wire - news in brief

Research by Meenakshi Shankar Poti (Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Université libre de Bruxelles) delves into the environmental policies and governance structures in small islands, with further emphasis on the mangrove ecosystems of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

Belgian scientists from the Vrije Universiteit Brussels (VUB) and the Université Libre de Bruxelles (ULB) have returned from Antarctica with samples and data that could help them determine where to find million-year old ice, which in turn can provide information about Earth-s climate in the past.

This December 12, Sibylle Boxho, a doctoral student in geology, leaves on a 2-month mission to Antarctica.

A team of scientists has described a new dinosaur species that could both walk and swim. "We always thought dinosaurs were terrestrial, but now it is very clear for the first time that there were also swimming dinosaurs", says palaeontologist Pascal Godefroit of the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences.

Introduction: Researcher UAntwerp and his international colleagues conduct research on Swiss Alps forest species. In the Swiss Alps, the time lag between tree leafing at high and low altitudes has shortened dramatically since the 1960s due to climate change. This is the finding of an international study conducted in collaboration with the University of Antwerp, which has just been published in the journal PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America).

A team of German, Belgian, American and Chinese geologists examined climatic cycles in different rock formations to determine the precise timing of the Devonian extinction.