Earth.com

Researchers found that oiling raven eggs more than doubled sage-grouse nest survival and helped boost populations at treated sites. A greater sage-grouse lays her eggs on bare ground under a sagebrush and sits on them for about a month, which is a long time to be a target. Across the sagebrush country of the American West, ravens have multiplied on landfill scraps, roadkill and power poles to nest on.

A newly defined type of heatwave is reshaping spring across the western U.S., with major consequences for snowpack, floods, and water supplies. Mountain snow naturally melts by day and refreezes at night, pacing the release of water throughout the spring. When night temperatures remain above freezing, this refreeze cycle breaks down, leading to rapid, uninhibited melt and runoff. A new study finds snowpack melts about twice as fast during those stretches.

Unexplained experiences like sensing a presence or hearing a voice are common, and many people say they have a positive effect on their lives. Hearing phantom voices, sensing an unseen presence, or catching glimpses of the unexplainable are experiences reported across cultures. In psychiatric manuals, however, some experiences of this kind can be framed as symptoms of psychosis or dissociation.

Researchers filmed the enzyme APE1 hunting DNA damage one molecule at a time. Its shapeless tail turned out to do the finding. Every day, each cell in the human body loses somewhere between 10,000 and 20,000 individual letters from its DNA. The bases detach from the sugar backbone, leaving gaps called apurinic/apyrimidinic (AP) sites. The opposite strand still carries the missing information.

Antimony rarely receives the attention given to copper, lithium, or gold. This lustrous, silvery metalloid straddles the line between metals and nonmetals, possessing the unusual quirk of expanding… Antimony rarely receives the attention given to copper, lithium, or gold. This lustrous, silvery metalloid straddles the line between metals and nonmetals, possessing the unusual quirk of expanding slightly as it freezes, and is crucial to U.S. industrial and defense supply chains.

A protein that guards the tips of chromosomes turns out to be what keeps muscle able to repair itself for a lifetime. When you pull a muscle, specialized repair cells along the fibers spring into action to rebuild the tissue. But keeping those cells alive and dividing doesn’t guarantee healing. When scientists removed a protein named TRF2 from these cells in mice, injured muscles filled with scar tissue and fat rather than fresh muscle fiber.

Allowing tropical forests to regrow naturally could deliver major carbon and biodiversity benefits while making restoration far more affordable. Tropical forests absorb vast amounts of carbon and provide homes for more than half of Earth’s land vertebrates. These forests also support the lives and livelihoods of about 1.5 billion people. But restoring huge cleared areas by planting trees can be too expensive for many governments and communities.

For endangered winter-run Chinook salmon, the first two weeks of life may be crucial. A rise in river temperature reduced their survival. River temperature can determine whether salmon eggs survive. This is especially important for endangered Sacramento River winter-run Chinook salmon, which now spawn below large dams. New findings show the greatest danger may arrive just after fertilization. The first two weeks create a survival bottleneck, meaning many eggs can be lost during one brief stage.

The warning on U.S. alcohol containers hasn't changed in almost 30 years. Researchers tested eight replacements, and the ones naming cancer worked best. The government warning on alcohol containers in the United States has not been rewritten since Congress required it in 1988. A research team now reports that nearly any of the alternatives it tested would do a better job.

A Tokyo model suggests stored rainwater could cool hot roofs, reduce air conditioning demand, and ease some extreme heat. Spray water on a hot roof and the building underneath stays cooler. In hot climates, cities keep passing on that idea because sprinklers on every rooftop would use water a city can’t spare in a heatwave. Rain that already fell on those roofs is the exception, and a new model of one Tokyo neighborhood estimates that catching it can cut the energy air conditioning uses.