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Every so often the work of an early career researcher becomes so important, it captures the attention of their professional peers. Recognizing these young scholars of outstanding promise, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation awards Sloan Research Fellowships to support their future breakthroughs and careers as leaders in their fields.
This year, three of those 128 early-career innovators come from UC Santa Barbara. I congratulate Sung Soo Kim, Fedor Manin and Timothy Brandt on this exceptional honor, said Pierre Wiltzius, dean of mathematical, physical and life sciences. With these fellowships, they join a rarefied group of 126 extraordinarily talented young scholars whose research shows great promise. I look forward to learning about the valuable discoveries these awards will support.
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IMAGE: The free high-resolution photo of writing, hand, number, line, measure, weight, fitness, measurement, close up, font, handwriting, organ, calligraphy, scales, shape, loss, emotion, pound, measuring, weight scale, weight loss, overweight. view more
Credit: Pxhere (Image Link: https://pxhere.com/en/photo/613480?fbclid=IwAR3Ep8o7jJEgv)
A new genetic study of Native Hawaiians by Charleston Chiang at the University of Southern California and colleagues finds that people who have a greater proportion of Polynesian ancestry in their genomes face a higher risk of obesity, Type-2 diabetes and heart failure. The study is published February 11 in
PLOS Genetics.
Previous studies have shown that Native Hawaiians appear to have high rates of cancers and chronic health conditions, especially when compared to other people living in Hawaii. In their genes, Native Hawaiians carry a mix of Polynesian, European and Asian ancestry, but due to the group s small size, there
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IMAGE: Animations showing strong similarity between the SEAS5 seasonal forecasting model (L) and actual observations of the Indian summer monsoon (R) view more
Credit: Amulya Chevuturi/University of Reading
Farmers in India should be provided with early forecasts of expected variations in the monsoon season in order to reduce crop losses, scientists say.
Researchers at the University of Reading and the European Centre for Medium-range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) led the first ever in-depth study into how accurately ECMWF s latest long-term global weather forecasting system can predict when the summer monsoon will start, and how much rainfall it will bring.
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IMAGE: New research can help ecosystem managers identify species vulnerabilities and prevent populations from becoming at risk, like the endangered Mexican gray wolf. view more
Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
More than 3,000 animal species in the world today are considered endangered, with hundreds more categorized as vulnerable. Currently, ecologists don t have reliable tools to predict when a species may become at risk.
A new paper published in
Nature Ecology and Evolution, Management implications of long transients in ecological systems, focuses on the transient nature of species and ecosystem stability and illustrates how management practices can be adjusted to better prepare for possible system flips. Some helpful modeling approaches are also offered, including one tool that may help identify potentially endangered populations.
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IMAGE: The Burgess Shale food web is one of eight ancient food webs that were analyzed for similarities. view more
Credit: Jennifer Dunne
If you want to understand an ecosystem, look at what the species within it eat. In studying food webs how animals and plants in a community are connected through their dietary preferences ecologists can piece together how energy flows through an ecosystem and how stable it is to climate change and other disturbances. Studying ancient food webs can help scientists reconstruct communities of species, many long extinct, and even use those insights to figure out how modern-day communities might change in the future. There s just one problem: only some species left enough of a trace for scientists to find eons later, leaving large gaps in the fossil record and researchers ability to piece together the food webs from the past.