Life cycles of some insects adapt well to a changing climate. Others, not so much.

A grasshopper, Melanoplus boulderensis, typical of the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
Photo Credit: ©Thomas Naef, 2022

As insect populations decrease worldwide in what some have called an “insect apocalypse,” biologists are desperate to determine how the six-legged creatures are responding to a warming world and to predict the long-term winners and losers.

A new study of Colorado grasshoppers shows that, while the answers are complicated, biologists have much of the knowledge they need to make these predictions and prepare for the consequences.

The findings, published in the journal PLOS Biology, come thanks to the serendipitous discovery of 13,000 grasshoppers collected from the same Colorado mountain site between 1958 and 1960 by a biologist at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder). After that scientist’s untimely death in 1973, the collection was rescued by his son and donated to the CU Museum, where it languished until 2005, when César Nufio, then a postdoctoral fellow, rediscovered it. Nufio set about curating the collection and initiated a resurvey of the same sites to collect more grasshoppers.

Better digital memories with the help of noble gases

Adding the noble gas xenon when manufacturing digital memories enables a more even material coating even in small cavities.
Photo Credit: Olov Planthaber

The electronics of the future can be made even smaller and more efficient by getting more memory cells to fit in less space. One way to achieve this is by adding the noble gas xenon when manufacturing digital memories. This has been demonstrated by researchers at Linköping University in a study published in Nature Communications. This technology enables a more even material coating even in small cavities.

Twenty-five years ago, a camera memory card could hold 64 megabytes of information. Today, the same physical size memory card can hold 4 terabytes – over 60,000 times more information.

An electronic storage space, such as a memory card, is created by alternating hundreds of thin layers of an electrically conductive and an insulating material. A multitude of very small holes are then etched through the layers. Finally, the holes are filled with a conductive material. This is done by using a technique in which vapors of various substances are used to create thin material layers.

Carbon capture from constructed wetlands declines as they age

Protecting wetland ecosystems is essential as they provide critical environmental benefits to our planet.
Photo Credit: Herbert Aust

Constructed wetlands do a good job in their early years of capturing carbon in the environment that contributes to climate change – but that ability does diminish with time as the wetlands mature, a new study suggests.

Researchers examined soil core samples taken from two constructed freshwater wetlands and compared them to data from previous studies of the same wetlands over 29 years to determine how well human-made wetlands sequester — or capture and store — carbon as they age. 

Findings showed both wetlands captured similar amounts of carbon over the decades, but neither has shown a net gain or loss since year 15.

But their value in sequestering carbon is remarkable, the researchers said.

“Wetlands are generally thought of as the kidneys of our world because they can clean water naturally and sequester carbon well,” said Jay Martin, a distinguished professor in food, agricultural and biological engineering at The Ohio State University and a co-author of the study. “As we try to combat climate change, they also provide habitat for many species that are important to us.”

New study could help tackle hidden hunger in Malawi

Fields in Blantyre, Malawi
Photo Credit: Dr Charlotte Hall

Growing fruit trees on farms in rural Malawi could directly improve people’s diets, according to new study by a University of Stirling researcher.

 Around 20% of the population of the African country are undernourished and far more suffer from hidden hunger, meaning they consume enough calories but lack essential micronutrients, such as iron, zinc and vitamin A.

Around 80% of Malawians are involved in smallholder agriculture and a large proportion of the food they consume comes from their own production.

However, conventional agri-food policies continue to promote the increased production of staple cereal crops, and very rarely promote the benefits of fruit trees.

This Multiferroic Can Take the Heat - up to 160℃

Image Credit: Tohoku University

While most multiferroics are limited such that the hottest they can operate at is room temperature, a team of researchers at Tohoku University demonstrated that terbium oxide Tb2(MoO4)3 works as a multiferroic even at 160 ℃.

As one can imagine, a material that loses its functionality from a hot summer's day or simply the heat generated by the device itself has limited practical applications. This is the major Achilles heel of multiferroics - materials that possess close coupling between magnetism and ferroelectricity. This coupling makes multiferroics an attractive area to explore, despite that weakness.

In order to surmount this weakness to unleash the full potential of multiferroics, the research team investigated the candidate material Tb2(MoO4)3. It successfully showed the hallmark traits of multiferroics, and was able to manipulate electric polarization using a magnetic field, even at 160 ℃. This is a huge jump from the previous limit of approximately 20 ℃. Without that major Achilles heel, this remarkable finding means that multiferroics can meaningfully be applied to areas such as spintronics, memory devices that consume less power, and light diodes.

Spinning or not spinning?

Opening the "Gate of Truth" of puzzling superconductivity in strontium ruthenate
Image Credit: KyotoU/G Mattoni

Superconductors can carry electricity without losing energy, a superpower that makes them invaluable for a range of sought-after applications, from maglev trains to quantum computers. Generally, this comes at the price of having to keep them extremely cold, an opportunity cost that has frequently hindered widespread use.

Understanding of how superconductors work has also progressed, but there still remains a great deal about them that is unknown. For example, amongst many materials known to have superconducting properties, some do not behave according to conventional theory.

One such puzzling material is strontium ruthenate or Sr2RuO4, which has challenged scientists since it was discovered to be a superconductor in 1994. Initially, researchers thought this material had a special type of superconductivity called a "spin-triplet" state, which is notable for its spin supercurrent. But even after considerable investigation, a full understanding of its behavior has remained a mystery.

OHSU researchers identify protective properties of amniotic fluid

A multidisciplinary team of OHSU researchers collaborates to better understand the mechanism of amniotic fluid’s role in fetal development. Their goal is to identify how its properties can be harnessed to address prenatal health concerns.
Photo Credit: Christine Torres Hicks/OHSU

Researchers at Oregon Health & Science University have made new discoveries about amniotic fluid, a substance historically not well understood in medical research due to the difficulty in obtaining it during pregnancy, especially across gestation.

Amniotic fluid is the vital fluid that surrounds and protects a fetus during pregnancy. In addition to providing much-needed cushion and protection for the fetus, it also aids in development of vital organs — especially the lungs, digestive tract and skin— and stabilizes the temperature inside the womb.

The new study, published in the journal Research and Practice in Thrombosis and Haemostasis, found that the addition of amniotic fluid to plasma — the liquid portion of blood — improves the blood’s ability to thicken and clot, which is a critical and likely a protective function throughout pregnancy and during delivery for both the birthing parent and the baby.

The mechanism of amniotic fluid’s role in fetal development is not well understood and is understudied: The OHSU study is one of the first to identify how the features and properties of amniotic fluid change over time, especially those properties that play a role in thickening the blood, and how those changes can affect how maternal blood coagulates. If a pregnant person’s blood does not clot properly, it can create life-threatening complications for the fetus and birthing parent, including excessive bleeding during pregnancy and delivery.  

Cold Waves in the Rainforest: What They Mean for Wild Animals

Typical animals in the lowland rainforest of the Amazon: On the left, the palm-sized dung beetle Coprophanaeus lancifer, which appears to be sensitive to low temperatures. On the right, the Brazilian wandering spider Phoneutria boliviensis, which also grows to the size of a palm. The spider can often be seen at night, but during the cold wave it was nowhere to be seen.
Photo Credit: Kim Lea Holzmann / Universität Würzburg

It's not always cozy and warm in the Amazon rainforest: cold waves can cause temperatures to drop drastically. Würzburg researchers have investigated how animals react to this.

Anyone conducting research in the tropical rainforest does not necessarily have a winter jacket and warm socks with them. After all, this region of the world is considered to have a consistently pleasant temperature. But this is not the case, as Kim Lea Holzmann and Pedro Alonso-Alonso have found out for themselves. Both are doing their doctoral theses at the University of Würzburg's Biocentre and both spent almost the whole of 2023 in the Amazon region in southern Peru to study biodiversity.

It happened on 13 June: a cold spell caused temperatures to plummet from an average of 23.9 to 10.5 degrees Celsius. The cool period lasted almost a week. ‘A year before, we had already experienced a day when it was only 18 degrees,’ says Kim Lea Holzmann. But such severe and prolonged cold seemed strange to them. The local field assistants, on the other hand, were not really surprised. They explained to the Würzburg team that cold spells lasting several days are not that rare in the Amazon.

Ancient Antarctic ice loss offers insights into future climate scenarios

Photo Credit: University of Cambridge / British Antarctic Survey.

Scientists from the University of Cambridge and British Antarctic Survey have used ice core records to draw new conclusions about how Antarctica was affected by increased global temperatures over 100,000 years ago. The new paper, published today in the journal Nature, shows that large parts of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet were lost, contributing to significant sea level rise. However, the data also suggests that the nearby Ronne Ice Shelf – which climate models project could be lost under future warming scenarios – survived this period of global heating.

Greenhouse gas emissions are warming the Earth at an unprecedented speed and scale. While anthropogenic warming has no direct historical parallel, warm episodes in Earth’s history can offer clues to the future.

A team of ice core scientists, led by Eric Wolff from Cambridge University, wanted to find out what happened to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet during the Last Interglacial, when the polar regions were about 3°C warmer than present and sea levels were significantly higher. This period of Earth’s history is considered comparable to conditions we might see within decades.

How rapid temperature changes influence biodiversity

Image Credit: Scientific Frontline stock image

Biodiversity has changed faster in places where temperatures have also changed quickly. This is the result of a new study published in the scientific journal Nature. Researchers from the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig and Friedrich Schiller University Jena were also involved in the work.

The study focused on how the composition of species in an ecosystem - rather than the number of species - has shifted over time. The researchers found that faster temperature changes sped up shifts in species composition, meaning species identities changed more rapidly in those areas.

The results also suggest that behavioral adaptation and changing species interactions are not enough to preserve species composition in the face of higher rates of temperature fluctuations. 

"It's like shuffling a deck of cards, and temperature change now is shuffling that deck faster and faster," said lead author Dr Malin Pinsky, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at UC Santa Cruz. Pinsky was hosted at iDiv as a sabbatical researcher in 2020. "The worry is that eventually you start to lose some cards," he said.