Browsing FAS Scholarly Articles by Keyword "Earth Sciences"
Now showing items 1-15 of 15
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An Analysis of Costs and Health Co-Benefits for a U.S. Power Plant Carbon Standard
(Public Library of Science, 2016)Reducing carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from power plants can have important “co-benefits” for public health by reducing emissions of air pollutants. Here, we examine the costs and health co-benefits, in monetary terms, ... -
Dietary Variation and Evolution of Gene Copy Number among Dog Breeds
(Public Library of Science, 2016)Prolonged human interactions and artificial selection have influenced the genotypic and phenotypic diversity among dog breeds. Because humans and dogs occupy diverse habitats, ecological contexts have likely contributed ... -
Early Warning Signals of Ecological Transitions: Methods for Spatial Patterns
(Public Library of Science, 2014)A number of ecosystems can exhibit abrupt shifts between alternative stable states. Because of their important ecological and economic consequences, recent research has focused on devising early warning signals for ... -
The Elemental Composition of Demospongiae from the Red Sea, Gulf of Aqaba
(Public Library of Science, 2014)Trace elements are vital for the growth and development of all organisms. Little is known about the elemental content and trace metal biology of Red Sea demosponges. This study establishes an initial database of sponge ... -
Endangered Right Whales Enhance Primary Productivity in the Bay of Fundy
(Public Library of Science, 2016)Marine mammals have recently been documented as important facilitators of rapid and efficient nutrient recycling in coastal and offshore waters. Whales enhance phytoplankton nutrition by releasing fecal plumes near the ... -
Fossil Mice and Rats Show Isotopic Evidence of Niche Partitioning and Change in Dental Ecomorphology Related to Dietary Shift in Late Miocene of Pakistan
(Public Library of Science, 2013)Stable carbon isotope analysis in tooth enamel is a well-established approach to infer C3 and C4 dietary composition in fossil mammals. The bulk of past work has been conducted on large herbivorous mammals. One important ... -
Integrated Tree-Ring-Radiocarbon High-Resolution Timeframe to Resolve Earlier Second Millennium BCE Mesopotamian Chronology
(Public Library of Science, 2016)500 years of ancient Near Eastern history from the earlier second millennium BCE, including such pivotal figures as Hammurabi of Babylon, Šamši-Adad I (who conquered Aššur) and Zimrilim of Mari, has long floated in calendar ... -
Leveraging the Social Determinants of Health: What Works?
(Public Library of Science, 2016)We summarized the recently published, peer-reviewed literature that examined the impact of investments in social services or investments in integrated models of health care and social services on health outcomes and health ... -
Making sense of palaeoclimate sensitivity
(Nature Publishing Group, 2012)Many palaeoclimate studies have quantified pre-anthropogenic climate change to calculate climate sensitivity (equilibrium temperature change in response to radiative forcing change), but a lack of consistent methodologies ... -
The Methanol Dehydrogenase Gene, mxaF, as a Functional and Phylogenetic Marker for Proteobacterial Methanotrophs in Natural Environments
(Public Library of Science, 2013)The mxaF gene, coding for the large \((\alpha)\) subunit of methanol dehydrogenase, is highly conserved among distantly related methylotrophic species in the Alpha-, Beta- and Gammaproteobacteria. It is ubiquitous in ... -
Molecular and Paleontological Evidence for a Post-Cretaceous Origin of Rodents
(Public Library of Science, 2012)The timing of the origin and diversification of rodents remains controversial, due to conflicting results from molecular clocks and paleontological data. The fossil record tends to support an early Cenozoic origin of ... -
A Novel Genetic Score Approach Using Instruments to Investigate Interactions between Pathways and Environment: Application to Air Pollution
(Public Library of Science, 2014)Air pollution has been associated with increased systemic inflammation markers. We developed a new pathway analysis approach to investigate whether gene variants within relevant pathways (oxidative stress, endothelial ... -
Phylogeny of Elatinaceae and the Tropical Gondwanan Origin of the Centroplacaceae(Malpighiaceae, Elatinaceae) Clade
(Public Library of Science, 2016)The flowering plant family Elatinaceae is a widespread aquatic lineage inhabiting temperate and tropical latitudes, including ∼35(-50) species. Its phylogeny remains largely unknown, compromising our understanding of its ... -
Statistically-Estimated Tree Composition for the Northeastern United States at Euro-American Settlement
(Public Library of Science, 2016)We present a gridded 8 km-resolution data product of the estimated composition of tree taxa at the time of Euro-American settlement of the northeastern United States and the statistical methodology used to produce the ... -
A Unique Assemblage of Engraved Plaquettes from Ein Qashish South, Jezreel Valley, Israel: Figurative and Non-Figurative Symbols of Late Pleistocene Hunters-Gatherers in the Levant
(Public Library of Science, 2016)Three engraved limestone plaquettes from the recently excavated Epipaleolithic open-air site Ein Qashish South in the Jezreel Valley, Israel comprise unique evidence for symbolic behavior of Late Pleistocene foragers in ...