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Do forest carbon credits work and actually help the environment?

It takes a lot of fuel to get an airplane up in the sky and keep it there—which means a lot of emissions. In fact, the airline industry produces more greenhouse gases than many major countries. Most airlines know this isn't a good look, so they are pushing for cleaner fuels—and offering passengers the chance to help them offset a flight's carbon emissions. Book a trip with a big carrier and you might be asked if you want to invest in forest preservation, saving enough trees to soak up your jet-setting's environmental emissions.

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Late Pleistocene horse DNA uncovers two-way migrations and climate-linked population declines

The horse originated in North America around four million years ago. As changing sea levels created land bridges between continents, the horse traveled into Eurasia. A team of 57 international researchers—including 18 Indigenous scientists from the Lakota, sqilxʷ (suknaqin/Okanagan Nation), Blackfoot, Dene' (Athabascan) and Iñupiaq Nations—now reveal that inter-continental exchange of horse populations occurred in both directions on multiple occasions.

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'Virtual time freezing' technique lets scientists see inside spinning engines and tools

Researchers have developed a real-time imaging system that can capture images of fast-spinning objects over long durations. Real-time monitoring of rotating parts such as the turbine blades used in power plants or the fan blades of jet engines is critical for detecting early signs of damage—such as wear or cracks—helping prevent serious failures and reducing maintenance needs.

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Improved model system allows researchers to study embryo development

Research from Ph.D. candidate Bohan Chen in the lab of Idse Heemskerk of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Michigan Medical School and their colleagues improves upon a popular experimental model, and in doing so, reveals more of the inner workings of a critical period during the formation of an embryo.

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Cas9 ancestor engineered into a compact genome editing tool

Scientists at the McGovern Institute and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard have reengineered a compact RNA-guided enzyme they found in bacteria into an efficient, programmable editor of human DNA. The engineered protein, called NovaIscB, can be adapted to make precise changes to the genetic code, modulate the activity of specific genes, or carry out other editing tasks. Because its small size simplifies delivery to cells, NovaIscB's developers say it is a promising candidate for developing gene therapies to treat or prevent disease.

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NASA, French SWOT satellite offers big view of small ocean features

Small things matter, at least when it comes to ocean features like waves and eddies. A recent NASA-led analysis using data from the SWOT (Surface Water and Ocean Topography) satellite found that ocean features as small as a mile across potentially have a larger impact on the movement of nutrients and heat in marine ecosystems than previously thought.

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Remarkable blue species of poison dart frog discovered in Brazilian Amazon

A team of wildlife researchers from Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, in Brazil, working with a colleague from the National Museum of the Czech Republic, has discovered a new species of poison dart frog in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest. In their study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE, the group ventured deep into the rainforest to learn more about species that live in still-isolated parts of the jungle.

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Ancient amber may contain traces of tsunamis

Amber deposits found in ancient deep-sea sediment may represent one of the oldest records to date of a tsunami, suggests research published in Scientific Reports. The study describes large amber deposits discovered on Hokkaido Island in northern Japan, and proposes that they were likely swept out from a forest to the ocean by one or more tsunamis between 116 and 114 million years ago.

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