University of Florida geochemist Andrea Dutton and colleagues at the University of Michigan have utilized a new technique of analysis to reconstruct Antarctic ocean temperatures that support the idea that the combined impacts of volcanic eruptions and an asteroid impact brought about one of Earth’s biggest mass extinctions 66 million years ago.
India’s protected areas are at a crossroads, and a new book by top Indian scientists provides a roadmap on the way forward.
A recent drought completely shut down the Amazon Basin's carbon sink, by killing trees and slowing their growth, a ground-breaking study led by researchers at the Universities of Exeter and Leeds has found. Previous research has suggested that the Amazon -the most extensive tropical forest on Earth and one of the "green lungs" of the planet -- may be gradually losing its capacity to take carbon from the atmosphere. This new study, the most extensive land-based study of the effect of drought on Amazonian rainforests to date, paints a more complex picture, with forests responding dynamically to an increasingly variable climate.
Researchers look into the practice of alley cropping, planting long-term tree crops alongside short-term cash crops, for sustainability.
Researchers found that the rate of a certain chemical change in DNA – a key driver of spontaneous mutation and thus of evolution’s pace – increases rapidly with temperature. The scientists concluded that the rate of spontaneous mutation was at least 4,000 times higher than it is today.
When invasive Burmese pythons are breeding, radio-tracking one python can help find and capture more, a University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researcher says. “It is complementary to our current removal tool, in which we drive on roads and levees to capture moving pythons. It’s complementary because it’s effective at a time of year when we do not catch pythons on the road, and also because it provides more opportunities to catch the really big, breeding females,” said Brian Smith, lead author of the study.
It has long been known that monkeys convey information through alarm calls, but now a combined team of linguists and primatologists has laid the groundwork for a systematic ‘primate linguistics.’
The snow leopard has long been one of the least studied – and therefore poorly understood – of the large cats. No longer.
Starbons, made from waste biomass including food peelings and seaweed, were discovered and first reported 10 years ago by the York Green Chemistry Centre of Excellence. Using these renewable materials provides a greener, more efficient and selective approach than other commercial systems of reducing emissions.
A long-term project on insect-seed interactions, currently being carried out by researchers of the Institute of Zoology (Chinese Academy of Sciences) in a subtropical forest near Dujiangyan City, Sichuan, China, revealed the presence of larvae of an unknown weevil species eating the seeds in the pods of a shrubby legume.
Charismatic species—such as felines and primates or whales, sharks, and turtles—are attractive to tourists, and the opportunity of seeing them in the wild motivates tourists to visit protected areas. New research indicates that tourists’ preferences are not restricted to charismatic species, however, and they extend to less charismatic biodiversity, as well as to landscapes.
A new reconstruction of Antarctic ocean temperatures around the time the dinosaurs disappeared 66 million years ago supports the idea that one of the planet's biggest mass extinctions was due to the combined effects of volcanic eruptions and an asteroid impact.
Global Temperature Report: June 2016
The recent trend of increasing Antarctic sea ice extent — seemingly at odds with climate model projections — can largely be explained by a natural climate fluctuation, according to a new study led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research.
A variety of normally harmless bacteria can cause bleaching disease in seaweeds when the seaweeds become stressed by high water temperatures, UNSW Australia researchers have discovered.
Summer is a time for beach fun! As you head out to the beach this holiday weekend, consider what secrets lie within the glistening beach sand! The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) July 1 Soils Matter blog post explains the many roles beach sands play in keeping ecosystems running.
For the valerian plant, higher elevations in the Colorado Rocky Mountains are becoming much more co-ed. And the primary reason appears to be climate change.
Plants can grow faster as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations increase, but only if they have enough nitrogen or partner with fungi that help them get it, according to new research published this week in Science.
New research has identified clear signs that the hole in the Antarctic ozone layer is beginning to close.
The latest comprehensive analysis of national plans to address climate change after 2020 shows the world will not reach its target of keeping warming to below 2C off pre-industrial levels.
TORONTO, June 30, 2016 - Fruit flies may seem simple, but these common visitors to the fruit bowl can drastically alter their gene expression and metabolism to respond to temperature changes in their environment, an international team of researchers have shown.
Scientists at Miami University and DOE’s Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory found that adding a specific nutrient stimulates the bacteria to transform nearby iron that, in turn, reduces the chromium to a much less mobile material.
The U.S. bioethanol industry depends largely on turning a certain sugar into the simple two-carbon alcohol, the biofuel ethanol. Researchers engineered a heat-loving microbe to produce not only ethanol, but also a range of other alcohols.
A single microbe dominated thawed permafrost sites, with its relative abundance strongly correlating with the magnitude and specific type of methane produced at any given site.
New evidence shows that higher levels of iron oxides in ocean and coastal sediments speed the conversion of the more potent greenhouse gas methane into carbon dioxide even in the absence of oxygen.
Scientists found that melt on the surface of glaciers in the McMurdo Dry Valley is rare, but internal melting is extensive.
With citrus growers trying to save their groves in the wake of the deadly greening disease, a UF/IFAS researcher has found a new technique that could help growers answer a vexing question – why so much fruit is dropping to the ground prematurely.
In the face of climate change impact and inevitable sea level rise, Cornell and Scenic Hudson scientists studying New York’s Hudson River estuary have forecast new intertidal wetlands, comprising perhaps 33 percent more wetland area by the year 2100.
The long-lasting effects of El Niño are projected to cause an intense fire season in the Amazon, according to the 2016 seasonal forecast from scientists at NASA and the University of California, Irvine.
A multinational team led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory Climate Change Science Institute has found the first positive correlation between human activity and enhanced vegetation growth.
Individual country pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would need to be strengthened in order to limit future climate change to well below the 2°C limit included in the Paris climate agreement, according to a new assessment.
Crucial peatlands carbon-sink vulnerable to rising sea levels, research shows
A recent study has compiled and analyzed data from 25 previous studies. Researchers honed in on factors that influence how much ammonia dairy barns emit.
Today the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration opened a new chapter of the National Climate Assessment by announcing the appointment of new members to the Advisory Committee for the Sustained National Climate Assessment. Chairing this 15-member committee will be Richard Moss, a senior scientist with the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
University of Delaware researchers project that approximately 30 percent of current Adélie penguin colonies may be in decline by 2060 and approximately 60 percent may be in decline by 2099. The declines are associated with warming - many regions of Antarctica have warmed too much and further warming is no longer positive for the species.
A common close partnership which sees baby fish sheltering from predators among the poisonous tentacles of jellyfish will be harmed under predicted ocean acidification, a new University of Adelaide study has found.
Two Indiana University chemists have received $525,000 from the National Science Foundation to advance research with applications to the emerging field of carbon recycling.
In 2011, researchers developed a technique, called phage-assisted continuous evolution (or PACE), that rapidly generates proteins with new, sought-after properties and therapeutic potential. Originally conceived as a tool for pharmaceutical development, the researchers now have shown its potential in protecting crops from insects.
The University of Illinois at Chicago has received a five-year, $1.225 million federal grant to discover progesterone-like compounds from commonly consumed botanicals and learn how the hormones can aid women’s health.
Before five shark attacks left four people dead and one wounded on the Jersey Shore in 1916, there was widespread doubt a shark would even bite a human.
Pipelines carrying crude oil to ports in British Columbia may spell bad news for salmon, according to a new University of Guelph-led study. Exposure to an oil sands product – diluted bitumen – impairs the swimming ability and changes the heart structures of young salmon.
Rising sea temperatures in the Mediterranean are encouraging alien lionfish species to invade and colonise new territories with potentially serious ecological and socioeconomic impacts.
Circadian rhythms are internal clocks that determine many of an organism's daily rhythms, for example sleep-wake, feeding, urinary output and hormone production. Aligned with the environment by external forces such as sunlight and ambient temperature, circadian rhythms are important for animal health and survival. Disturbances of the circadian clock are associated with a variety of diseases in humans and animals, including cancer, mental illnesses and metabolic disorders, such as diabetes and obesity.
Caltech and DOE Joint Genome Institute researchers used a recently refined technique to identify both individual active cells, and single clusters of active bacteria and archaea within microbial communities. The DOE is interested in learning how the planet’s microbial dark matter can be harnessed for energy and environmental challenges.
In response to the threats of wildlife and forestry crime and illegal fishing to the Sundarbans—the world’s largest mangrove forest—the Government of Bangladesh through its Forest Department has expanded the scope of its current protection efforts.
From 2008 to 2015, state and federal water resource managers spent about $125 million to control invasive aquatic plants in Florida, according to an April Extension document co-written by Lyn Gettys, a UF/IFAS assistant professor of agronomy and aquatic weed specialist. Of all the invasive plants in Florida’s waterways, hydrilla costs the most to contain -- $66 million over a seven-year period.
Antarctic sea ice is constantly on the move as powerful winds blow it away from the coast and out toward the open ocean. A new study shows how that ice migration may be more important for the global ocean circulation than anyone realized.
An Iowa State University landscape architecture studio is part of a collaboration that's breathing new life into more than 300 neglected schoolyards in Philadelphia. They represent a burgeoning national movement to green schoolyards.
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