Digging up early human and animal remains from the field in Africa, performing examination and publishing research about her findings, then enticing and educating the public about the implications are all in a week's work for Briana Pobiner.

The post Meet Our Scientist–Briana Pobiner, human origins researcher at the National Museum of Natural History appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Kari Bruwelheide, forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History, discusses how she came to work at the museum, the power of human remains and the information that bones can contain. She and her colleagues continue to discover new ways to interpret evidence from bones and burials.

The post Kari Bruwelheide, forensic anthropologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, discusses the power of bones. appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Meet the Smithsonian's Matthew Carrano, curator of Dinosauria at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. Matthew studies all things dinosaur, but focuses on the evolutionary history of predatory (meat eating) dinosaurs.

The post Meet Our Scientist: Matthew Carrano, curator of dinosauria at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Members of the Human Origins Program team at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History describe why they love their job.

The post Human Origins Program team members at the National Museum of Natural History on why they love their job appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The post Learn about the ash that comes from volcanoes with Dr. Liz Cottrell, a geologist from the National Museum of Natural History appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The post Natural History Museum curator Nick Pyenson explains how scientists know what dinosaurs and other extinct animals ate appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Don your clean room clothing and take a glimpse into the Smithsonian's new Antarctic meteorite storage facility in Suitland, Md., where all of the Antarctic meteorites in the national collection are kept under tight security and tight airlocks.

The post Glimpse into the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History’s new meteorite storage facility appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Dried specimens of nearly 800 flowering plants were acquired by the Botany Department of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History from the National Botanical Research Institute in Windhoek, Namibia, Africa. The collection includes nearly 160 specimens from the Compositae, or sunflower family.

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Since its doors first opened in 1910, the National Museum of Natural History has inspired curiosity and learning about the natural world and our place […]

The post Slide Show: Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History is 100! appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

Flowers are usually associated with butterflies, but not the Dutchman’s Pipe (Aristolochia grandiflora). This deciduous vine, native to Brazil, has large flowers that emit an odor of decaying flesh, which attracts flies and beetles.

The post Video: Smithsonian horticulturalist Janet Draper discusses the pollination of the pelican flower appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The National Park Service and the Smithsonian Institution have announced a new partnership to share responsibility for selected National Park Service natural history collections, making them more readily available to researchers through the Smithsonian.

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The move enhances coordination efforts for the 46-plot research network, which partners with more than 75 institutions in 21 countries.

The post Global forest science research center moves from Harvard to the National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C. appeared first on Smithsonian Insider.

The structural and nonlinear optical properties of a new anilinium hybrid crystal of chemical formula (C6H7NCl+·NO3−)3 have been investigated. The crystal structure was determined from single-crystal X-ray diffraction measurements performed at a temperature of 100 K which show that the compound crystallizes in a noncentrosymmetric space group (Pna21). The structural analysis was coupled with Hirshfeld surface analysis to evaluate the contribution of the different intermolecular interactions to the formation of supramolecular assemblies in the solid state that exhibit nonlinear optical features. This analysis reveals that the studied compound is characterized by a three-dimensional network of hydrogen bonds and the main contributions are provided by the O...H, C...H, H...H and Cl...H interactions, which alone represent ∼85% of the total contributions to the Hirshfeld surfaces. It is noteworthy that the halogen...H contributions are quite comparable with those of the H...H contacts. The nonlinear optical properties were investigated by nonlinear diffuse femtosecond-pulse reflectometry and the obtained results were compared with those of the reference material LiNbO3. The hybrid crystals exhibit notable second (SHG) and third (THG) harmonic generation which confirms its polarity is generated by the different intermolecular interactions. These measurements also highlight that the THG signal of the new anilinium compound normalized to its SHG counterpart is more pronounced than for LiNbO3.

During evaporation of natural and synthetic K–Mg–Cl brines, the formation of almost square plate-like crystals of potassium carnallite (potassium chloride magnesium dichloride hexa­hydrate) was observed. A single-crystal structure analysis revealed a monoclinic cell [a = 9.251 (2), b = 9.516 (2), c = 13.217 (4) Å, β = 90.06 (2)° and space group C2/c]. The structure is isomorphous with other carnallite-type com­pounds, such as NH4Cl·MgCl2·6H2O. Until now, natural and synthetic carnallite, KCl·MgCl2·6H2O, was only known in its ortho­rhom­bic form [a = 16.0780 (3), b = 22.3850 (5), c = 9.5422 (2) Å and space group Pnna].

Cancer-causing chemicals that occur naturally in foods are far more numerous in the human diet than synthetic carcinogens, yet both types are consumed at levels so low that they currently appear to pose little threat to human health, a committee of the National Research Council said in a report released today.

Every year, approximately 100 million* adult Americans experience chronic pain, a condition that costs the nation between $560 billion and $635 billion annually, says a new report from the Institute of Medicine.

Joint statements from the national science academies of the G7 nations were delivered today to the Italian government in advance of the G7 Summit to be held in Taormina, Italy, at the end of May.

Producing more precise county-level estimates of crops and farmland cash rents will require integrating multiple data sources using model-based predictions that are more transparent and reproducible, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine identifies strategies for improving the reliability of bolts used in offshore oil and gas drilling rigs, thereby reducing the risk that a bolt failure could cause a spill of oil, drilling fluids, or natural gas into the environment.

Improved understanding of the coupled natural-human coastal system will help promote resilience of coastal communities and ecosystems under rapidly changing environmental conditions and support informed decision-making, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.

A new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine identifies the most promising scientific breakthroughs that are possible to achieve in the next decade to increase the U.S. food and agriculture system’s sustainability, competitiveness, and resilience.

The National Academy of Medicine (NAM) at its annual meeting announced its inaugural International Health Policy Fellow, Roger Chung, Ph.D., M.H.S., assistant professor in the School of Public Health and Primary Care at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK).

The Gulf Research Program (GRP) of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine today announced a new funding opportunity under its Healthy Ecosystems Initiative.

A National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine study that is now underway aims to identify best practices for collecting, recording, and reporting death and illness data during and immediately after large-scale weather disasters.

Over the next five years, the U.S. Department of Defense’s Biological Threat Reduction Program (BTRP) should encourage and be among co-leaders in the federal government’s development of an enduring interagency mechanism to address an array of biological threats – including natural disease outbreaks, accidental releases, and intentional attacks -- to deployed U.S. forces and to the nation itself, says a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

A new study has investigated the effects of set-aside management —when fields are taken out of agricultural production — on common invertebrate decomposers in soil. The diversity of woodlice species was higher in set-aside fields compared to neighbouring wheat fields and this effect increased in older set-asides. This study highlights the importance of set-aside areas as habitats for soil invertebrates, which are important for soil health.

A Southern California Edison sign outside the San Onofre Nuclear Plant.; Credit: Grant Slater/KPCC

Large utilities cut off power to millions of Californians over the past two months to reduce the risk that power lines might spark new fires. Nearly 200,000 Southern California Edison customers were blacked out, some for days at a time. These public safety power shutoffs mean that many rural residents lose a lot more than just their electricity. 

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Director Eliza Hittman on the set of her film "Never Rarely Sometimes Always".
; Credit: Focus Features/Never Rarely Sometimes Always (2020)

The film “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” was slated for a theatrical release in March, but due to COVID-19 screenings were postponed. Instead, the film is out on digital this week, currently sporting a 98 percent rating on Rotten Tomatoes and receiving critical acclaim both here on FilmWeek and nationwide as one of the best films of 2020 so far.

Writer-director Eliza Hittman’s third feature-length film is about two teenage girls Skylar (Talia Ryder) and Autumn (Sidney Flanagan) from rural Pennsylvania who travel to New York City for medical help after an unplanned pregnancy. Hittman says the idea for the film came to her when she read in a book about how some women in Ireland, which up until recently had very strict laws against abortions, would travel from Ireland to London in 24 hours just to get a procedure. It struck her as worthy of a screenplay, and the idea was born. As part of her research for the film Hittman went to a small coal-mining community in rural Pennsylvania and, even though she wasn’t pregnant, visited pregnancy centers, got tested, and talked with women getting treatment and counseling so she could, as she says, “write the scenes with credibility.”

Today on FilmWeek, we’ll air “The Frame” host John Horn’s interview with “Never Rarely Sometimes Always” director Eliza Hittman where the two discuss how Hittman came up with the idea for the film, her journey to rural America to find out what visiting pregnancy centers there is like, and how that informed the way she conceived and wrote the film.

Guest:

Eliza Hittman, writer and director of “Never Rarely Sometimes Always”

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

The Census Bureau says it will continue its relaunch of limited field operations for the 2020 census next week in some rural communities in nine states.; Credit: Matt Rourke/AP

The Census Bureau says it is continuing the gradual relaunch of limited field operations for the 2020 census next week in nine states where the coronavirus pandemic forced the hand-delivery of paper forms in rural areas to be suspended in mid-March.

On May 13, some local census offices in Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania and Washington are scheduled to restart that fieldwork, according to an updated schedule the bureau published on its website Friday.

All workers are expected to be trained in CDC guidance in preventing the spread of COVID-19, and besides a new reusable face mask for every 10 days worked and a pair of gloves for each work day, the bureau has ordered 2 ounces of hand sanitizer for each census worker conducting field operations, the bureau tells NPR in an email.

The announcement means more households that receive their mail at post office boxes or drop points are expected to find paper questionnaires left outside their front doors soon. In areas where access to the online census form at my2020census.gov can be spotty, paper forms help ensure that all homes can participate in the once-a-decade head count of every U.S. resident.

The results are used to determine how many congressional seats and Electoral College votes each state gets through 2030. They also guide the redrawing of voting districts and the distribution of an estimated $1.5 trillion a year in federal funding for schools, roads and other public services in local communities.

The Census Bureau also announced on Friday that fingerprinting for newly hired census workers will pick up again next week in and around Philadelphia, Seattle, Portland, Ore., and Pittsburgh. With responses from close to 86 million households bringing the national self-response rate to just over 58% as of Thursday, the federal government is relying on staffing up with enough door knockers to complete the count. They're currently scheduled to make in-person visits to unresponsive homes starting in August.

Last month, Census Bureau officials asked Congress to consider pushing back the legal deadlines for delivering census data used to reapportion House seats and reshape voting maps by four months because of the delays brought on by the coronavirus.

In a letter to U.S. Senate leaders released on Friday, more than a dozen Democratic senators led by Brian Schatz of Hawaii are calling for the next COVID-19 relief package to include more funding and requirements for the Census Bureau "to keep both field workers and the public safe while conducting this constitutionally required enumeration."

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

New research in France has analysed the effectiveness of legal instruments and environmental assessments to protect natural areas against the impacts of roads. The Natura 2000 network appears to be the most effective, but the study calls for environmental assessments to take place earlier on in decision-making process for road projects to better protect natural areas.

Where agricultural policies are in conflict with environmental and social issues, a 'roadmap' can provide a way forward as part of a sustainable rural development planning process. New research describes an approach used in the Netherlands, which brings together stakeholders to create a mutually desirable vision of the future.

A fungus could offer an alternative to chemical pesticides for the control of biting midges that spread livestock diseases, including Bluetongue and African horse sickness, according to new research.

Indonesia’s plans to double palm oil production by 2020 have obvious financial benefits, but implications for food, biodiversity and carbon stocks are not so clear. A new model predicts the impacts of five possible palm oil production strategies and indicates the best approach is to target degraded and agricultural land that is most productive for palm oil.

Natural predators of agricultural pests are influenced by the type and range of habitats within a farming landscape. A new study has developed an approach which predicts the risk of pest infestation and natural predation according to landscape features, to help land managers structure landscapes that encourage natural pest control.

New research has investigated the long-term effects of applying sewage sludge to Spanish soils. The results indicate that sludge enhances soil properties, but recommends a maximum dose of 40 tons per hectare, applied biannually. Above this level, it appears the soil properties will not improve and may even worsen.

Controlling pests using their natural enemies can be an environmentally sound alternative to pesticides. However, the complex interactions between different pest control species and the landscape itself can affect the efficiency of such biological pest control, research suggests.

The widespread use of higher-yielding improved varieties of crops as part of the ‘Green Revolution’ has averted the conversion of between 18 to 27 million hectares of forests, woodlands and pastures in the period 1965 to 2004, according to a recent study. However, its authors caution that the relationship between these crops and land use change is complex, and good governance is needed to protect biodiversity from future expansion of agricultural land.

Adding compost, manure, and other forms of organic matter to farmland soil can boost earthworm numbers, crop yield, and the stability of soil, finds a recent analysis of long-term case studies. No-tillage and crop-rotation practices also have positive effects on soil, although no-tillage's benefits for earthworms are often absent on farms that use herbicides and other pesticides. The study also confirms that organic farming typically produces lower crop yields than conventional farming, but provides recommendations on how to reduce this ‘yield gap’, while highlighting positive aspects of organic agriculture.

In the aftermath of natural disasters, displaced communities require temporary accommodation. A new study has examined how the built environment of these temporary communities influences their recovery and resilience, using accommodation set up after Hurricane Katrina as a case study. It highlights the importance of developing transitional built environments that consider the social and mental health needs of a community.

Through a combination of human activities and climate change, the European environment is dehydrated. This thematic issue explores potential water management measures aimed at enhancing and safeguarding the water storage potential of Europe's ecosystems and aquifers.

A recent study presents a cost and time-effective way to identify areas with particularly low levels of noise pollution. The recommended method will make it easier for EU Member States to recognise quiet areas which could offer great health and ecological benefits, as well as meeting one of the Environmental Noise Directive requirements.

A Belgian public survey on greener energy consumption has found that positive messages about environmental issues may be more effective than negative messages in encouraging behavioural change for large sections of the public. The researchers suggest this can help policy planners devise targeted communications strategies.

A new study has combined measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) fluxes with estimates of other greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from farming operations for 15 European crop sites over several years. It estimated that the sites lost on average 138g of carbon per m2 per year. The total GHG balance (including non-CO2 emissions) was equivalent to an average carbon loss of 203g of carbon per m2 per year.

Diverse agricultural systems can sustainably improve food security and supply a varied, healthy diet for people, according to a recent analysis of the benefits of agricultural biodiversity. The food-based approach, when integrated with other strategies, can be used to tackle malnutrition, micronutrient deficiencies and the impact of climate change on farming.

Policy efforts have focused on modifying individual behaviour as one strategy to address climate change. However, this has been met with limited success and a new UK study suggests that policies to encourage behaviour change need to operate on multiple levels and that there is a need for greater co-ordination between individuals, governments, businesses and communities.

New research investigating the effects of naturally occurring iron fertilisation in the sea suggests that large scale geoengineering projects designed to sequester carbon in the deep sea could have a dramatic impact on marine ecosystems. The study found that the organic matter arriving at the sea floor and the species that live there are very different, depending on whether waters are fertilised by iron leached from nearby islands or not.

Despite better public transport and more energy-efficient housing, city dwellers have a larger carbon footprint than those in rural areas, according to a recent Finnish study. This is partly explained by the phenomenon of ‘parallel consumption’ in which people extend their living space by using services that the home also provides.

Long, unbroken periods of drought can be damaging to the mental health of people living in rural areas, new research suggests. An Australian study found that rural inhabitants who had experienced extensive drought periods over a seven-year period, combined with an unbroken spell for the year before they completed the survey had substantially higher distress scores than other participants.

New areas of land suitable for agriculture will open up under climate change’s effects, new research predicts, particularly in far northern regions of the world. However, the overall quality of land for farming will decline and many regions, including Europe, could lose large areas of suitable land.