Text written in Basque and translated automatically by Elia without any subsequent editing. SEE ORIGINAL

Brazilian Reflora Initiative; Bepi Colombo Space Project; Sport and Health; Animals and Seasons

Brazil has launched the REFLORA initiative to collect and retrieve information on Brazilian plant species scattered around the world.

The goal is that within three years, information about the approximately one million plants in botanical collections outside Brazil will be available online free of charge.

Thanks to this project, a complete inventory of the Brazilian flora will be made and the list of species that are about to be lost will be reviewed.

the BEPI COLOMBO Mercury space mission, to be launched in 2014, has just passed its first thermal test at ESA’s research and technical centre. The project between the European Space Agency and the Japanese agency Jaxa will have two probes, one from the agency, which will take off together and travel together.

The mission's scientific objective is to investigate the surface and interior of Mercury: it will investigate the planet's magnetic field and magnetosphere to understand how Mercury was formed and put one more piece into the puzzle of the formation of the solar system.

Too much physical endurance exercise for years is harmful to the heart and can cause arrhythmias, according to researchers from three Catalan institutions. In experiments with rats, it has been observed that after violent exercise, they developed cardiac fibrosis, similar to that observed in some athletes who died suddenly. To prevent this from happening, experts recommend that endurance athletes undergo frequent cardiac checkups.

A team of researchers from the University of Aberdeen has identified the mechanisms that regulate hormone production in animals according to the season.

This switch that prepares animals for each season is based on the cycle of daylight and darkness and has nothing to do with the weather.

Research has shown that the functioning of these mechanisms will have a direct impact on the adaptive capacity of animals due to unexpected seasonal changes due to climate change.

Scientists believe that some animals will have trouble staying in their natural habitat because they won’t be able to adapt their internal clock to locally altered seasons.