Are people who have been blind for most of their lives better at hearing than sighted individuals? In a new study in JNeurosci, Woon Ju Park from the Georgia Institute of Technology and colleagues explored this question by comparing tone detection and pitch discrimination in people with and without sight.

Medical Xpress

Coral reefs are under pressure. The seas they live in are getting ever warmer and more acidic, taking them out of coral’s comfort zone. Pollution is encouraging algal blooms, which stifle their growth. And overfishing is wiping out many species that they depend on for protection.

The over-fished species which have drawn most attention are those that feed on the algae or hunt others which have a penchant for consuming coral. However, Cody Clements and Mark Hay of the Georgia Institute of Technology wish to add what might seem an unlikely candidate to the list: sea cucumbers.

The Economist

For most of the industrial era, spreading crushed limestone across farmland has been treated as a carbon problem. The rock contains carbon; it ends up in contact with air and water, and by the most conservative accounting conventions, carbon is assumed to escape as carbon dioxide. Regulators and major climate assessments have baked that assumption into their default rules for decades.

A study published in Nature now argues that the opposite is true and that the error came from asking the wrong question. Across more than 120 years of records from the Mississippi River Basin, the researchers, including study co-author Chris Reinhard, conclude that agricultural liming has removed somewhere between 300 and 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere since 1900.

Intelligent Living

Oceanographer Lily Dove has worked with marine mammals and robots to better understand climate change in Antarctica. In an interview published by Science News Explores, she discusses her experiences and shares advice for students interested in careers in science.

Science News Explores

In an article published by The Conversation, Shiladitya Banerjee, associate professor in the School of Physics, discusses new research suggesting that single bacterial cells exhibit learning-like behavior in changing environments.

This article was also published by The Scientist.

The Conversation

Karl Lang, assistant professor in the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech, joined FOX Weather to discuss what is driving the Nepal disaster, the risks posed by glacial lake outburst floods, and the long-term challenges communities face.

Fox Weather

Instructors say open-ended student comments are the most valuable kind of course feedback. But reading through hundreds or thousands of such comments is time-consuming, so the insights often go unused. Georgia Tech researchers have developed an AI platform that sorts written feedback into themes, with student comments aggregated. Next steps include deploying the platform as a secure cloud service; connecting it to campus systems that manage teaching and learning; and running a pilot at Georgia Tech. • Georgia Tech lab of Gregory Mayer

Georgia Research Alliance Notes