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(Phys.org)—A trio of researchers with Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand has found that juvenile kaka (forest cousins of the well known kea mountain parrots) are better at solving problems than are older birds in the same area. In their paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Julia Loepelt, Rachael Shaw and Kevin Burns describe three types of experiments they conducted with wild kaka living in Zealandia Sanctuary, which is located on the North Island’s Wellington peninsula, and what they learned by doing so.

With an investment of 25 million euros the Colombian coffee sector should become climate proof to ensure more than half a million coffee farmers to cope with or fight the impact of lack or excess of water in 25 Colombian river basins. The programme ‘Manos al Agua’ (‘hands on water’) generates solutions to avoid annual losses of up to 30% of crops, affecting farmers’ income and livelihood

A new study led by Canadian astronomers provides unprecedented insights into the birth of stars. Using observations from the Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia and the Hawaii-based James Clerk Maxwell Telescope in the United States, astronomers from the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) have discovered that star formation is more regulated by pressure from their surroundings than previously thought.

In an important new study with implications for the treatment of dozens of incurable diseases, scientists from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have for the first time created a drug candidate that attacks and neutralizes the RNA structure that causes an incurable progressive, inherited disease involving a gradual loss of control over body movement.

Researchers from the University of Washington are using supercomputers at Department of Energy’s National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) and data from X-ray free-electron laser (XFEL) experiments to gain new insights into warm dense matter (WDM), one of the most challenging aspects of contemporary plasma physics.

Scientists working in the Gulf of Mexico have found that contaminants from the massive 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill lingered in the subsurface water for months after oil on the surface had been swept up or dispersed. In a new study, they also detailed how remnants of the oil, black carbon from burning oil slicks and contaminants from drilling mud combined with microscopic algae and other marine debris to descend in a “dirty blizzard” to the seafloor.

Researchers from the University of South Florida (USF) and a colleague at the Institute of Zoology in Beijing, China have found that outbreaks of three emerging diseases and parasites – West Nile virus, Lyme disease and amphibian chytridiomycosis – are driven by different ecological processes at different spatial scales. Their data also suggests that focusing on a single spatial scale can lead to inaccurate estimations of the impact humans are having on biodiversity, disease emergence, and the environment.

Researchers have helped solve one of the enduring mysteries of the ancient world: why the inhabitants of Madagascar speak Malagasy, a language otherwise unique to Southeast Asia and the Pacific – a region located at least 6,000 km away. An international research team has identified that ancient crop remains excavated from sites in Madagascar consist of Asian species like rice and mung beans

Far offshore and a mile deep in the dark world below the Gulf of Mexico’s gleaming surface, the catastrophic BP oil spill of 2010 did untold damage on the ocean floor. But scientists are unsure they can do much to heal places in the deep that were hurt the most as they undertake what’s being called the largest ecosystem restoration effort ever.

The waters surrounding Antarctica may be one of the last places to experience human-driven climate change. New research from the University of Washington and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology finds that ocean currents explain why the seawater has stayed at roughly the same temperature while most of the rest of the planet has warmed.