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Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon are under constant pressure, and deforestation of these areas has accelerated in recent years. Some of them, such as Apyterewa Indigenous Territory in Pará state, are particularly affected, endangering Brazil’s ability to meet the targets to which it is committed internationally in terms of combating deforestation and mitigating the impact of climate change. To protect the areas of the Amazon that are still intact, effective action must be [...]

Even the finest particles of pollution influence the process of cloud formation and the rainfall regime. A study conducted in Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state in Brazil’s North region, shows that oxidation leads small aerosols expelled by factories and car exhausts, for example, to grow very rapidly, reaching up to 400 times their original size, and that this affects raindrop formation. “Understanding cloud and rain formation mechanisms in the Amazon is a major challenge [...]

A study conducted by researchers affiliated with São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Brazil shows that large mammals have a major impact on plant diversity, primary productivity and biomass in the understory of Neotropical forests. Species like the lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris) and white-lipped peccary (Tayassu peccari) help keep an ecological balance in areas such as the Atlantic Rainforest with different levels of productivity, while also influencing the spatial structure [...]

Torquetenovirus (TTV) is one of the viruses most frequently found in the human organism. It is also common in monkeys and domestic animals. Its presence has not been associated with any known disease, but its excessive replication is a sign that something is wrong with the immune system. The correlation between high TTV load and immunosuppression has been used in medicine in certain contexts, such as monitoring transplant patients who take medication to prevent rejection of the transplanted [...]

The Roman Empire was ruled by 175 men, from Augustus (63 BCE-19 CE) to Constantine XI (1405-53), including the Eastern or Byzantine Empire after the split in 395 CE, but excluding those who did not rule in their own right because they were minors during regencies or co-emperors. Only 24.8% of the 69 rulers of the Western Empire died of natural causes. The rest died a violent death on the battlefield or in palace plots. Considering all 175, 30% were murdered, committed suicide or died in [...]

A team of scientists has discovered a new marmoset species in the Brazilian Amazon. Schneider's marmoset (Mico schneideri), described in the latest issue of the journal Scientific Reports, is named after professor Horacio Schneider, a pioneer and major contributor to the research of diversity and evolution of monkeys. The discovery was made by a team of researchers led by Rodrigo Costa Araújo, currently an associate researcher at Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi. Araújo [...]

More than 70% of plant species that produce flowers depend on birds to disperse their seeds. Birds feed on fruit from a wide array of different plants, and bird-plant interactions configure a welter of complex networks. A study conducted at the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Biosciences (IB-USP) in Brazil shows that the evolutionary stability of each bird species depends on the position it occupies in these networks, increasing in step with the number and centrality of its [...]

Magnetizing a material without applying an external magnetic field is proposed by researchers at São Paulo State University (UNESP), Brazil, in an article published in the journal Scientific Reports, where they detail the experimental approach used to achieve this goal. The study was part of the PhD research pursued by Lucas Squillante under the supervision of Mariano de Souza, a professor at UNESP’s Department of Physics in Rio Claro. Contributions were also made by Isys Mello, [...]

Researchers at the Human Genome and Stem Cell Research Center (HUG-CELL), hosted by the University of São Paulo’s Institute of Biosciences (IB-USP) in Brazil, have developed a technique to reconstruct and produce livers in the laboratory. The proof-of-concept study was conducted with rat livers. In the next stage of their research, the scientists will adapt the technique for the production of human livers in order in future to increase the supply of these organs for [...]