A research group led by Prof. LIANG Eryuan from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has found that trees may benefit from an earlier start of the growing season in cold humid areas, but not in dry areas.

Scott Salesky, an assistant professor of meteorology in the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences at the University of Oklahoma, is leading research funded by an NSF CAREER award that will improve the way clouds are represented in weather and climate models.

In humans and other eukaryotes, two principal epigenetic marks are known. A team from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) has discovered a third, novel epigenetic mark – one formerly known only in bacteria -- in bdelloid rotifers, small freshwater animals. Epigenetic marks are modifications to DNA bases that don’t change the underlying genetic code, but “write” extra information on top of it that can be inherited along with your genome. This fundamental discovery is reported in Nature Communications.

An astounding new species of rare orchid has been discovered in the cloud rainforest of Northern Ecuador. Known from a restricted area in the province of Carchi, the plant is presumed to be a critically endangered species, as its rare populations already experience the ill-effects of climate change and human activity. The discovery was aided by a local commercial nursery, which was already cultivating these orchids. The study is published in the open-access journal PhytoKeys.

Geologists have discovered a link between recent ice mass loss, rapid rock uplift and a gap between tectonic plates that underlie Patagonia.