MS-LS2-1
Analyze and interpret data to provide evidence for the effects of resource availability on organisms and populations of organisms in an ecosystem.
- Environment
Protecting forests may help head off future pandemics
Hungry bats are more likely to shed harmful viruses to people or livestock when they spread out to hunt food. Conserving forests may limit this risk.
- Environment
Bacterial ‘living wires’ could help protect the seas and climate
Long, thin bacteria that conduct electricity may be able to help clean up oil spills and reduce emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas.
- Humans
Eight billion people now live on Earth — a new record
The global population hit this milestone on November 15, according to an estimate from the United Nations.
- Health & Medicine
Should we use a genetic weapon against mosquitoes carrying malaria?
One gene drive to eliminate malaria seems to work in the lab. Now it’s time to ask local people if they want it released in the wild.
- Animals
Some spikes in malaria cases may be tied to amphibian die-offs
Amphibian deaths from a fungal disease may have led to more mosquitoes — and an increase in malaria cases in Costa Rica and Panama.
- Health & Medicine
How wriggling, blood-eating parasitic worms alter the body
Parasitic worms eat blood and make people sick, but they may also help prevent or treat some diseases.
- Animals
Some ecologists value parasites — and now want a plan to save them
Parasites get a bad rap as disease-causing, unwelcome guests on other organisms. But parasites are also imperiled, and scientists don’t want to lose them.
- Chemistry
Ponds made to control floods can spew climate-warming gases, study finds
Younger stormwater ponds can release more carbon in gases than they absorb, a study finds. That could aggravate global warming.
- Animals
The end of the dinosaurs appears to have come in springtime
Fish fossils from North Dakota suggest when the Chicxulub asteroid devastated Earth, triggering the mass extinction of dinosaurs and other species.
- Animals
World’s biggest colony of nesting fish lives beneath Antarctic ice
Totally unexpected, it’s far, far larger than any other known community of nesting fish — fully one-third larger than the area of Washington, D.C.
- Ecosystems
Recycling a climate-warming gas could make ‘greener’ farmed fish
Instead of warming the climate, methane gas can be collected to help farmers. Along the way, it may also save some fish.
- Animals
Rewilding returns lost species to strengthen ecosystems
Restoring the missing species can help undo human-caused problems by aiding forests, slowing climate change and reducing wildfires.
