High genomic diversity is good news for California condor
Eastern and Western house mice took parallel evolutionary paths
Where have all the vultures gone? Ph.D. student investigates
How many T. rexes were there? Billions.
Antarctica yields oldest fossils of giant birds with 21-foot wingspans
Could a Phone App Help Prevent California Wildfires?
Prenatal pesticide exposure linked to changes in teen’s brain activity
Earthquake early warning milestone: ShakeAlert rolled out to entire Bay Area
Ghost objects in the sky
Radar reveals details of mountain collapse after North Korea’s most recent nuclear test
Growth rings on rocks give up North American climate secrets
Scientists have found a new way to tease out signals about Earth’s climatic past from soil deposits on gravel and pebbles, adding an unprecedented level of detail to the existing paleoclimate record and revealing a time in North America’s past when summers were wetter than normal.
New interactive map compares carbon footprints of Bay Area neighborhoods
Data on current carbon emissions will help cities meet goals set a Paris climate summit, and show people how they contribute to global warming.
What the Inuit can tell us about omega-3 fats and ‘paleo’ diets
The traditional diet of Greenland natives – the Inuit – is held up as an example of how high levels of omega-3 fatty acids can counterbalance the bad health effects of a high-fat diet, but a new study hints that what’s true for the Inuit may not be true for everyone else.
Millet Project shows grain isn’t just for the birds
Amrita Hazra, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Plant and Microbial Biology, is on a mission — to introduce people to the benefits of eating millet, which primarily is used in the United States in bird feed.
Biologists discover skydiving spiders in South American forests
Arachnophobes fearful of spiders jumping, creeping or falling into their beds now have something new to worry about. Some spiders might also glide in through the window.
Octopus shows unique hunting, social and sexual behavior
Unlike most octopuses, which tackle their prey with all eight arms, a rediscovered tropical octopus subtly taps its prey on the shoulder and startles it into its arms.
Pupil shape linked to animals’ place in ecological web
While the eyes may be a window into one’s soul, new research led by UC Berkeley scientists suggests that the pupils could also reveal whether one is hunter or hunted.
Small Salmon, Big Threat
Drought and the growing water demands of agriculture and a changing climate are creating a “knife edge” of survival for young salmon and steelhead, says UC Berkeley fish ecologist Stephanie Carlson. She is working to determine minimum water levels needed to sustain the fish.
Newfound groups of bacteria are mixing up the tree of life
Jill Banfield, professor of EPS and ESPM, and grad student Christopher Brown discovered a large number of new groups or phyla of bacteria, suggesting that the branches on the tree of life need some rearranging. The more than 35 new phyla equal in number all the plant and animal phyla combined.
Study IDs key birds that host Lyme disease bacteria in California
A new UC Berkeley-led study has found that birds are more important than previously recognized as hosts for Lyme disease-causing bacteria in California.
Rise in Mass Die-Offs Seen Among Birds, Fish and Marine Invertebrates
An analysis of 727 studies reveals that there have been more instances of rapid, catastrophic animal die-offs over the past 75 years. These mass kills appear to have hit birds, fish and marine invertebrates harder than other species.
Unique Sulawesi Frog Gives Birth to Tadpoles
Amid the amazing biodiversity of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi lives a 5-gram frog that gives direct birth to tadpoles, without ever laying eggs.
Sensing distant tornadoes, birds flew the coop. What tipped them off?
A UC Berkeley-led research team found that golden-winged warblers in Tennessee fled the path of tornado-generating storms one to two days ahead, well before any local signs of troubling weather. Signs point to the use of infrasound as Mother Nature’s early warning system.
Counting fish teeth reveals DNA changes behind rapid evolution
Threespine sticklebacks undergo rapid evolutionary change when they move from the ocean into freshwater, losing their armor and gaining more teeth in as little as 10 years. UC Berkeley biologist Craig Miller now shows that this rapid change results not from mutations in functional genes, but changes in regulatory DNA. He pinpoints a gene that could be responsible for jaw deformities in humans.
Changing how we farm can save evolutionary diversity, study suggests
A new study by biologists at Stanford University and UC Berkeley highlights the dramatic hit on the evolutionary diversity of wildlife when forests are transformed into agricultural lands.
Biologists try to dig endangered pupfish out of its hole
Scientists estimate that fewer than 100 Devils Hole pupfish remain in their Mojave Desert home, but a conservation biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, is giving important guidance in the efforts to rescue them by establishing a captive breeding program.
Polar bear genome gives new insight into adaptations to high-fat diet
A comparison of the genomes of polar bears and brown bears reveals that the polar bear is a much younger species than previously believed. Also uncovered were several genes that may be involved in the polar bears’ extreme adaptations to life in the high Arctic.
How to Starve Out the Enemy
Mary Wildermuth is developing plant breeding strategies that can weaken the effects of powdery mildew. If not controlled, powdery mildew is a fast spreading fungus that can cause billions of dollars of crop damage in California.
Peru’s Manu National Park sets new biodiversity record
Peru’s treasured Manu National Park is the world’s top biodiversity hotspot for reptiles and amphibians, according to a new survey published last week by biologist.
Workshop series sows the seeds for conservation
The Jepson Herbarium at UC Berkeley has a big mission: understanding and protecting California’s flora. Given that the state is home to thousands of native plants, nearly 1,500 of which can be found only here, that’s a lot of work for a lot of people with a lot of specialized knowledge. So the Jepson Herbarium has done what comes naturally in order to ensure it will always have the well-trained plant-lovers it needs.
Four new species of ‘legless lizards’ discovered living on the edge
Got calcium? Mineral key to restoring acid rain-damaged forests
Calcium can do much more than strengthen bones. The mineral is a critical nutrient for healthy tree growth, and new research shows that adding it to the soil helps reverse the decades-long decline of forests ailing from the effects of acid rain.
The Red Queen was right: Life must continually evolve to avoid extinction
The death of individual species shouldn’t be the only concern for biologists worried about animal groups, such as frogs or the “big cats,” going extinct. A University of California, Berkeley, study has found that a lack of new, emerging species also contributes to extinction.
Scientists date prehistoric bacterial invasions still present in today’s cells
Long before Earth became lush, when life consisted of single-celled organisms afloat in a planet-wide sea, bacteria invaded the ancient ancestors of plants and animals and took up permanent residence.
Help wanted: Public needed to uncover clues in natural history collections
Like bugs? Ever wonder what goes on behind the scenes at natural history museums? Interested in helping scientists understand our changing environment? These are just some of the reasons why people should join a project led by UC Berkeley’s Essig Museum of Entomology.
“Perfect Storm” of Climate Change and Population Growth Brewing in African Sahel, Experts Warn
The vast region of Africa known as the Sahel will descend into large-scale drought, famine, war and terrorist control if immediate, coordinated steps are not taken to avert the perfect storm of climate change and the most rapidly growing population in the world.
Wild bees get boost from diverse, organic crops
Fields with diversified, organic crops get more buzz from wild bees, concludes a synthesis of 39 studies on 23 crops around the world published March 11 in the journal Ecology Letters.
KQED Quest profiles Kathy Ann Miller, herbarium’s seaweed expert
New Wetland Design Shows Leap in Cleansing Toxins from Salton Sea
A rotten-egg stench that fouled a swath of Southern California in September was traced to the Salton Sea — the latest episode in the environmental woes of California’s largest, but rapidly shrinking, inland lake. Now a new study has demonstrated a cost-effective method for using man-made wetlands to clean contaminants out of the freshwater rivers that flow into the sea.
Quantifying Nature’s Aquatic Requirements
Pescadero Estuary, located an hour south of San Francisco, is a coastal habitat under intense pressure from several interest groups, some human, others wild. And the estuary’s endangered fish species need specific seasonal water regimens and salinity levels to survive.
Explosion of galaxy formation lit up early universe
Extremely bright, active galaxies formed and fully illuminated the universe by the time it was 750 million years old, or about 13 billion years ago, according to Oliver Zahn, a postdoctoral fellow at the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics (BCCP) at the University of California, Berkeley, who led the data analysis.
Supernovae of the Same Brightness, Cut From Vastly Different Cosmic Cloth
In the August 24 issue of Science, the multi-institutional Palomar Transient Factory (PTF) team presents the first-ever direct observations of a Type 1a supernova progenitor system.