Latest University of Nevada Stories

University of Nevada, Reno scientists lead decades-long Alaska studies Not all birds mate for life, but for those species that do, wildlife biologists have found a clear benefit to the birds from such long-term relationships: greater longevity and breeding success, according to a study led by University of Nevada, Reno scientists that was recently published in Behavioral Ecology. The study's authors found that when female black brant (a small arctic goose) lose their mate, their chances...

Nevada Geodetic Lab uses GPS and radar for most precise measurements over entire mountain range From the highest peak in the continental United States, Mt. Whitney at 14,000 feet in elevation, to the 10,000-foot-peaks near Lake Tahoe, scientific evidence from the University of Nevada, Reno shows the entire Sierra Nevada mountain range is rising at the relatively fast rate of 1 to 2 millimeters every year. "The exciting thing is we can watch the range growing in real time," University of...

Interdisciplinary work yields new, easier, less destructive way to examine diets of ancient peoples by using dental calculus While we may brush and floss tirelessly and our dentists may regularly scrape and pick at our teeth to minimize the formation of plaque known as tartar or dental calculus, anthropologists may be rejoicing at the fact that past civilizations were not so careful with their dental hygiene. University of Nevada, Reno researchers G. Richard Scott and Simon R. Poulson...

Antibiotic commonly used in animal production passes from father to son in pseudoscorpions In a paper published in Nature's open access journal Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno, report that male pseudoscorpions treated with the antibiotic tetracycline suffer significantly reduced sperm viability and pass this toxic effect on to their untreated sons. They suggest a similar effect could occur in humans and other species. A pseudoscorpion, whose scientific...

Greatly reduced sperm viability caused by tetracycline passes from father to son in pseudoscorpions In a paper published today in Nature's open access journal Scientific Reports, researchers at the University of Nevada, Reno report that male pseudoscorpions treated with the antibiotic tetracycline suffer significantly reduced sperm viability and pass this toxic effect on to their untreated sons. They suggest that a similar effect could occur in humans and other species. "This is the...

Utah State University biologists have long studied varied species of North American garter snakes that have evolved an amazing resistance to a deadly neurotoxin found in innocuous-looking newts, a favorite food of the snakes. The researchers have now discovered that snakes of different types in Central and South America and Asia have evolved the same resistance in a strikingly similar way. The findings, by USU alum Chris Feldman, PhD’08, now a faculty member at the University of...

University of Nevada, Reno economics researcher calculates increase in income Just what does it mean to get a green card? To some applicants, about $1,000 each month. A recent study by a Universityof Nevada, Reno economist and a graduate student found that employer-sponsored workers in the United States on temporary visas who acquire their green cards and become permanent residents increase their annual incomes by about $11,860. They studied data from The New Immigrant Survey, a...

Climate change effects to be monitored with new fiber-optic distributed temperature sensing Half-mile long thermometers have been dropped through the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica that will give the world relevant data on sea and ice temperatures for tracking climate change and its effect on the glacial ice surrounding the continent. The study based at the University of Nevada, Reno is funded by the National Science Foundation's Office of Polar Programs and other NSF grants. "This...

  Full-size pickup trucks on bridge deck to add important data to be used for new design standards Six full-size pickup trucks took a wild ride on a 16-foot-high steel bridge when it shook violently in a series of never-before-conducted experiments to investigate the seismic behavior of a curved bridge with vehicles in place. The 145-foot-long, 162-ton steel and concrete bridge was built atop four large, 14-foot by 14-foot, hydraulic shake tables in the University of Nevada, Reno's...

Study finds that faults beneath the Salton Sea ruptured during Colorado River floods and may have triggered large earthquakes on the southern San Andreas FaultSouthern California's Salton Sea, once a large natural lake fed by the Colorado River, may play an important role in the earthquake cycle of the southern San Andreas Fault and may have triggered large earthquakes in the past.Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and the...