Hugh Fitzsimons is a third-generation rancher in Dimmitt County Texas where he raises bison and honeybees.
Meanwhile he says the devastating drought is killing the flora that sustains his honeybees and making it difficult for even the toughest bison to survive.
Emily Dondero lives in Sonora Calif. and witnessed the Great Rim fire that has devastated the Sierra nevadas and part of Yosemite Park.
and creating huge plumes of smoke that have drifted across state boundaries. The fire has destroyed areas of the forest cherished by her family
As the climate changed the very large mammals that had adapted to extreme cold like mammoth and wooly rhinoceros became extinct.
Humans once dependent on these oemega mammals for much of their food switched to smaller game
Limiting factors in the environment such as availability of food water and shelter evolutionary relationships like predator/prey ratios or presence of pathogens provide natural balances to populations.
we were the first animals to increase the carrying capacity of our existing habitat. Population slowly began to rise.
instead by raising animals said Hendrik Bruins a landscape archaeologist at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
But new research suggests people in this area the Negev highlands practiced agriculture as long ago as 5000 B c. Bruins told Livescience.
A great surprise Bruins'findings come from radiocarbon dating of bones and organic materials in various soil layers in an ancient field in southern Israel.
A Glimpse of the Past I found a wonderful radiocarbon sequence of ages Bruins said. And it was for me a great surprise.
and other books of the Bible Bruins said. The site where Bruins conducted his research south of Beersheba is likely to the south
and east of where historians place the Israelites during this time period he said. But it could possibly have been home to tribes associated with the Amalekites a group living in the area at the time that was hostile to the Israelites Bruins said.
The third layer corresponds to the late Byzantine and early Islamic period when people were known to practice agriculture in this area he added.
Bruins is currently submitting his research to a peer-reviewed scientific journal it hasn't yet been published.
when it comes to agriculture Bruins said. There is widespread evidence of ancient floodwater farming in the southern Levant in the form of drystone walls across
and run a thriving trade route through the area before the arrival of the Romans who eventually displaced the Nabataeans Bruins said.
#Honey Not a Contender in The Fight Against Superbugs (Op-Ed) This article was published originally atâ The Conversation.
There are no new drugs in the pipeline to fix the superbug problem. And when times are tough
and methods to diagnose superbug infections. This article was published originally at The Conversation. Read the original article.
#Honeybee Collapse May have Complex Cause (Op-Ed) Jeff Nesbit was the director of public affairs for two prominent federal science agencies.
Scientists have been trying to discover why millions of beehives have collapsed and died during the past six years.
CCD has killed off more than 10 million beehives in North america since 2007 alone. Scientists have tried repeatedly to identify the root cause for the beehive collapses with possibilities ranging from certain classes of pesticides to parasites
or nutrition though the search is complicated by the dozens of different chemical types that may be combining to contaminate the pollen bees collect for their hives.
So academic researchers from the University of Maryland and federal scientists from the Department of agriculture decided to collect pollen from seven major types of crops along the East Coast where CCD has been especially destructive where bees had been in serious decline
if the continuing die off of honeybees were to reach critical levels. While the researchers were careful not to directly link the complex web of pesticides found in the pollen samples directly to colony collapse disorder the inference is hard to ignore.
and it would make sense that chemicals designed to kill certain things like pests or weeds might also have unintended consequences when combined and later spread outside crops.
and around crops pollinated by honeybee colonies. Right now pesticide labels tell farmers not to spray
#Honeycombs'Surprising Secret Revealed The perfect hexagonal shape of honeycomb cells once thought to be an incredible feat of math-savvy insects has now been explained by simple mechanics.
But it's actually much more mundane. 10 Amazing Things You Didn't Know About Animals Honeycomb up close Using a honeycomb grown at a research facility in Beijing the researchers were able to carefully ward off the bees
They then observed honeybees heating the wax after the initial cell formation a phenomenon identified in previous studies
because it not only gives us a deep insight into the mechanisms that honeybees manage to build very precise cells
This story has been updated to correct where the hives were grown. The hives were grown at the Agricultural Research Academy Beijing
and were grown not specifically for this study. Follow Laura Poppick on Twitter. Follow Livescience on Twitter Facebook and Google+.
His legislation establishes clever traps a series of procedural hurdles that would make science at federal agencies subject to endless challenges by special interests that do not want to see agency regulations move forward.
We are more familiar with traditional reproduction as practiced by the birds and the bees. Code of Life:
10 Animal Genomes Deciphered In so-called vertical gene transfer an organism inherits its genome from its parents
and animals swallowed up other bacteria to form symbiotic relationships which eventually resulted in specialized cellular components such as mitochondria and chloroplasts.
He is remembered perhaps best for classifying life into the now-well-accepted domains of bacteria eukaryotes (plants animals fungi and protists) and archaea.
A chimera is the name of a creature from Greek mythology that mixed together features of a lion a goat and a snake.
#How Birds Lost Their Penises How did the chicken lose its penis? By killing off the growing appendage in the egg.
That's the finding of a new study which reveals how most birds evolved to lose their external genitalia.
and most other birds nips penis development in the bud according to the new research published today (June 6) in the journal Current Biology.
Missing penises About 97 percent of birds lack penises entirely. The exceptions are real odd ducks literally.
Some waterfowl have coiling penises that can exceed the length of the rest of their bodies.
Whoa! The 9 Weirdest Animal Penises The most primitive group of birds paleognaths which include emus kiwis
and ostriches have developed well phalluses as well. Along the evolutionary line two newer groups diverged: anseriformes which include penis-wielding ducks swans and geese and galliformes
which make up most land-loving birds and lack penises. To understand how this genital gap diverges in development Cohn
along with research assistant Ana Herrera and their colleagues grew embryos from chickens (galliformes) and ducks (anseriformes) and tracked their penis growth.
It's pretty surprising actually Cohn said. Chickens and ducks start to develop their genitalia in such a similar manner that they're almost indistinguishable.
A few days after a primitive penile swelling appears on chick embryos however development abruptly halts and then regresses.
By the time they're born chickens and their galliforme relatives are left with only an opening called the cloaca rather than an external penis. In duck embryos the penis continues to grow.
in ducks it's only seen at the base of the genitals. To make sure Bmp4 was really doing the penis-stifling deed the researchers applied the protein to duck penises. Sure enough development halted.
Likewise when they blocked Bmp4's expression in chick penises the embryonic birds'phalluses continued to grow.
There are many paths to reach the same morphological end Cohn said The new study reveals how birds lost their penises but not why.
It seems odd that birds would evolve to lose an organ so critical to reproduction Cohn said.
Evolutionary biologists have theorized that perhaps bird penises vanished because female birds preferred mates with smaller penises. In ducks and other species with phalluses males frequently force females to copulate.
By picking mates with small penises female birds could have gained more control over the reproductive process.
Alternatively penis loss could have been a side effect of other changes in the birds'body. Bmp proteins are responsible for the origin of feathers in birds and their loss of teeth.
Bmp4 in particular is responsible for variations in beak size and shape Cohn said. It's interesting that so many of these little details of the bird body plan are associated with changes in Bmp activity he said.
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#How Bomb Tests Could Date Elephant Ivory Bomb tests generations ago could indirectly help fight illegal poaching of African elephants new research shows.
Nuclear weapons tested in the atmosphere in the 1950s and'60s spread a radioactive variety of carbon worldwide which was picked up by plants during photosynthesis
and then deposited in the bodies of herbivores like African elephants. By looking at the levels of this carbon isotope known as carbon-14 in elephant tusks and ivory researchers can find out how old they are.
In the United states for example ivory taken prior to a 1989 worldwide ban on African elephant tusks may be traded legally
while new ivory is illegal to traffic said Kevin Uno a researcher at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University in New york. I don't necessarily think this will save the elephants
but it's a critical tool to fight poaching of elephants said Uno co-author of a study detailing the technique published today (July 1) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The best way to stop the killing of elephants is to identify the major poaching hotspots
Elephant Images: The Biggest Beasts On land Poaching getting worse Poaching of African elephants is as bad as it's ever been
and getting worse Uno said. There were an estimated 46.5 tons (42200 kilograms) of ivory seized in 2011 with even higher numbers suspected in 2012 Wasser said.
That suggests as many as 50000 elephants were killed to provide the ivory seized in 2011. With a total population of 400000 elephants this is a very serious situation Wasser said.
In other words if the rate of poaching isn't slowed African elephants could be gone mostly within 10 years.
Trafficking is carried out in part by large criminal networks and is a multibillion-dollar industry. It's driven largely by demand in China for ivory and rhino horns
which are valued for the supposed medicinal benefits. The United states also is a destination for illegal ivory according to the study.
Two things must be done to stop poaching said Richard Ruggiero an expert on elephant poaching with the U s. Fish
Secondly we need to be much better at providing security for elephants to assure detection apprehension
The trees were infested unfortunately with roundworms and insects. President William Howard Taft acting on advice from agriculture officials ordered the trees burned and destroyed.
but then suddenly grow elongated flagella whiplike appendages to propel them to a new region to inhabit. 6 Superbugs to Watch out For Tufenkji's group found that cranberry powder in a petri dish limited the growth of flagella
#How Deadly H7n9 Flu Could Jump from Birds to Mammals Chinese researchers have found new clues to the origins of the deadly H7n9 flu virus
and also found a new flu virus lurking in birds that could potentially infect mammals.
The new research shows that the deadly H7n9 flu virus which emerged in China in March likely originated in migratory birds was passed to domestic ducks
In laboratory tests this H7n7 virus infected ferrets which are used often a model for human flu transmission.
China has about 65 percent of the world's domestic ducks and many live poultry markets where contact between people
To track the origins of H7n9 the researchers collected thousands of samples from sixkinds of domestic birds in southeastern China:
chickens ducks quail geese pigeons and partridges. They sequenced the virus's genomes and the results are published Thursday (Aug 22) in the journal Nature.
as H7n9 made its way from migratory to domestic birds it exchanged genes with other types of flu.
Many varieties of flu live in the birds'intestines but they aren't spread through the air.
However once the virus infects the chickens'upper respiratory tract people in close contact with the animals are more likely to be infected.
It's also important to keep sending research teams out to watch the birds. Surveillance in birds is essential to let us know what is happening to viruses in the field and
what threats may be said emerging Guan. Follow Livescience on Twitter Facebook and Google+.+Original article on Livescience S
and the Great Barrier reef in Australia. 7 Amazing Places to Visit with Google street view Researchers focused on the pine processionary moth (Thaumetopoea pityocampa)
whose caterpillar is one of the most destructive animals targeting pines and cedars in southern Europe Central asia and North africa devouring the foliage of these trees.
These social caterpillars spin large communal white silk nests which are highly visible making them potential targets of surveys via Google street view.
The scientists concentrated on a region about 18000 square miles (47000 square kilometers) large in France that was colonized recently by the caterpillars.
The researchers analyzed data regarding the presence or absence of caterpillar nests collected in these blocks through either direct observation in the field or Google street view.
and thus less chance to properly spot these caterpillar nests. This effect may be less of a problem in the future as Google street view's coverage expands.
whose symptoms are identifiable from the road including the horse chestnut leaf miner or ash dieback fungus.
In January a different team of scientists found Google street view could also find potential nesting sites in northern Spain for the globally endangered Egyptian vulture.
and avoid spreading invasive insects such as the Asian longhorn beetle. Still some select projects have sprouted up across the city in the past year that make use of the storm's wreckage.
Climb and oversized nest Several blocks away from Prospect Park at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden another tree-repurposing effort has taken shape in the form of a nestlike structure that visitors can climb inside.
and says it is meant to look like a nest that had been blown to the ground. It's a memorial to Hurricane Sandy in a way Romero told Livescience.
A group of urban sustainability graduate students from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn stopped by the nest last week while perusing the garden chatting positively about the sculpture.
'Â Both the nest and the playground will remain in their respective locations indefinitely though the wood in the Zucker Natural Exploration Area was treated not pressure
and then pressurizing the wood in a closed container to force preservatives into all crevices protecting against degradation by burrowing insects and fungus.
To prepare a fresh turkey Test Kitchen chefs recommend brining the bird overnight which involves soaking the turkey in a container of salty water for at least 12 hours.
You'll end up with a better-seasoned and juicier bird. Still Bishop cautions that more is not necessarily better
Before placing the turkey in the oven Bishop suggests brushing the raw bird with butter.
The most important tip for using frozen turkeys is to let the birds thaw in the refrigerator before cooking them he added. 5 Myth-Busting Facts for a Safe Turkey Turkey temperature This year alone the Test Kitchen chefs experimented with more than 100 turkeys
For one the shape of the bird complete with a huge cavity in the center means it heats unevenly in the oven.
The Test Kitchen chefs found that basting the bird does not actually improve the juiciness of the turkey.
and flip the bird by hand so it's breast-side-up. We've found that really helps get juicier breast meat
and rather than basting the bird this is one thing worth doing. Finally before carving and serving the turkey Bishop recommends letting the finished product rest for 30 to 40 minutes.
But in order to get up to that temperature you end up overcooking the bird Bishop said. You don't want to be waiting for the stuffing
however Bishop recommends warming it up before the stuffing goes inside the bird. Â Warming stuffing in the microwave so it's not ice cold will at least give it a head start he said.
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Other animals that need to execute landings may also use this strategy. In addition the researchers mathematically modelled this relationship between perception
#How You Can Help Save Threatened Russian Tigers: Op-Ed Linda Walkerâ is manager of the Global Forest
Your diningroom table may be one of the reasons why Russian tiger forests are being pushed to the brink of destruction.
And without realizing it you may be stepping on tiger habitat each time you walk on your hardwood floor.
The idea that flooring or a piece of furniture you purchased could be endangering the survival of the endangered Amur tiger is as troubling as it is surprising.
and flooring and shipping it to the United states and Europe where it is purchased by consumers who are unaware that the wood in their furniture was stolen from tiger habitat.
Illegal logging degrades vital habitat for Amur tigers and their prey. Scientists estimate around 450 Amur tigers remain in the wild.
Overharvesting limits the supply of pine nuts and acorns a main food source for Amur tigers prey.
And as timber supplies dwindle ecologically sensitive forests like wildlife reserves are threatened increasingly. Tiger Summit:
What Will It Take to Save Iconic Cat? It s more critical than ever to get these crimes under control.
WWF has been working for more than a decade in the region seeking solutions. We are tackling the problem from several angles in Russia:
As one of the largest importers of flooring and furniture from China U s. consumers and businesses can play a role in helping combat illegal logging and save this crucial tiger habitat.
Iconic Cats Album: All 9 Species of Tiger Businesses: As Russian plant species can be mislabeled purposely as originating from other countries importers of Chinese
or Russian hardwood furniture and flooring must confirm the species and country of wood origin.
if we are to conserve this crucial habitat for the Amur tiger and its prey.
How can you be sure you re not contributing to the destruction of Amur tiger forests
The animals once ranged in huge numbers throughout Tibet Nepal India and western China. Now the population across their entire range may be about 10000
The animal is protected in several areas throughout its range such as in Hoh Xil. The yak is the third largest beast in Asia after the elephant
and rhino but due to its remote location has never been weighed officially. Yaks live in alpine tundra grasslands
and the cold desert regions of the northernâ Tibetan Plateau ranging from 13000 to 20000 feet (4000 to 6100 meters) in elevation according to the IUCN.
 While polar bears represent a sad disclaimer for a warming Arctic the recent count of almost 1000 wild yaks offers hope for the persistence of free-roaming large animals at the virtual limits of high-altitude wildlife.
Very little is known about wild yak biology such as how often the animals breed and how many young yaks survive to adulthood.
But the parallels between the animal-cloning procedure and the new human one have triggered concern.
So far Mitalipov and his colleagues have not been able to grow a cloned monkey fetus to term suggesting that primate reproduction may be even more complex than what is known from Dolly the sheep and other farm animals.
  From the mouse data we know that embryonic cloning is better than ips cells Cibelli said.
The cloning of a monkey or other nonhuman primate would likely be a strong signal that it's time to set some rules around human cloning Cibelli said.
Thirteen states currently have laws on the books prohibiting reproductive cloning. A worst-case scenario would be a clone showing up on the scene before the legalities are hammered out Knoepfler said.
These forest islands were thought typically of as natural in origin for instance as landforms cut away by shifting rivers or long-term termite mounds or bird rookeries.
They apparently formed in two phases an older layer made up primarily of the shells of freshwater apple snails as well as the bones of deer fish reptiles
and birds and an overlying layer composed of organic refuse containing pottery bone tools and human bones.
#Hunting Cheetahs Rely More on Agility Than Speed Cheetahs may hold the distinction of being the fastest animals on land
but these elegant felines actually owe their hunting prowess to their ability to rapidly accelerate
A team of researchers monitored five wild cheetahs in northern Botswana and found that despite clocking top speeds of nearly 60 mph (97 km h) cheetahs use their agility rather than simply relying on a furious pace to track down prey.
Cheetahs have a very high top speed but they don't always use it said study lead author Alan Wilson a professor in the department of comparative biomedical sciences at The Royal Veterinary College in the United kingdom. oewhat was more remarkable was the maneuverability
and acceleration that they displayed. Quick kitty Wilson and his colleagues designed special GPS-tracking collars for their cheetah subjects that collected precise data on the animals'location speed acceleration and deceleration.
Cat Album: The Life of a Cheetah Over the course of 367 runs in 17 months the cheetahs recorded a blistering top speed of 58 mph (93 km h) far outpacing greyhounds racing horses
and humans the researchers said. On most runs however the cheetahs kept a more modest pace averaging 31 mph (50 km h) Wilson said.
They're doing about half their top speed so they're not moving extremely quickly
when they hunt he told Livescience. The researchers used the extensive information collected by the collars to map out the running behaviors of wild cheetahs on the prowl.
Runs started with a period of acceleration either from stationary or slow movement (presumably stalking) up to high speed they wrote in the study
The cheetahs then decelerated and maneuvered before prey capture. From zero to The acceleration and turning speeds measured from these cheetahs either match
or exceed the known speeds of all other land mammals the researchers said. In fact cheetahs are so agile they can increase their speed by up to 6. 7 mph (10.8 km h) in a single stride the researchers added.
The calculated muscle power output during these sustained accelerations is the highest of any land mammal
and roughly four times greater than that exerted by Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt during his world-record-breaking 100-meter sprint in 2009 they added.
Of the 367 runs studied 94 resulted in the cheetahs capturing their prey contributing to a success rate of about 26 percent.
The researchers also examined where the cheetahs preferred to chase down their meals: Nearly half or 48 percent of the runs occurred on open grasslands 28 percent were carried out around large trees
and 24 percent happened in areas of thick vegetation cover. Although trees and shrubs may offer cheetahs better means to stalk prey the researchers did not find significant differences in the speed
or distances run across the various terrains. The five cheetahs studied predominantly hunted impala a type of African antelope
but one male cheetah who frequently hunted in areas with thicker vegetation occasionally hunted warthogs Wilson said.
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#Ice-free Arctic May be Near, Study Suggests The Arctic experienced an extended period of warm temperatures about 3. 6 million years ago before the onset of the ice ages at a time
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These outbursts spewed a giant plume of ash that spread unusually far and stayed for an oddly long time in the atmosphereforcing widespread flight cancellations for days.
and after the eruption in areas directly influenced by the plume of iron-rich ash.
This was really the first time scientists have been under a volcanic plume at sea and could really look at the immediate effects of the ash falling into the ocean Achterberg said.
Iceland Volcano's Fiery Sunsets Ocean bloom Iron is key to ocean life helping spur the growth of single-celled organisms known as phytoplankton.
Beneath the plume the scientists found that peak dissolved iron levels were up to about 20 to 45 times higher after the plume than they had been before the ash came along.
when volcanic iron fertilized the waters the resulting phytoplankton bloom sucked up other nutrients as well.
Since phytoplankton use carbon dioxide just like plants do volcanic ash falling on the ocean could reduce levels of the greenhouse gas in the atmosphere.
However the team estimated that the plume from Eyjafjallajã kull only triggered a 10 to 20 percent rise in carbon dioxide uptake by phytoplankton in the Iceland Basin compared to other years.
In order for volcanic iron to have larger effects on the atmosphere phytoplankton must really flourish.
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