new program 24

How much do habitat protection, anti-trafficking laws, reintroductions, and other conservation efforts help save Earth's threatened animals? A huge international team of researchers recently attempted to answer this question for vertebrates, or animals with backbones. They discovered that without conservation, vertebrates would be declining 18 percent faster than they are now.

South Africa's Blombos Cave has yielded new evidence of early cultural advancement in our species.

Once a popular source of caviar, Atlantic sturgeon may soon be listed on the Endangered Species Act. New research shows that different types of Atlantic sturgeon may travel hundreds of miles from home, cross international waters, and mix with other sturgeon groups. Restoring Sturgeon populations will require protection wherever they swim.

Australia's Great Barrier Reef is home to one of the world's largest networks of marine protected areas. Like other marine reserves, large segments of the Great Barrier Reef have strict rules against human activities, such as fishing and polluting. New research shows that protected areas can help stop the decline of aquatic life-including fish and corals-and sometimes even increase their numbers. The evidence suggests that designating protected regions is an effective way to improve the outlook for marine life in the increasingly threatened ocean.

The human brain contains about 100 billion interconnecting neurons, or cells that create and transmit messages. Scientists are just beginning to understand how this extremely complicated organ is "wired" to process information and relay commands to the body. Using a cutting-edge brain imaging technique called diffusion spectrum imaging, a team of Swiss and American researchers has produced the first detailed map of nerve fibers in the human cerebral cortex, the outer layer of the brain that is believed to be responsible for our species' unique mental capacity.

Three cutting-edge medical technologies inspired by biodiversity. This Bio Bulletin snapshot is third in a series to celebrate the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity.

Between 2000 and 2002, the Chinese State Forestry Administration attempted to count every giant panda living in the temperate mountain forests of central China. The work revealed not only that nearly 1,600 pandas remain in the wild but also where, exactly, they reside. Although scientists have long been aware that pandas live only in isolated forest belts where bamboo grows, they were surprised to discover that pandas also prefer to live in old-growth forest—forest that has never been logged. The finding could help shape how the remaining panda habitat is protected.

Humans leave a mark on Earth that is detectable from space. By analyzing satellite images, scientists can measure the extent of deforestation, agriculture, urbanization, and other features. Satellite analysts estimate that humans directly affect 83 percent of our planet's land surface, leaving a dwindling percentage of land truly "wild." This huge influence is called the "human footprint."

The Pearl River delta near Hong Kong is a dramatic example of the human footprint. Humans have continuously occupied the region for thousands of years, and the region's cities are among the fastest-growing urban centers ever observed. Scientists use the same techniques illustrated for the Pearl River delta to study human-altered surface features around the world, thus mapping the global human footprint.

Biodiversity benefits humankind in many ways: it can inspire medical innovation, boost human health, and even process waste. Now, an experiment by a University of Michigan scientist suggests that biodiversity can help clear human-caused pollution from waterways.

The Antarctic Peninsula is a spit of land that extends off the continent toward South America. Its western side is, on average, warming five times faster than any other place on Earth. The warming is disintegrating the massive ice shelves that extend from the peninsula's land into the sea. As a result, a number species that depend on ice to survive are declining locally, including Antarctic krill and Adélie penguins, which eat krill. A new study led by Martin Montes-Hugo at the Rutgers Institute of Marine and Coastal Science has uncovered that the local climate changes are also dramatically affecting the base of this food web: marine phytoplankton. Using satellite data and field research, Montes-Hugo and his colleagues have noted a dramatic 30-year drop in phytoplankton off the northwestern shore of the peninsula. The phytoplankton loss is likely contributing to the observed declines. Furthermore, some species that do not depend on ice moving into the region, flourishing, and further disrupting the food webs that have existed there historically.

A recent study led by neuroscientists at France's National Institute of Health and Medical Research has found that learning to read—no matter at what age—reorganizes the brain's neural networks. What's more, their findings suggest that literacy may improve the ability to understand spoken language.

Follow scientist-adventurer Lonnie Thompson to the 5,670-meter-high Quelccaya ice cap in the Peruvian Andes. Thompson and his team from Ohio State University are racing to core a cylinder of 1,500-year-old ice to unravel the past climate patterns of this region - before our gradually warming climate melts this invaluable record away. By analyzing global ice cores, glaciologists like Thompson now have a well-preserved record for 150,000 years of climate history, allowing us to better predict future climate change.

Researchers from the universities of Florida and Winnipeg have reconstructed the brain of Ignacius graybullianus, one of the earliest primates known, from a 54-million-year-old fossil skull. It's the most complete brain model of its kind and casts new light on the beginnings of primate brain development.

Most people think of urban sprawl as the construction of roads and buildings at a rate that exceeds population growth. Phoenix, Arizona, however, offers a contrasting model of sprawl. Its metropolitan area has grown more than 300 percent in recent decades, but its population has grown even faster. Since the mid-1980's, the city's population density has increased as people continue to move to the region even as the urban area's boundaries have grown more slowly. This trend is by necessity, since the water supply cannot feed an ever-expanding metropolitan area.

Biologists from the Secretariat of the Pacific Community and Açores University in Portugal have learned that undersea peaks, called seamounts, support a wide variety of migratory fish species. Though it's still unknown exactly why these species tend to use seamounts as stopovers on their travels, the discovery makes seamounts attractive open-ocean locations to designate as protected areas.