Bioengineers at The University of Nottingham are testing how to use shrimp shells to make biodegradable shopping bags, as a ‘green’ alternative to oil-based plastic, and as a new food packaging material to extend product shelf life.
Changes in precipitation, which are linked to the warming of the Indian Ocean, are the main reason for recent changes in groundwater storage in India.
Large-scale energy storage for wind and other intermittent sources could make renewable energy easier to use. Researchers showed that rechargeable zinc-manganese oxide could be a more viable solution than today’s lithium-ion and lead-acid batteries.
Scientists have published one of the largest genetic studies ever conducted on the humpback whale (Megaptera novaeangliae) for the purpose of clarifying management decisions in the Southern Hemisphere and supporting calls to protect unique and threatened populations, according to WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society), the American Museum of Natural History, Columbia University, and other organizations.
Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have found a simple, reliable process to capture carbon dioxide directly from ambient air, offering a new option for carbon capture and storage strategies to combat global warming.
Can nature restore the numbers of species on islands to levels that existed before human arrival? How long would it take for nature to regain this diversity? To answer these questions, a research team compiled data on Caribbean bats and their close relatives in a paper published in Nature Ecology and Evolution.
When growing algae in outdoor ponds as a next-generation biofuel, a naturally diverse mix of species will help reduce the chance of crop failure, according to a federally funded study by University of Michigan researchers.
Scientists combined two materials to create a structure that turns carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide. The material has promise for removing carbon dioxide from the air, while pumping out carbon monoxide, a useful industrial product.
Fuel cells and other devices use reactions involving oxygen. To improve these technologies, scientists need to know how the oxygen behaves. Researchers just overturned the conventional thinking about the oxygen’s behavior.
Once released into the environment, radioactive materials pose risks. Scientists found that a protein that binds radioactive elements, such as plutonium. This discovery could lead to new ways to clean a contaminated area.
linked changes in social behavior with sublethal exposure to the neonicotinoid pesticide, imidacloprid.
The frequency of large-scale tornado outbreaks is increasing in the United States, particularly when it comes to the most extreme events, according to research recently published in Science.
Current changes in the ocean around Antarctica are disturbingly close to conditions 14,000 years ago that led to the rapid melting of the Antarctic ice sheets and a three metre rise in global sea levels.
A common species of zooplankton—the smallest animals in the freshwater food web—can evolve genetic tolerance to moderate levels of road salt in as little as two and a half months, according to new research published online today in the journal Environmental Pollution.
University of Utah atmospheric scientist Gannet Hallar and colleagues find a correlation between the severity of drought in the Intermountain West and the summertime air quality, particularly the concentration of aerosol particles, in remote mountain wilderness regions.
Scientists discovered a new kind of water molecule whose shape has been altered to conform to the symmetry of the environment in which it is trapped.
A new study led by researchers from Moss Landing Marine Labs of San Jose State University, California State University Monterey Bay and University of California Santa Cruz examines how ocean acidification may negatively affect some juvenile rockfish, a key marine prey base to the Calif. ecosystem.
A new University of Washington study has found the annual migration of some beluga whales in Alaska is altered by sea ice changes in the Arctic, while other belugas do not appear to be affected.
Irvine, Calif., January 5, 2017– Climate researchers and weather forecasters get their rain data from a network of precipitation-sensing satellites that orbit Earth. iRain, a new mobile phone app developed by engineers at the University of California, Irvine puts the same precision rainfall information into the pockets of the public.
Exploring where liquid goes, even in winter
New research done in Singapore shows that slightly raising indoor temperatures and equipping office workers with smart fans saves significantly on overall office building energy costs while maintaining employee comfort.
New research conducted by the University of Adelaide shows there is no greater risk of Salmonella contamination in the production of free range eggs in Australia due to hot summer weather, compared with other seasons.
Hugh English helped launch southwest Florida’s fledgling citrus industry. He started his career as a citrus grove manager at A. Duda & Sons in 1965, and through his work, English began many citrus research and Extension demonstrations in the Duda groves. He retired in 2001 as a corporate vice president.
Studies provide fresh insight into how such tiny wild flowers continue to thrive and reproduce.
New research shows that orchids relying on mosquitoes for pollination attract them by producing the same odors found in common mosquito blood-hosts. The results of this study will be presented at the annual conference of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology in New Orleans, LA on January 7, 2017.
More than 200 species of “true toads” have fully functional inner ears, but cannot fully use them because they have lost their tympanic middle ears, the part of the ear which transmits sound air pressures from the outside world to the inner ear. These “earless” toads rely on sounds to communicate, so why would they lose a sense that is key to their survival and reproduction?
The individual and the group: insignificant alone, awesome together. Like ants in a colony or neurons of a brain, the collective action of single actors can beautifully coalesce into something more complex than the parts.
Yet, how this key innovation evolved remains a mystery locked within the leathery shell of a lizard egg. Now, Dr. Thomas Sanger at Loyola University in Chicago has developed new techniques to understand more about the process of evolutionary diversification by observing development in real time.
Eelgrass, a marine plant crucial to the success of migrating juvenile salmon and spawning Pacific herring, is stable and flourishing in Puget Sound, despite a doubling of the region's human population and significant shoreline development over the past several decades.
An analysis of the strongest tropical storms over the last half-century reveals that higher global temperatures have intensified the storms via enhanced rainfall. Rain that falls on the ocean reduces salinity and allows typhoons to grow stronger.
Active Atlantic hurricane periods, like the one we are in now, are not necessarily a harbinger of more, rapidly intensifying hurricanes along the U.S. coast, according to new research performed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
High-definition CT scans of the fossilized skull of a 280 million-year-old fish reveal the origin of chimaeras, a group of cartilaginous fish related to sharks. Analysis of the brain case of Dwykaselachus oosthuizeni, a shark-like fossil from South Africa, shows telltale structures of the brain, major cranial nerves, nostrils and inner ear belonging to modern-day chimaeras.
The January 9, 2014 Freedom Industries’ storage facility leak in Charleston, WV released a little-known chemical into rivers, threatening human and the environmental health. How can we be better prepared?
The things we consume, from iPhones to cars to IKEA furniture, have costs that go well beyond their purchase price. What if the soybeans used to make that tofu you ate last night were grown in fields that were hewn out of tropical rainforests? Or if that tee-shirt you bought came from an industrial area that had been carved out of high-value habitat in Malaysia?
Global Temperature Report: December 2016
Where is the geographic center of a state, country or a continent? It’s a question fraught with uncertainty. Do you include water in your calculation? What happens when the shoreline shifts? But to University at Buffalo geographer Peter Rogerson, the challenge of finding a middle doesn’t mean you shouldn’t try.
Md Ali Babar, a UF/IFAS agronomy assistant professor and his team of researchers, hope to increase the harvest index from 45 to 60 percent, which translates to much more wheat. The harvest index quantifies a crop’s yield versus the amount of biomass – shoots and roots – that it produces.
New University of Washington research finds that for some songbirds, urban sprawl is kicking them out of their territory, forcing divorce and stunting their ability to find new mates and reproduce successfully, even after relocating.
It has long been suspected that humans and the urban areas we create are having an important — and surprisingly current and ongoing — effect on evolution, which may have significant implications for the sustainability of global ecosystems. A new multi-institution study led by the University of Washington that examines 1,600 global instances of phenotypic change — alterations to species' observable traits such as size, development or behavior — shows more clearly than ever that urbanization is affecting the genetic makeup of species that are crucial to ecosystem health and success.
Diners waste far less food when they’re schooled on the harm their leftovers can inflict on the environment. But if they know the food is going to be composted instead of dumped in a landfill, the educational benefit disappears.
Holidaymakers concerned about fresh volcanic eruptions causing flight-disrupting ash clouds across Northern Europe might be reassured by a study setting out the first reliable estimates of their frequency
Are you concerned about how your water tastes? Do you want to know how much you use, or whether we’ll have enough water for the next generation? A new UF/IFAS website links users with UF/IFAS programs on how to preserve and, perhaps improve the quantity and quality of water in Florida.
Do bats adjust their echolocation calls in response to other bat calls
For the development of animals, nothing — with the exception of DNA — may be more important than oxygen in the atmosphere. A study now online in the February issue of Earth and Planetary Science Letters links the rise in oxygen to a rapid increase in the burial of sediment containing large amounts of carbon-rich organic matter.
The following statement was released today by the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Asia Executive Director Aili Kang.
Many scientists have attempted to tackle how climate change will affect the natural world by determining the thermal tolerance of various species, then predicting what will happen to them as our world warms. However, this approach as a way to understand nature has its drawbacks because one species never acts alone, so comprehending how global change impacts these interactions is crucial to a holistic understanding.
Breast cancer researchers from the Florida campus of The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have developed a novel approach for identifying how chemicals in the environment—called environmental estrogens—can produce infertility, abnormal reproductive development, including “precocious puberty,” and promote breast cancer.
A University of Iowa study finds the threat of flooding is growing in the northern half of the United States and declining in the South. The findings are based on water-height measurements at 2,042 stream and rivers, compared to NASA data showing the amount of water stored in the ground.
New research publishing December 27 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology characterizes the ability of populations to interbreed and exchange genes as a function of the level divergence of their genomes.
Scientists from the University of Exeter and the University of Warwick examined trees which are resistant to ash dieback and – unexpectedly – found they had very low levels of chemicals which defend against insects.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right