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Climate change has caused an increase in the semi-arid climate region in Brazil. Data from the National Center for Monitoring and Warning of Natural Disasters (CEMADEN) and the National Institute of Space Research (INPE) in the South American country indicate an expansion of 7,500 square kilometers per year since 1990, which is equivalent to five times the area of the city of São Paulo. A similar phenomenon has been observed in some regions of Europe and North Africa. With this in [...]

The event that wiped out the dinosaurs wasn’t all bad. The low-light environment caused by the meteor impact some 66 million years ago favored the spread of fungi that feed on organic matter, which was abundant at the time as plants and animals were dying in droves. It was the perfect opportunity for the ancestor of a group of ants to start cultivating these microorganisms, according to a study published in the journal Science. “The origin of fungus-farming ants was relatively [...]

Seasonal variations with alternating dry and rainy seasons and fluctuating levels of nutrients are factors that significantly influence greenhouse gas emissions from soda lakes in the Pantanal, considered less common than emissions from freshwater lakes. The Pantanal is the world’s largest tropical wetland, with an area of 153,000 km2, mostly (77,41%) in southwestern Brazil but also partly in Bolivia (16,41%) and Paraguay (6,15%). A study by scientists at the University of São [...]

Most flowering plants depend on animals for pollination. In warm wet tropical regions, more than 90% of plant species are pollinated by animals. In Dominica, a Caribbean island country, researchers have identified a mutualistic relationship between two species of heliconia plant ( Heliconia bihai and H. caribaea ) and their hummingbird pollinator, the Purple-throated carib ( Eulampis jugularis ). The association is so specific that it has often been cited as an example in the scientific [...]

Bacteria that live in soil and help roots fix nitrogen can boost certain plants’ capacity to reproduce, according to an article published in the American Journal of Botany describing a study of this mechanism in Chamaecrista latistipula, a legume belonging to the Fabaceae family, which includes beans and peas. Bacteria in the soil enhance the attractiveness of the plant’s flowers to pollinators via a type of relationship known as mutualism that is widespread in plants and [...]

As it prepares to host the 30th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC COP 30, the first COP to be held in the Amazon) in November 2025, Brazil is at a crucial moment. Its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets are still within reach, but socioenvironmental actions and policies focusing on conserving or restoring forests and biomes need to be strengthened. This is one of the key points made by Brazilian scientists in an article [...]

A combination of two drugs was capable of suppressing tumors in a non-conventional manner. Instead of inhibiting tumor cell division, as the most widely used medications do, the strategy consisted of hyperactivating oncogenic signaling by these cells to the point where they became stressed. The other drug then attacked the stressed cells. The approach will be tested in colorectal cancer patients in the Netherlands later this year. The study is reported in an article published in Cancer [...]

A group of researchers supported by FAPESP has found that the key criteria according to which areas of Atlantic Rainforest can be legally cleared by their owners are defined in too “subjective and imprecise” a manner in Brazil’s environmental legislation, allowing for the destruction of valuable forest that provides important ecosystem services. The group proposes changes to simplify the licensing process for landowners while at the same time making conservation policy more [...]

When at the edges of their geographic ranges, fruit-eating birds favor foods that more closely match their beak size, researchers report, suggesting that foraging niches (the diversity of food resources a species uses) become more specialized toward the periphery of a species range. The findings may help explain geographic variation in species’ fitness and are important for accurately predicting species’ responses to continued environmental change, which is forcing many [...]