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Carnivorous Plants Follow the Vegetarian Trend
Carnivorous plants catch and digest tiny animals in order and derive benefits for their nutrition. Interestingly the trend towards vegetarianism seems to overcome carnivorous plants as well. The aquatic carnivorous bladderwort, which can be found in many lakes and ponds worldwide, does not only gain profit from eating little animals but also by consuming algae…
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Extreme Weather Events Create Uncertain Future for Penguins
Changes in average climatic conditions combined with the increasing frequency of unpredictable, extreme weather events may disrupt scientific predictions of the future penguin populations, according to a study published in PLOS ONE on January 29, 2014 by Amélie Lescroël from the Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive (CNRS), France and colleagues.
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How studying natural disasters can help us plan for future ones
Were you one of the many people who got stuck in an airport when the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull erupted in 2010? It wasn’t a major eruption, and it happened a long way from the heart of Europe. But it cost society an absolute fortune by paralysing air traffic across northern Europe. According to Felix Riede,…
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Greenland Ice Sheet is melting from the top and bottom
New study shows that heat flow from the mantle contributes to the Greenland ice melt The Greenland ice sheet is melting from below, caused by a high heat flow from the mantle into the lithosphere. This influence is very variable spatially and has its origin in an exceptionally thin lithosphere. Consequently, there is an increased…
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New Study on Permafrost – Climate link
New research findings from the Centre for Permafrost (CENPERM) at the Department of Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, document that permafrost during thawing may result in a substantial release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and that the future water content in the soil is crucial to predict the effect of permafrost…
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Shrubs help assess history of Glaciers
The stems of shrubs have given researchers a window into a glacier’s past, potentially allowing them to more accurately assess how they’re set to change in the future. Their findings have been published today, 27 November, in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, and show how a glacier’s history of melting can be extended way…