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Monday, January 5, 2015

ScienceDaily: Top Environment News

ScienceDaily: Top Environment News


Baleen hormones increase understanding of bowhead whale reproduction

Posted: 04 Jan 2015 12:24 PM PST

Wild animals provide a unique challenge for physiologists because they are difficult to capture and monitor in their natural habitats. As a result, scientists are increasingly learning about organisms by extracting steroid hormones out of keratinized tissues. This includes hormones such as testosterone, progesterone, and cortisol that are deposited in feathers, human hair, and reptile claws as these tissues grow. A onetime capture and removal of a single sample can provide a scientist with a record of fluctuating amounts of hormone in the body over the growth period of the collected sample. This technique provides a wealth of information about an animal, including its reproductive history. Development of this method is now underway to monitor the reproduction of one of the largest organisms on earth, the bowhead whale.

Mystery of funky 'disco' clam's flashing revealed

Posted: 04 Jan 2015 12:24 PM PST

The disco clam is an active, filter-feeding mollusk that lives in crevices or small caves in Indo-Pacific coral reefs. Their flashing is so bright that it had been thought to be the result of bioluminescence, the production of light within the tissue. However, flashes of light from an unusual clam help it to fend off predators and perhaps to attract prey, new research shows.

Being a couch potato could have led to marital bliss in mantis shrimps

Posted: 04 Jan 2015 12:24 PM PST

Being monogamous is an advantage for mantis shrimp, helping them to avoid predators, new research shows. A study shows that social monogamy, where one lives and shares resources with a single partner for an extended period of time, is rare in nature. So why did it evolve at all?

Technology to recycle all type of plastics without using water

Posted: 04 Jan 2015 12:23 PM PST

Traditionally, plastic recycling processes involve using a lot of water. In order to avoid this waste, researchers have developed a new green technology that doesn't require liquids, and has the capacity to process materials such as styrofoam, polystyrene and ABS (Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) using the same type of customizable machinery.

Production of 500 daily litres of bioethanol from food waste

Posted: 04 Jan 2015 12:23 PM PST

From waste generated in the processing of cereals, scientists have produced bioenergy in the form of ethanol, and designed a prototype plant that generates 500 litres of bioethanol a day.

Hidden details, objects in eighteenth century altarpiece found

Posted: 04 Jan 2015 12:23 PM PST

Researchers have unveiled two paintings in the side altar of the parish of Our Lady of the Immaculate Conception in Purisima del Rincon, Guanajuato in center Mexico, by artist Hermenegildo Bustos, invisible to the naked eye.

Time to reactivate nuclear energy in Mexico?

Posted: 02 Jan 2015 04:15 AM PST

A Mexican scientist has argued that nuclear energy is a real alternative to mitigate climate change damage from fossil fuel combustion in the country.

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