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What marks the start of the Anthropocene – the geological epoch marked by human impact on the planet? The debate hinges, in part, on how we define “signature events,â€� the important information left behind as clues. But finding signature events transcends the study of the Anthropocene; it’s how we read to make meaning of a text, a collection of data, even a piece of art.   Jesse Oak Taylor, associate professor of English at the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ, uses a…

Like humans, wild animals often return to the same places to eat, walk on the same paths to travel and use the same places to raise their young. A team led by researchers at the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ and the University of Wyoming has reviewed the scientific literature and found that, while “consistentâ€� behavior may be beneficial when environmental conditions don’t change very fast, those benefits may not be realized in the ever-changing world dominated by humans.

A team of researchers including the Ä¢¹½ÊÓÆµ’s Marina Alberti has devised a new classification scheme for the evolutionary stages of worlds based on “non-equilibrium thermodynamics” — a planet’s energy flow being out of synch, as the presence of life could cause.