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Smithsonian scientists report ancient chili pepper history
02-15-2007 · EurekAlert!Smithsonian researchers and colleagues report that across the Americas, chili peppers (Capsicum species) were cultivated and traded as early as 6,000 years ago -- predating the invention of pottery in some areas of the Americas. Their findings contribute significantly to the current understanding of ancient agricultural practices in the Americas.
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Keywords: smithsonian, scientists, report, ancient, chili, pepper, history, scientist
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- Ancient coral reef tells the history of Kenya's soil erosion
04-10-2007 · EurekAlert!
Coral reefs, like tree rings, are natural archives of climate change. But oceanic corals also provide a faithful account of how people make use of land through history, says Stanford University scientist Robert B. Dunbar. In a recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters, Dunbar and his colleagues used coral samples from the Indian Ocean to create a 300-year record of soil erosion in Kenya.
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- Antarctic plants and animal life survived ice ages
09-27-2007 · EurekAlert!
Springtails, mites, worms and plant life could help solve the mystery of Antarctica's glacial history according to new research published in the journal Science this week.Scientists from British Antarctic Survey and Massey University New Zealand report that of the evolutionary history of Antarctica's terrestrial plant and animal life does not reconcile with current reconstructions of past glacial ice extent going back more than 23 million years.
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- Smithsonian scientists connect climate change, origins of agriculture in Mexico
06-01-2007 · EurekAlert!
New charcoal and plant microfossil evidence from Mexico’s Central Balsas valley links a pivotal cultural shift, crop domestication in the New World, to local and regional environmental history.
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- Drought limits tropical plant distributions, scientists at the Smithsonian report
05-02-2007 · EurekAlert!
Drought tolerance is a critical determinant of tropical plant distributions, researchers working at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama report in the journal Nature, May 3. In a novel coupling of experimental measurements and observed plant distributions across a tropical landscape, drought tolerance predicted plant distributions at both local and regional scales. This mechanism to explain a common observation will contribute significantly to models of land use and climate change.
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- Building blocks of life formed on Mars
12-11-2007 · EurekAlert!
Organic compounds contain carbon and hydrogen and form the building blocks of all life on Earth. By analyzing organic material and minerals in the Martian meteorite Allan Hills 84001, scientists at the Carnegie Institution's Geophysical Laboratory have shown for the first time that building blocks of life formed on Mars early in its history. Scientists have thought that organics in ALH 84001 was brought to Mars by meteorite impacts or originated from ancient Martian microbes.
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- Origins of nervous system found in genes of sea sponge, report scientists at UC Santa Barbara
06-05-2007 · EurekAlert!
Scientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, have discovered significant clues to the evolutionary origins of the nervous system by studying the genome of a sea sponge, a member of a group considered to be among the most ancient of all animals.
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- Smithsonian study concludes Caribbean extinctions occurred 2M years after apparent cause
03-12-2007 · EurekAlert!
Smithsonian scientists and colleagues report a new study that may shake up the way paleontologists think about how environmental change shapes life on Earth. The researchers summarized the environmental, ecological and evolutionary consequences for Caribbean shallow-water marine communities when the Isthmus of Panama was formed. They concluded that extinctions resulting when one ocean became two were delayed by 2 million years.
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- New dinosaur from Mexico offers insights into ancient life on West America
02-12-2008 · EurekAlert!
A new species of dinosaur unearthed in Mexico is giving scientists fresh insights into the ancient history of western North America, according to an international research team led by scientists from the Utah Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah.
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- Arctic ocean history is deciphered by ocean-drilling research team
06-20-2007 · EurekAlert!
Sediment cores retrieved from the Arctic’s deep-sea floor by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program’s Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX) have provided long-absent data to scientists who report new findings in the June 21 issue of Nature.
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- Smithsonian scientists report new carbon dioxide study
03-12-2007 · EurekAlert!
Researchers at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center report that doubling the atmospheric greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2) in a scrub oak ecosystem caused a reduction in carbon storage in the soil. This response suggests a limited capacity of Earth's ecosystems to stabilize atmospheric CO2 and slow global warming. These findings add a new perspective and a measure of caution suggesting that elevated CO2, by altering microbial communities, may turn a potential carbon sink into a carbon source.
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