Global Tropical Forests Threatened by 2100

Video Press Release
By 2100 only 18% to 45% of the plants and animals making up ecosystems in global, humid tropical forests may remain as we know them today, according to research led by Greg Asner at the Department of Global Ecology. It is the first study to combine effects from new deforestation and selective logging data with climate-change projections for all humid tropical forest ecosystems. The research will help conservationists pinpoint their activities more effectively.

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Termites Foretell Climate Change in Africa’s Savannas

Using sophisticated airborne imaging and structural analysis, scientists at the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology mapped more than 40,000 termite mounds over 192 square miles in the African savanna. They found that their size and distribution is linked to vegetation and landscape patterns associated with annual rainfall. The results reveal how the savanna terrain has evolved and show how termite mounds can be used to predict ecological shifts from climate change.

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Carbon Mapping Breakthrough

By integrating satellite mapping, airborne-laser technology, and ground-based plot surveys, scientists from the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology, with colleagues, have revealed the first high-resolution maps of carbon locked up in tropical forest vegetation and emitted by land-use practices. These new maps pave the way for accurate monitoring of carbon storage and emissions for the United Nations initiative on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD). Spanish version

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Educational Pioneer BioEYES Goes Down Under

The innovative, educational, outreach program BioEYES has now been adopted by Monash University and the Australian Regenerative Medicine Institute. The down-under partnership program debuts this August. BioEYES is designed to foster an interest in and a love for science in elementary, middle, and high school students. Over the course of one week, students watch the transparent zebrafish, Danio rerio, grow from a single-celled zygote to a larval fish complete with a beating heart.

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Roller Coaster Superconductivity Discovered

Superconductors are more efficient at carrying electricity than copper wires. But these materials have to be cooled below an extremely low, so-called transition temperature for electrical resistance to disappear. Researchers at the Carnegie’s Geophysical Laboratory, have unexpectedly found that the transition temperature can be induced under two different intense pressures in a three-layered bismuth oxide crystal. They believe this unusual two-step phenomena comes from competition of electronic behavior in different layers.

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