#Migratory river fish populations down 76% since 1970

“#Migratory river fish populations down 76% since 1970” River fish like sturgeon, pictured here, are threatened by disruptions to their migration routes as well as overfishing Populations of migratory river fish collapsed by 76 percent on average in the last 50 years, according to a report by conservation groups Tuesday, warning the “catastrophic” declines could…

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#The likely impact of Great American Outdoors Act

“#The likely impact of Great American Outdoors Act” The Milky Way rises above Fajada Butte in Chaco Culture National Historical Park in New Mexico. Credit: Bettymaya Foott/National Park Service After winning final bipartisan approval in Congress last week, a bill that will pump billions of dollars into overdue repairs and maintenance of U.S. national parks…

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#Seafood products made from cells should be labeled cell-based

“#Seafood products made from cells should be labeled cell-based” A meal featuring white fish, which someday may be made from the cells of fish. Credit: William Hallman/Rutgers University-New Brunswick Companies seeking to commercialize seafood products made from the cells of fish or shellfish should use the term “cell-based” on product labels, according to a Rutgers…

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#Rising temps put desert shrubs in high-efficiency mode

“#Rising temps put desert shrubs in high-efficiency mode” Brittlebush. Credit: Avery Driscoll Death Valley doesn’t seem like the most ideal place to ride out rising temperatures amid a changing climate. But for the desert plants that live there, it’s home—and they face the choice to adapt or die. Research from the University of Utah shows…

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#Glacial stream insect may tolerate warmer waters

“#Glacial stream insect may tolerate warmer waters” Mountain stoneflies live in streams fed by icy glacial waters. Credit: Joe Giersch An endangered aquatic insect that lives in icy streams fed by glaciers might not mind if the water grows warmer due to climate change. A study published in Global Change Biology on July 22 found…

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#Novel cutting mechanism devised for automated, robotic apple-tree pruning system

“#Novel cutting mechanism devised for automated, robotic apple-tree pruning system” Researchers Long He, assistant professor of agricultural and biological engineering (left), and Aslan Zahid, doctoral degree candidate, first measured branch-cutting force with a sensor attached to manual pruners to provide information for the end-effector design. Credit: Long He research group, Penn State The first robotic…

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#Studying interactions between ground-nesting bees and soils

“#Studying interactions between ground-nesting bees and soils” An example of the bare ground surfaces where emergence holes were observed on a study site in Corvallis, OR. Credit: Jennifer Fedenko Many living creatures live in soil. Though their sizes range from microscopic soil microbes to larger animals like gopher turtles, they all call soil their “home.”…

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#Researchers build first AI tool capable of identifying individual birds

“#Researchers build first AI tool capable of identifying individual birds” Two sociable weavers with the bounding boxes illustrating the individual identification performed by the computer. Credit: Annie Basson and André Ferreira New research demonstrates for the first time that artificial intelligence (AI) can be used to train computers to recognize individual birds, a task humans…

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