As we head into the first weekend of the new year, here’s a few things we’ve seen that might be worth your screen-time:
In the journals
Nicholson, W.L., Krivushin, K., Gilichinsky, D. & Schuerger, A.C. 2012. Growth of Carnobacterium spp. from permafrost under low pressure, temperature, and anoxic atmosphere has implications for Earth microbes on Mars. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences online early. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1209793110
Six bacterial isolates were obtained from a permafrost borehole in northeastern Siberia capable of growth under conditions of low temperature (0 °C), low pressure (7 mbar), and a CO(2)-enriched anoxic atmosphere.
Holt, B.G., Lessard, J.-P., Borregaard, M.K., Fritz, S. a., Araujo, M.B., Dimitrov, D., et al. 2012. An update of Wallace’s zoogeographic regions of the world. Science 339: 74–78.
Here, we generate a global map of zoogeographic regions by combining data on the distributions and phylogenetic relationships of 21,037 species of amphibians, birds, and mammals. We identify 20 distinct zoogeographic regions, which are grouped into 11 larger realms. We document the lack of support for several regions previously defined based on distributional data and show that spatial turnover in the phylogenetic composition of vertebrate assemblages is higher in the Southern than in the Northern Hemisphere.
In the blogosphere
An article in National Geographic examines the population genetic changes accompanying human range expansion.
