Tag: Biodiversity
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Nation & World
Racing to catalog, study deep-sea biodiversity
Researchers find five new species of hard-to-access creatures amid shortage of knowledge, concerns growing commercial interest may cause extinctions.
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Nation & World
Leeches as tool for map biodiversity
Scientists looking to measure the biodiversity of wild animals in a nature reserve are taking their lead from leeches.
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Nation & World
New species in an urban ecosystem (read: solar panel)
A new species of bacteria, one that makes its home on the relatively hot and dry surface of a solar panel, was discovered recently at the Arnold Arboretum, offering a lesson that nature’s reach extends even to the artificial.
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Nation & World
Finding new land-management lessons in old ways
A new study overturns long-held beliefs about the role humans played in shaping the landscape pre- and post- European colonization.
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Nation & World
Harvard Global Institute grants expand scope
The Harvard Global Institute (HGI) will fund eight projects this year, three focusing on topics that are particularly relevant to China, five on issues that are salient to India.
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Nation & World
‘Search until you find a passion and go all out to excel in its expression’
E.O. Wilson has devoted his life to a better understanding of the workings of the natural world and to sharing his research and insights with Harvard students.
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Nation & World
Saving tortoises by a hair
Five species of giant, long-lived Galapagos tortoises are thought to have gone extinct, but recent DNA analysis shows that some may survive on other islands in the archipelago, according to work by Michael Russello, Harvard Hrdy Fellow in Conservation Biology.
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Nation & World
The Himalayas’ amazing biodiversity
Can science and art join forces to conserve one of the world’s richest natural areas? UMass Boston biology professor Kamal Bawa and photographer Sandesh Kadur, a National Geographic emerging explorer, have joined forces to create a richly illustrated, scientifically accurate account of biodiversity in the Himalayas.
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Nation & World
The tangled web around spiders
A biologist with an affinity for spiders shared his passion, taking the audience on a tour of arachnids large and small and making a pitch for their conservation as natural pest control.
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Nation & World
Taking the long way home
A Harvard graduate student has shown that some Australian and Pacific Island daddy longlegs took an unusual path to their new homes: drifting from the Americas and then island-hopping to their new continental home in Australia.
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Nation & World
Planting a research center in the arboretum
With the opening of the Weld Hill facility at Arnold Arboretum, staff members and lab equipment are filling the long-awaited space dedicated to botanical research.
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Nation & World
New Arboretum director hosts meet and greet
In his first month as the Arnold Arboretum’s new director, William Friedman is hosting two meet and greets and has established a Director’s Lecture Series.
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Nation & World
E.O. Wilson to lecture, co-host conservation benefit dinner
E.O. Wilson will host a lecture and dinner with biologist Daniel H. Janzen on Oct. 1 to benefit Area de Conservación Guanacaste, 163,000 hectares of tropical treasure in northwestern Costa Rica.
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Nation & World
Constant temps key to biodiversity
New paper answers the long-standing scientific question about cause of tropics’ stunning biodiversity.
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Nation & World
‘Settle down,’ warns E.O. Wilson
Esteemed biologist Edward O. Wilson called for renewed efforts to understand and conserve the planet’s biodiversity, in the first of three Prather Lectures being presented this week.
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Nation & World
Wilson honored by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden
Edward O. Wilson has been named Commander, First Class of the Royal Order of the Polar Star by King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.
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Nation & World
James D. Watson and Edward O. Wilson in conversation
Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH) will present “Looking Back, Looking Forward: A Conversation with James D. Watson and Edward O. Wilson” on Sept. 9. The event will be held at 5:30 p.m. in Sanders Theatre.
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Nation & World
Climate change an ‘opportunity’ as well as a threat
Conservation pioneer Russell A. Mittermeier started this year’s Roger Tory Peterson Memorial Lecture (April 5) with a quiz. In front of several hundred listeners at Harvard’s Science Center he turned on a small recorder.
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Nation & World
Urban areas offer hidden biodiversity
Urban areas around the world are places of hidden biodiversity that need to be protected and encouraged through smart urban design, said an authority in green city design.
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Nation & World
Wildlife biologist named Roger Tory Peterson Medal recipient, speaker
Russell Mittermeier, renowned wildlife biologist and president of Conservation International, has been selected to receive the 12th annual Roger Tory Peterson Medal presented by the Harvard Museum of Natural History (HMNH). Mittermeier will deliver the Roger Tory Peterson Memorial Lecture on April 5.
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Nation & World
Wilson receives NCSE’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Harvard professor Edward O. Wilson is the recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE).
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Nation & World
Global warming predicted to hasten carbon release from peat bogs
Billions of tons of carbon sequestered in the world’s peat bogs could be released into the atmosphere in the coming decades as a result of global warming, according to a new analysis of the interplay between peat bogs, water tables, and climate change.
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Nation & World
Effects of climate change vary greatly across plant families
Drawing on records dating back to the journals of Henry David Thoreau, scientists at Harvard University have found that different plant families near Walden Pond in Concord, Mass., have borne the effects of climate change in strikingly different ways. Some of the plant families hit hardest by global warming have included beloved species like lilies,…
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Nation & World
New Guinea forest expands ‘observatory’
Just getting there takes hours of hot, sweaty hiking through lowland Papua New Guinea forests: three hours from the road to the base camp, then another seven to the site. That’s when the real work begins: tagging, measuring, and identifying 250,000 trees scattered over 50 hectares.
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Nation & World
Global ‘chump change’ could provide biodiversity protection
Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson said the Earth’s major biological hot spots could be conserved for roughly $50 billion— an amount he termed “chump change” in a world of trillion-dollar financial bailouts.
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Nation & World
Museum of Science hosts Harvard-studded talk on biodiversity
As part of its Celebrity Science Series, the Museum of Science will host “Sustaining Life: A Conversation” on Oct. 3 with Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry Eric Chivian, director of…
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Nation & World
Clark, Hewitt named AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellows
Harvard affiliates Sharri Clark and David Hewitt have been named among the newest group of Science & Technology Policy Fellows by the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). The fellows spend a year working in federal agencies or congressional offices learning about science policy while providing valuable science and technology expertise to the…
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Nation & World
Portion of encyclopedic ‘macroscope’ unveiled
The first 30,000 pages of a massive online Encyclopedia of Life were unveiled last week at the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference in Monterey, Calif. The project was congratulated by E.O. Wilson, Pellegrino University Professor Emeritus, who articulated the need for a dynamic modern portrait of biodiversity in a widely read essay in 2003.…
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Nation & World
Fellow’s focus is foggy, froggy forest
In the dark of the Sri Lankan cloud forest, the researchers’ only guide was the headlamps they used to light up the night, illuminating the cold, gray mist that drifted through the trees.