Month: May 2016

birds fly home, migration Biology Zoology 

Bird Migration: I’ll Fly Home—or Not

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By Mark Lasbury, MS, MSEd, PhD @Biologuy1 The arctic tern travels from north of the Arctic Circle to Antarctica and back again every year. On the other hand, the snowy owl lives in the Arctic region year-round; it doesn’t migrate at all.  A Question of Bird Migration Why do some birds migrate while other birds stay in one place?  The possible explanations are many. Maybe the type of food they eat is present only part of the year, or maybe they can’t stand the cold temperature. They might need to…

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Why do cats love boxes? Science Videos Zoology 

Simon’s Cat: Why Do Cats Love Boxes?

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So, why do cats love boxes so much? Simon’s Cat Logic is a fun new video series in which an expert answers your burning questions about cat behavior. Special thanks from GotScience to the Simon’s Cat team for permission to republish this video, and for reminding all of us that science is fun. Seriously. Why Do Cats Love Boxes!? Simon’s Cat Logic is a fun new series where we speak to a cat behavior expert at Cats Protection (http://www.cats.org.uk) about why cats do the silly things they do, and how we…

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Phosphorescent Concrete: Photo of light-emitting concrete courtesy of Investigation y Desarrollo New Technologies Physics 

Phosphorescent Concrete Lights the Way Home

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By Jonathan Trinastic @jptrinastic Imagine a future when, as dusk turns to night during a long drive, the darkening highway begins to glow in soft hues of blue and green to illuminate the path ahead. Such a possibility could become reality after the creation of light-emitting cement by Jose Carlos Rubio at the University of San Nicolas Hidalgo in Mexico. The novel material could provide lighted pathways for cars, trucks, bikes, and pedestrians without using electricity. Countries of Concrete Most developed countries now rely on vast networks of roads to…

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Saving Forests with AI: PAWS suggests patrol routes in Malaysia based on behavioral models. (Rimba) Environment New Technologies 

Saving Forests with Artificial Intelligence

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By Norman Rusin The global trade in products made from illegally extracted timber is a multi-billion dollar industry. The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates it to be worth between $30 billion and $100 billion annually. The practice not only threatens ancient forests and critical habitats for wildlife, but also results in significant economic and environmental problems for many developing countries. Clear-cutting is known to disrupt carbon in the soil. However, forest protection agencies face limited budgets and must cover large areas, making sound investments in security resources critical. AI to…

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Dichroa febrifuga, a medicinal herb that has been historically used to treat fever, is named for its active ingredient, febrifugine. By Keith Edkins (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons Biology Chemistry 

Malaria Drugs: Herb Garden to Medicine Cabinet

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Malaria kills 1 million people each year, most of whom are children in sub-Saharan Africa. Turning to nature for new malaria drugs. By Bill Sullivan, PhD We live on a lush planet filled with over 290,000 species of plants. Herbs are a particular type of plant that lack a wooden stem, and humans have often sampled them in hopes of finding a new food or flavoring. Sometimes ingestion of an herb produces unwanted effects, such as death. But other herbs have medicinal qualities, such as the alleviation of fever.  An…

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Climate Change, GotScience.org Environment 

Climate Change: Why Don’t We Worry More?

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“If we could invent one risk that bypasses all of our psychological alarm systems, global climate change would be it,” a psychologist explains. You’ve seen the projections, read the articles about record annual temperatures, rolled your eyes at climate change deniers. You know the threat of global warming is real. At least intellectually. But are you really worried about it? Probably not as worried as you know you should be. We asked social psychologist Sander van der Linden of Princeton University why it’s so hard for our brains to perceive climate…

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North American Monkeys: Cebus capucinus. Photo by Sean Mattson, STRI Paleontology Zoology 

North American Monkeys Older Than Previously Thought

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By Emily Rhode @riseandsci With the formation of the Isthmus of Panama, North and South America became connected by a thin but important strip of land that was at one time the location of a narrow seaway. As engineers recently worked to widen the Panama Canal that once again divides the two landmasses, a team of scientists acted quickly to dig through the rubble and collect newly unearthed fossils. What scientists from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, the University of Florida, and the New Mexico Museum of Natural History and…

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