Feature Channels: Environmental Science

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A team of researchers at The University of Texas at Dallas has developed a novel method for trapping potentially harmful gases within microscopic organo-metallic structures. These metal organic frameworks, or MOFs, are made of different building blocks composed of metal ion centers and organic linker molecules. Together they form a honeycomb-like structure that can trap gases within each comb, or pore.

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What's their secret and can humans learn from them?

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The 2017 SOT Awards recipients have studied the role of pesticide exposure on neurodegenerative diseases, connections between chemicals and the susceptibility to allergies and asthma, risk assessment, alternative test methods and strategies, and more, in their efforts to improve public, animal and environmental health.

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Scientists under VIRCA Plus are developing improved cassava varieties to enhance the livelihoods and health status of African farm families.

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the global economy and have been the subject of research for decades. Despite their unique advantages, x-ray synchrotron spectroscopy techniques were not widely employed by those delving into the intricacies The Synchrotron Catalysis Consortium was established to address this situation by providing scientists a means to study catalysts at work under realistic conditions and developing new techniques to characterize catalysts.

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Subsurface drip irrigation is the newest method in turfgrass efficiency. Two projects will test these research findings: A subsurface drip irrigation system in several tee boxes at a golf course, and a city park, where a subsurface drip irrigation system has been installed on half of the park.

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Biodiversity on earth is greatest in the tropics with the number and variety of species gradually diminishing toward the poles. Understanding exactly what shapes this pattern, known as the latitudinal diversity gradient, is not just key to knowing the nature of life on Earth, but it also could help scientists slow biodiversity loss and protect areas of the globe that generate a disproportionate variety of species.

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The oceanic crust produced by the Earth today is significantly thinner than crust made 170 million years ago during the time of the supercontinent Pangea, according to University of Texas at Austin researchers.

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A global campaign recently launched by WCS (Wildlife Conservation Society) to stop or reroute a proposed superhighway in Nigeria’s Cross River State has succeeded in securing 100,081 petition signatures in support of the effort.

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Researchers from the University of Georgia have found that invasive species on Hawaii Island may be especially successful invaders because they are formidable scavengers of carcasses of other animals and after death, a nutrient resource for other invasive scavengers.

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The ARM Climate Research Facility has some of the best instruments in the world for measuring atmospheric properties, but achieving the highest-quality results requires knowing the optimal way to use them. In a recent paper, a research team used ARM data to optimize radar measurements and accompanying models.

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A University of Michigan-led team of geologists and engineers is mapping surface ruptures and some of the tens of thousands of landslides triggered by last month's magnitude-7.8 earthquake in New Zealand.

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As human uses increasingly threaten the Earth’s natural spaces, a new ecological model developed by University of Guelph researchers suggests that so-called mosaic ecosystems may be near a “tipping point” and that conserving these landscapes requires taking a longer and more balanced view.

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Deep stores of carbon in northern peatlands may be safe from rising temperatures, according to a team of researchers from several U.S.-based institutions. s

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Northwestern University researchers now have an answer to a vexing age-old question: Why do earthquakes sometimes come in clusters? The research team has developed a new computer model and discovered that earthquake faults are smarter -- in the sense of having better memory -- than seismologists have long assumed.

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An international team of scientists analyzed grain production in 10 sub-Saharan countries. Although farmers in the region could quadruple production by optimizing plant and soil management, yields still would fall short of demand.

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Oil spills could be cleaned up in the icy, rough waters of the Arctic with a chemically modified sawdust material that absorbs up to five times its weight in oil and stays afloat for at least four months.

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Number of avian species soars to 18,000

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A collaboration of universities and government agencies has identified three key agricultural management plans for curtailing harmful algal blooms. They have also identified a looming funding gap for enacting those plans.

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Spectral bats, also called false vampire bats for their imposing size—with a wingspan of over three feet—are the largest bats in the Americas and typically roost in trees in lowland forests. Vladimir Dinets, research assistant professor of psychology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, has discovered evidence that the species also can live in caves and is more adaptable than previously thought, thanks to personal observation and information gleaned from social media accounts of tourists.

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New research led by the University of Southampton, England, shows Neanderthals kept coming back to a coastal cave site in Jersey (UK) from at least 180,000 years ago until around 40,000 years ago.

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Sometimes the math in climate science is pretty easy: MC3E, plus 24 authors, equals one gorgeous cover story for the September issue of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society (BAMS).

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Restore America's Estuaries summit brings together the nation's best restoration experts.

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Research professor Kathleen Hunt has found that baleen stores a wide range of hormonal data that can help chart a female whale’s reproductive history–data which she hopes can be used to help repopulate them.

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Mountain glaciers move slowly and it has been had to pin an individual glacier's retreat to a change in global climate. A new method finds that for most of the glaciers studied the observed retreat is more than 99 percent likely due to climate change.

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University of Utah researchers will be among the approximately 24,000 scientists convening in San Francisco for the annual Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union Dec. 12-16. Below are summaries of select presentations at the meeting, along with the time and date of the presentation and primary contact information. All times are in Pacific Standard Time.

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Society for Risk Analysis Annual Meeting December 11-15, 2016

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Turbulence created by wind turbines may help corn and soybeans by influencing variables such as temperature and carbon dioxide concentration, according to Iowa State University research. The project drew on data generated by research towers set up on a 200-turbine wind farm in Iowa.

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On July 17, more than 70 million tons of ice broke off from the Aru glacier in the mountains of western Tibet and tumbled into a valley below, taking the lives of nine nomadic yak herders living there. Researchers conducted a kind of forensic analysis of the disaster, and the cause was likely climate change.

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Recent surveys by Australian scientists have identified an apparent significant decline in the numbers of trapdoor spiders across southern Australia.

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Extinctions related to climate change have already happened in hundreds of plant and animal species around the world. New research, publishing on December 8th in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, shows that local extinctions have already occurred in 47% of the 976 plant and animal species studied.

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Robert Howarth, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Cornell University and faculty fellow in the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future, has studied global warming for 40 years, particularly the impact of methane gas emissions on the environment. He says as Environmental Protection Agency administrator, Scott Pruitt must discontinue his promotion of fossil fuel use, and take proactive steps to avoid irreversible, catastrophic global warming that would place the food supply of the world at some risk, potentially leading to unprecedented wars.

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Precisely meeting a pregnant sow’s protein needs, specifically amino acid requirements, will improve the health of the sow and piglet—and help protect the environment by utilizing resources wisely.

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Conducted reconnaissance field research

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Scientists examined one bacterium found 1,000 feet underground (called Paenibacillus) that demonstrated resistance to most antibiotics used today, including so-called ‘drugs of last resort’ such as daptomycin. These microorganisms have been isolated from the outside world for more than four million years within the cave.

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A new study by Burke Museum and University of Washington paleontologists describes an early marsupial relative called Didelphodon vorax that lived alongside ferocious dinosaurs and had, pound-for-pound, the strongest bite force of any mammal ever recorded.

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Scientists closely tracking the survival of endangered Sacramento River salmon faced a puzzle: the same high temperatures that salmon eggs survived in the laboratory appeared to kill many of the eggs in the river

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Pitt chemical engineering team identifies new catalyst that advances capture and conversion of atmospheric carbon dioxide

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Scientists have called superoxide out as the main culprit behind coral bleaching: The idea is that as this toxin build up inside coral cells, the corals fight back by ejecting the tiny energy- and color-producing algae living inside them. In doing so, they lose their vibrancy, turn a sickly white, and are left weak, damaged, and vulnerable to disease.

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Using marine sediment cores containing isotopes of aluminum and beryllium, a group of international researchers has discovered that East Greenland experienced deep, ongoing glacial erosion over the past 7.5 million years. The research reconstructs ice sheet erosion dynamics in that region during the past 7.5 million years and has potential implications for how much the ice sheet will respond to future interglacial warming.

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New research opens up the deep history of the Greenland Ice Sheet, looking back millions of years farther than previous techniques allowed—and raises urgent questions about if the giant ice sheet might dramatically accelerate its melt-off in the near future.

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Almeria Analytics adds a capability with ORNL technology; Wireless sensor network provides insight into population density, movement; New ORNL technology quickly detects cracks in walls, roofs; ORNL motor boasts 75 percent power gain over competing designs; New microscopy technique features unprecedented resolution; Livestock feed gets a bioenergy boost

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The critical zone extends from the top of the tallest tree down through the soil and into the water and rock beneath it. It stops at what’s called the weathering zone — or where soils first begin to develop. This zone allows crops to grow well and supports our buildings. It also allows for animals and microbes to live, and filters our water. A review of recent research is now available.

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Soil, an important part of the carbon cycle, might compound the world's carbon dioxide problem, according to a global study involving Kansas State University researchers and Konza Prairie Biological Station. The study, "Quantifying global soil carbon losses in response to warming," recently published in Nature, predicts that soils may release large quantities of carbon dioxide in response to warming, leading to even faster rates of warming globally.

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Most Americans envision healthy mustangs galloping free on the range when they think about the country's wild horse population. But UC Cooperative Extension rangeland advisor Laura Snell sees another image.

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The National Advisory Committee for the Tulane Nitrogen Reduction Challenge has selected five finalists for its $1 million cash prize, which will be awarded to the team that presents the best solution to combat hypoxia – the deadly deficiency of oxygen that creates annual “dead zones” in the world’s lakes and oceans.

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Cornell Unviersity researchers have discovered a biological mechanism that helps convert nitrogen-based fertilizer into nitrous oxide, an ozone-depleting greenhouse gas.