Category Archives: NESCent

In the age of open science, repurposing and reproducing research pose their own challenges

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In the age of open science, repurposing and reproducing research pose their own challenges. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, May 12, 2014. Growing numbers of researchers are making the data underlying their publications freely available online, largely in response to data sharing policies at journals and funding agencies. But in the age of open science, improving access is one thing, repurposing and reproducing research is another. A team of researchers experienced this firsthand when they tried to answer a seemingly simple question: what percentage of plants in the world are woody?

Animals with bigger brains, broader diets have better self control

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Animals with bigger brains, broader diets have better self control. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, April 24, 2014. The largest study of animal intelligence to-date finds that animals with bigger brains and broader diets have better self-control. The results are part of a long history of research aimed at understanding why some species are able to do things like make and use tools, read social cues, or even understand basic math, and others aren’t. By convincing animal experts across the globe to conduct the same set of experiments, researchers were able to test ideas about how cognitive differences in the animal kingdom came to be in a much more rigorous way than has been possible before. Picked up by The New York Times and the National Science Foundation.

Plants with dormant seeds give rise to more species

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Plants with dormant seeds give rise to more species. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, April 18, 2014. Seeds that sprout as soon as they’re planted may be good news for a garden. But wild plants need to be more careful. In the wild, a plant whose seeds sprouted at the first warm spell or rainy day would risk disaster. More than just an insurance policy against late frosts or unexpected dry spells, it turns out that seed dormancy has long-term advantages too:  Plants whose seeds put off sprouting until conditions are more certain give rise to more species, finds a new study.

Ancient DNA offers clues to how barnyard chickens came to be

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Ancient DNA offers clues to how barnyard chickens came to be. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, April 21, 2014. Ancient DNA adds a twist to the story of how barnyard chickens came to be, finds a study in the journal PNAS. Analyzing DNA from the bones of chickens that lived 200-2300 years ago in Europe, researchers report that some of the traits we associate with modern domestic chickens — such as their yellowish skin — only became widespread in the last 500 years, much more recently than previously thought. Picked up by Ars Technica, Nature and Public Radio International.

Personality test finds some mouse lemurs shy, others bold

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Personality test finds some mouse lemurs shy, others bold. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. June 18, 2013. Anyone who has ever owned a pet will tell you that it has a unique personality. Yet only in the last 10 years has the study of animal personality started to gain ground with scientists. Now researchers have found distinct personalities in the grey mouse lemur, the tiny, saucer-eyed primate native to the African island of Madagascar. Picked up by Futurity, Audubon Magazine and National Geographic Magazine.

Bird fossil sheds light on how swift and hummingbird flight came to be

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Bird fossil sheds light on how swift and hummingbird flight came to be. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. May 1, 2013. A tiny bird fossil discovered in Wyoming offers clues to the precursors of swift and hummingbird wings. The fossil is unusual in having exceptionally well-preserved feathers, which allowed the researchers to reconstruct the size and shape of the bird’s wings in ways not possible with bones alone. Picked up by Science Magazine, Science News and Discover.

Study proposes alternative way to explain life’s complexity

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Study proposes alternative way to explain life’s complexity. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. April 12, 2013. Evolution skeptics argue that some biological structures, like the brain or the eye, are simply too complex for natural selection to explain. Biologists have proposed various ways that so-called ‘irreducibly complex’ structures could emerge incrementally over time, bit by bit. But a new study proposes an alternative route.

Uncovering Africa’s oldest known penguins

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Uncovering Africa’s oldest known penguins. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. March 26, 2013. Africa isn’t the kind of place you might expect to find penguins. But one species lives along Africa’s southern coast today, and newly found fossils confirm that as many as four penguin species coexisted on the continent in the past. Exactly why African penguin diversity plummeted to the one species that lives there today is still a mystery, but changing sea levels may be to blame. The fossil findings represent the oldest evidence of these iconic tuxedo-clad seabirds in Africa, predating previously described fossils by 5 to 7 million years. Picked up by Discovery, NBC news, Huffington Post, the UK Daily Mail and Scientific American.

The safer sex? For a little-known primate, a new understanding of why females outlive males

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The safer sex? For a little-known primate, a new understanding of why females outlive males. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center. February 28, 2013. After observing an endangered lemur for more than two decades in the wild in Madagascar, Patricia Wright of Stony Brook University had a hunch that females were living longer than males. What could explain the gender gap? By taking a closer look at dispersal behavior across the lifespan, researchers think they have a clue. Picked up by Futurity.

Ethiopians and Tibetans thrive in thin air using similar physiology, but different genes

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Ethiopians and Tibetans thrive in thin air using similar physiology, but different genes. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, December 6, 2012. Scientists have pinpointed genetic changes that allow some Ethiopians to live more than a mile and a half above sea level without getting altitude sickness. The genes differ from those reported previously for high-altitude Tibetans, even though both groups cope with low-oxygen in similar physiological ways, the researchers say. The study adds to our understanding of how high-altitude populations worldwide have evolved to be different from their low-altitude ancestors. Picked up by Futurity.

New study examines how ocean energy impacts life in the deep sea

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New study examines how ocean energy impacts life in the deep sea. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, September 5, 2012. A new study of deep-sea species across the globe aims to understand how natural gradients in food and temperature in the dark, frigid waters of the deep sea affect the snails, clams, and other creatures that live there. Similar studies have been conducted for animals in the shallow oceans, but our understanding of the impact of food and temperature on life in the deep sea — the Earth’s largest and most remote ecosystem — has been more limited. The results will help scientists understand what to expect in the deep sea under future climate change, the researchers say

Not just for the birds: Man-made noise has ripple effects on plants, too

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Not just for the birds: Man-made noise has ripple effects on plants, too. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, March 21, 2012.  A growing body of research shows that birds and other animals change their behavior in response to man-made noise, such as the din of traffic or the hum of machinery. But human clamor doesn’t just affect animals. Because many animals also pollinate plants or eat or disperse their seeds, human noise can have ripple effects on plants too, finds a new study. Picked up by Scientific American, the Christian Science Monitor, MSNBC, National Public Radio, Audubon Magazine, the Miami Herald, BBC News, Science News, Discovery News, the New York Times and TIME Magazine.

Ice Age coyotes were supersized compared to coyotes today, fossil study reveals

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Ice Age coyotes were supersized compared to coyotes today, fossil study reveals. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, February 27, 2012.  Coyotes today are pint-sized compared to their Ice Age counterparts, finds a new fossil study. Between 11,500 and 10,000 years ago — a mere blink of an eye in geologic terms — coyotes shrunk to their present size. The sudden shrinkage was most likely a response to dwindling food supply and changing interactions with competitors, rather than warming climate, researchers say. Picked up by the Huffington Post, Wired, MSNBC, and Science Magazine.

Deadly bird parasite evolves at exceptionally fast rate

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Deadly bird parasite evolves at exceptionally fast rate. National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, February 9, 2012.  A new study of a devastating bird disease that spread from poultry to house finches in the mid-1990s reveals that the bacteria responsible for the disease evolves at an exceptionally fast rate. What’s more, the fast-evolving microbe has lost a key chunk of its genome since jumping to its new host, scientists were surprised to find. Picked up by MSNBC.