Researchers are taking the long view, combined with a birds’-eye view, of Venice’s salt marshes to try to preserve them from rising seawater. They are relying on aerial photographs that reveal the wetlands’ changing shape. Continue reading Birds’ Eye “Movie” Might Help Venice Marshland
All posts by LL
Banded Iron Formations Have Microbial Link?
A pair of mineral clues recently found in a fossil seafloor may be signs that ancient bacteria helped create banded iron formations — Precambrian-aged sedimentary rocks known for their vibrant, reddish- brown-colored thin layers — that researchers use to reconstruct ancient interactions between the atmosphere, the ocean and the seafloor.
Dynamic duo helps to heal irradiated mice
An antibiotic and a protein can work together to fight radiation-induced infections better than either can manage alone. Doctors already use antibiotics to treat radiation sickness. But the addition of a protein from the immune system — bactericidal/permeability-increasing protein (BPI), which acts against poisons called endotoxins — improves the survival rate of irradiated mice, according to a study published today in Science Translational Medicine Continue reading Dynamic duo helps to heal irradiated mice
Vikings Navigated With Translucent Crystals?
In some Icelandic sagas—embellished stories of Viking life—sailors relied on so-called sunstones to locate the sun’s position and steer their ships on cloudy days.
The stone would’ve worked by detecting a property of sunlight called polarization. Continue reading Vikings Navigated With Translucent Crystals?