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Ecosystems are networks so intricate that their survival or collapse is extremely difficult to predict. However, by mapping the lifespans and studying the resilience of different ecosystems around the world, network scientists at Northeastern University are working to create a common mathematical framework that could anticipate – and help us prevent – the collapse of at-risk ecosystems like commercial fisheries. Potentially, the model could even be used to predict the spread of epidemics and assess the stability of financial networks. The full paper is available at Nature.
Video by Nature
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Food and drink
Local tensions simmer amid a potato salad contest at the Czech-Polish border
14 minutes
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Technology and the self
A filmmaker finds a tactile beauty in the creation of her prosthetic leg
11 minutes
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Knowledge
An Indigenous myth and a geological survey elicit two ways of knowing one place
4 minutes
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Biology
Beetles take flight at 6,000 frames per second in this perspective-shifting short
9 minutes
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War and peace
A war meteorologist’s riveting account of how the Allies averted a D-Day disaster
6 minutes
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Physics
What does it look like to hunt for dark matter? Scenes from one frontier in the search
7 minutes
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Information and communication
An animation built from road signs is a whirlwind study of flash communication
2 minutes
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Biology
An elegy for a dying microbe explores what we really mean by ‘death’
9 minutes
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Art
Creating art that was aware of itself – and the viewer – made Manet the first modernist
15 minutes