han hecho sobre la Tierra en términos de cómo se produce y consume recursos, ha formado un "nuevo modelo llamativo” en el flujo de energía global del planeta, según investigadores de la Universidad de Leicester.

t’s time to toast environmentally friendly grapes. A new UCLA study shows that eco-certified wine tastes better — and making the choice even easier, earlier research shows it’s often cheaper, too.

Though consumers remain reluctant to spend more on wine from organic grapes, the new study from UCLA researchers shows that in blind taste-tests professional wine reviewers give eco-certified wines higher ratings than regular wines.

Por primera vez, los investigadores han descubierto que las aves pueden dormir durante el vuelo. Junto con un equipo internacional de colegas, Niels Rattenborg del Instituto Max Planck para la Ornitología en Seewiesen midió la actividad cerebral de fragatas y encontró que duermen en vuelo, ya sea con un hemisferio cerebral a la vez o ambos hemisferios al mismo tiempo. A pesar de ser capaz de participar en todos los tipos de sueño en vuelo, las aves dormían menos de una hora al día, apenas una fracción del tiempo dedicado a dormir sobre la tierra. Cómo las fragatas son capaces de realizar de forma adaptativa con tan poco sueño sigue siendo un misterio.

As climate changes and wildfires get larger, hotter and more frequent, how should public lands in the American West be managed to protect endangered creatures that, like the spotted owl, rely on fire-prone old-growth forests?

Could periodic forest thinning and prescribed burns intended to prevent dangerous “megafires” help conserve owls in the long run? Or are those benefits outweighed by their short-term harm to owls? The answer depends in part on just how big and bad the fires are, according to a new study.

In a report published Aug. 1 that may help quiet a long-simmering dispute about the wisdom of using forest thinning and prescribed burns to reduce the “fuel load” and intensity of subsequent fires, a University of Wisconsin—Madison research group has documented an exodus of owls following the fierce, 99,000 acre King Fire in California in 2014.

For the first time, researchers have discovered that birds can sleep in flight. Together with an international team of colleagues, Niels Rattenborg from the Max Planck Institute for Ornithology in Seewiesen measured the brain activity of frigatebirds and found that they sleep in flight with either one cerebral hemisphere at a time or both hemispheres simultaneously. Despite being able to engage in all types of sleep in flight, the birds slept less than an hour a day, a mere fraction of the time spent sleeping on land. How frigatebirds are able to perform adaptively on such little sleep remains a mystery.