To understand the present and try to predict the future, the past is a valuable tool. Researchers aim to understand the dynamics of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet in the Lützow-Holmbukta region with the goal of determining if rapid ice sheet thinning (from approximately 9,000 to 6,000 years ago) was followed by stabilization or re-thickening. This information is key to helping predict future responses to ice sheet thinning, as well as to get a clear picture of the current behavior of ice sheet thinning across the Antarctic. With this, future responses to climate change can be improved.

A new paper in Molecular Biology and Evolution reports that Italian bears living in areas with many villages evolved and become smaller and less aggressive.

Osaka Metropolitan University researchers enhanced Saccharomyces cerevisiae to increase its tolerance for high 2,3-butanediol concentrations. This was achieved by introducing mutations into the genomic DNA and successfully obtaining a mutant strain that proliferates 122 times more than the parent strain.

As wildfire smoke becomes a growing public-health story in the Northeast, a first-of-its-kind study in Environmental Health finds that Canadian wildfire smoke in the summer of 2023 worsened asthma symptoms in children across Vermont and upstate New York—even though the fires were burning hundreds of miles away.

New research reveals a link between rising temperatures and changes in polar bear DNA, which may be helping them adapt and survive in increasingly challenging environments. 

The study by scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) discovered that some genes related to heat-stress, aging and metabolism are behaving differently in polar bears living in southeastern Greenland, suggesting they might be adjusting to their warmer conditions. 

The finding suggests that these genes play a key role in how different polar bear populations are adapting or evolving in response to their changing local climates and diets.  

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology find that urea is a major energy source for ammonia-oxidizing archaea (AOA) in the open ocean, while coastal AOA prefer ammonium. The study, published in Nature Communications, suggests that organic nitrogen plays a far greater role in ocean productivity than previously recognized.