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Humans are changing the ‘landscape of fear’ in oceans in many more ways that previously thought, and the effects of these changes can ripple through ocean ecosystems in a wide variety of surprising ways, research by Dr Elizabeth Madin from the Department of Biological Sciences and colleagues from Simon Fraser University, Canada and the University of California and Florida International University in the United States has found.

An overwhelming majority of Americans (87%) say it is important that candidates for President and Congress have a basic understanding of the science informing public policy issues, including majorities across the political spectrum (92% of Democrats, 90% of Republicans and 79% of Independents). Americans also say the presidential candidates should participate in a debate to discuss key science-based challenges facing the United States, such as healthcare, climate change, energy, education, innovation and the economy, with 91% of Democrats, 88% of Republicans and 78% of Independents agreeing.

Past research as well as conventional wisdom about the use of humor by leaders suggests that positive humor should result in happier subordinates who are satisfied with their jobs. Conventional wisdom also suggests that leaders should avoid negative humor, though actual support for that belief is scarce and ambiguous

Good news for the Leslie Knopes, Lisa Simpsons and other civic-minded strivers of the world: New research from a University of Illinois expert in social network analysis indicates that people who participate in voluntary civic organizations such as school PTAs, religious or leisure groups strengthen their ties to high-status people and accrue significantly better social cachet than their less-outgoing peers.

Tracked by their calls at night after heavy rains, two species of narrow-mouthed frogs have been recorded as new. During the examinations it turned out that one of the studied specimens is a hermaphrodite and another one represents the first record of the genus Cophixalus for the Misool Island.

Using technical advances not yet developed when the 2014 Ebola outbreak began, UC San Francisco-led scientists completed a proof-of-principle study on a real-time blood test based on DNA sequencing that can be used to rapidly diagnose Ebola and other acute infections. The researchers said that the test can be used even where lab space and medical infrastructure are scarce.

More than 60 research groups worldwide are now developing variations of the triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG), which converts ambient mechanical energy into electricity for powering wearable electronics, sensor networks, implantable medical devices and other small systems.

You can resist buying a candy bar while you’re waiting in the checkout line at the grocery store—but you’ll buy any pair of shoes that are on sale. Your best friend, in contrast, wouldn’t dream of buying a pair of shoes he thinks he doesn’t need, no matter how low the price—but he can’t resist buying that same candy bar you so easily ignore.

(Phys.org)—A trio of researchers with the University of Regina and University of Western Ontario, both in Canada, has found that a history of drought in the areas that feed the Athabasca River indicates that droughts are likely in the future, perhaps putting oilsands mining in jeopardy. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, David Sauchyn, Jeannine-Marie St-Jacques, and Brian Luckman describe their study of tree rings in the area and what doing so revealed about the history of rainfall there.

It has been axiomatically accepted that the basement of a continental shelf is the offshore extension and geologically part of the same continental lithosphere. While this notion may hold true in places, our analysis of the distribution of Jurassic-Cretaceous granitoids throughout the entire eastern continental China in space and time led us to the conclusion that the basement of the Chinese continental shelf (beneath East China Sea and South China Sea) is of exotic origin geologically unrelated to the continental lithosphere of eastern China.