School gardens linked with kids eating more vegetables

Humans, wildlife, and the environment are all interconnected and play a role in one another's health and well-being. Sentinel species, such as birds, are good indicators of environmental health, and they can send subtle warning signs that humans may be in danger next. In an experimental exposure study, Kendra Sewall, an associate professor of biological sciences in the College of Science, and a diverse team of scientists and students have found that lead levels like those reported in Flint, Michigan, can interfere with the neural mechanisms of vocal development of songbirds and affect mate attraction. By examining the effects of lead exposure ...

Floating sea macro-litter is a threat to the conservation of marine ecosystems worldwide. The largest density of floating litter is in the great ocean gyres -systems of circular currents that spin and catch litter- but the polluting waste is abundant in coastal waters and semi closed seas such as the Mediterranean. MARLIT, an open access web app based on an algorithm designed with deep learning techniques, will enable the detection and quantification of floating plastics in the sea with a reliability over 80%, according to a study published in the journal Environmental Pollution and carried out by experts ...

A new study led by the University of Kent's Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology (DICE) has found that elephants living around the world-famous Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya, are crop-raiding closer to the protected area, more frequently and throughout the year but are causing less damage when doing so. Findings show that the direct economic impact of this crop-raiding in the Trans Mara region has dropped, yet farmers have to spend more time protecting their fields, further reducing support for conservation in communities who currently receive few benefits from living with wildlife. The research published by Biological Conservation ...

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- All things being equal, large, long-lived animals should have the highest risk of cancer. The calculation is simple: Tumors grow when genetic mutations cause individual cells to reproduce too quickly. A long life creates more opportunities for those cancerous mutations to arise. So, too, does a massive body: Big creatures -- which have many more cells -- should develop tumors more frequently. Why, then, does cancer rarely afflict elephants, with their long lifespans and gargantuan bodies? They are some of the world's largest land animals. A new study delves into this ...

Laparoscopic surgery, a less invasive alternative to conventional open surgery, involves inserting thin tubes with a tiny camera and surgical instruments into the abdomen. To visualize specific surgical targets, ultrasound imaging is used in conjunction with the surgery. However, ultrasound images are viewed on a separate screen, requiring the surgeon to mentally combine the camera and ultrasound data. Modern augmented reality (AR)-based methods have overcome this issue by embedding ultrasound images into the video taken by the laparoscopic camera. These AR methods precisely map the ultrasound data coordinates to the coordinates of the ...

Over the past 30 years, the use of soil fumigants and nematicides used to protect cole crops, such as broccoli and Brussel sprouts, against cyst nematode pathogens in coastal California fields has decreased dramatically. A survey of field samples in 2016 indicated the nematode population has also decreased, suggesting the existence of a natural cyst nematode controlling process in these fields. Thanks to California's pesticide-use reporting program, nematologists have been able to follow the amounts of fumigants and nematicides used to control cyst nematodes over the past three decades. "Application of these pesticides steadily declined until they were completely eliminated in ...

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to devastate communities worldwide, Black Americans who face racial discrimination in hospitals and doctor's offices weather additional stresses that can exacerbate threats from COVID-19. A new University of Georgia study examines the interplay between the perceptions of coronavirus threat and psychological distress among Black Americans. The additional stresses arise from the prevalent belief among Black Americans worried that they might not recover from how hospitals treat them if they become infected with the coronavirus. "While the notion has been floated among commentators, this is the first study that uses nationally representative data to assess whether this threat, or feeling, ...

BOSTON - Tiny particles of air pollution -- called fine particulate matter -- can have a range of effects on health, and exposure to high levels is a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease. New research led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) reveals that fine particulate matter has a detrimental impact on cardiovascular health by activating the production of inflammatory cells in the bone marrow, ultimately leading to inflammation of the arteries. The findings are published in the END ...

By tweaking a single gene, Harvard scientists engineered zebrafish that show the beginning formation of limb-like appendages. The researchers stumbled upon this mutation, which may shed light on the sea-to-land transition of vertebrates, while screening for various gene mutants and their impact on fish development. Their discovery, outlined February 4th in the journal Cell, marks a fundamental step in our understanding of fin-to-limb evolution and how surprisingly simple genetic changes can create great leaps in the development of complex structures. "It was a little bit unbelievable that just one mutation was able to create completely new bones and joints," says M. Brent Hawkins (@Homeobox), first author of ...

Fin-to-limb transition is an icon of key evolutionary transformations. Many studies focus on understanding the evolution of the simple fin into a complicated limb skeleton by examining the fossil record. In a paper published February 4 in Cell, researchers at Harvard and Boston Children's Hospital examined what's occurring at the genetic level to drive different patterns in the fin skeleton versus the limb skeleton. Researchers, led by M. Brent Hawkins, a recent doctoral recipient in the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, performed forward genetic screens in zebrafish looking for mutations that affect the fin skeleton. Unlike tetrapod limbs, which have complex skeletons with many bones that articulate ...