Our leftover medicines are spawning drug-resistant “bacterial monsters” that thrive inside sharks, scientists say.
The finding suggests antibiotics such as penicillin may be leaching into the environment and spurring drug-resistant bacteria to evolve and multiply in the oceans.
The definition of bioluminescence “is easier than the pronunciation and spelling of the word: It is just visible light made by living animals,” says Edith Widder, president of the Ocean Research and Conservation Association in Fort Pierce, Fla.
The word may be easy to define, but the chemical process is still poorly understood. Bioluminescence has apparently evolved independently at least 40 times in species belonging to bioluminescence remains a poorly understood chemical process that appears to have evolved at least 40 times in species belonging to more than 700 genera. Widder notes in the journal Science that about 80 percent of those genera are found in the open ocean.
Climate change, coastal development and overfishing have effectively wiped out nearly a fifth of the world’s coral reefs, and by the end of this century they “are unlikely to look much like the reefs that we are familiar with today,” said Peter Mumby, a marine biologist at the University of Queensland in Australia, who envisions smaller and weaker reefs that harbor fewer fish.
“But there will still be reefs and they will still be very important,” he said. “And so what we really have to do is take all the steps we can locally to
Check out seven ways scientists and conservationists are pushing to preserve reefs for future generations.
A decade ago, global climate change was largely considered a problem for the distant future. But it seems that future has come sooner than predicted.
One of the most remarkable, and alarming, environmental changes to occur over the last decade is the melting of Antarctic ice sheets and the recession of Arctic glaciers at speeds much faster than climate change models had predicted, according to environment experts.
A giant woolly rat found in Papua New Guinea is just one of hundreds of species previously unknown to science that were brought to light in 2009. These discoveries are just one of ten things the environment gained in 2009.
Researchers announced the discovery of at least five new “green bombers”-deep-sea, swimming worm species armed with “bombs” that glow a brilliant green when dropped.
The glowing bombs are thought to distract predators such as fish, allowing the worms to escape.
The Hubble Space Telescope, which was launched in 1990, forever changed how humanity views the cosmos. Along the way, the observatory has opened eyes to the expansion of the universe, the evolution of stars and the beginning of time. As Hubble’s expiration date nears, what’s next in the realm of big science? Check out seven projects that a consortia of scientists, government agencies, and private corporations are working on hard to get off the ground. Technological and budgetary hurdles may prove insurmountable for some.