The Qinling-Dabie orogenic complex, part of a large east-west mountain range in the heart of China, plays a key role in helping scientists understand the formation and breakup of the supercontinent Rodinia, according to a new paper. 

A recent increase in polar mesospheric clouds - diffuse collections of water ice crystals in the mesosphere near the poles at altitudes of about 50 miles - could be due to a recent increase in space traffic, a new paper in Geophysical Research Letterssuggests. 

The number and brightness of polar mesospheric ice clouds is expected to decrease when the incoming flux of solar ultraviolet radiation increases. Increases in solar radiation both heat and dry out the atmosphere slightly, leading to a decrease in ice cloud formation. 

From 1975 on, the global surface ocean had shown a pronounced, though wavering, warming trend. Starting in 2004, however, that warming seemed to stall. Researchers measuring the Earth's total energy budget - the balance of sunlight streaming in compared to the amount of light and heat leaving from the top of the atmosphere - saw that the planet was still holding on to more heat than it was letting out. 

But with that energy not going into warming the surface ocean, a traditionally important energy sink, scientists weren't sure where it went. It became known as a case of "missing heat." 

A new paper says that exposure to a banned neonicotinoid insecticide causes changes to the genes of the honeybee. The paper was written to support the recent decision taken by the European Commission to temporarily ban three neonicotinoids amid concerns that they could be linked to bee deaths.

Honeybees pollinate one-third of the food that we eat and the experiment looked at changes in the activity of honeybee genes linked to one of the recently banned neonicotinoids, imidacloprid.