Feature Channels: Environmental Science

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Hollow coring drills designed and managed by UW-Madison’s Ice Drilling Design and Operations (IDDO) program are used to extract ice cores that can analyze the past atmosphere. Shaun Marcott, an assistant professor of geoscience at UW-Madison, was the first author of a paper published today in the journal Nature documenting carbon dioxide in the atmosphere between 23,000 and 9,000 years ago, based on data from an 11,000-foot hole in Antarctica.

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Joe Bailey looked at endemic eucalyptus found in Tasmania. They discovered that these rare species have developed unique characteristics to survive, and that these characteristics may also impact the survival of its neighbors in the ecosystem.

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The West Java Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) of the Ministry of Forestry, the Indonesian Police (Lampung office), and the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Wildlife Crimes Unit announced today enforcement action against two wildlife traffickers trading tiger parts online.

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Plants rely on sunlight to make their food, but they also need protection from its harmful rays, just like humans do. Recently, scientists discovered a group of molecules in plants that shields them from sun damage. Now, in an article in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, one team reports on the mechanics of how these natural plant sunscreens work.

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A researcher in Drexel’s College of Engineering is taking a closer look at aerosol formation involving an organic compound called limonene that provides the pleasant smell of cleaning products and air fresheners. His research will help to determine what byproducts these sweet-smelling compounds are adding to the air while we are using them to remove germs and odors.

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New multi-scenario modelling of world human population has concluded that even stringent fertility restrictions or a catastrophic mass mortality would not bring about large enough change this century to solve issues of global sustainability.

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University of Delaware oceanographers have reported a connection between local weather conditions and the weight of Adélie penguin chicks in the Oct. 22 issue of Marine Ecology Progress Series.

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Using data from an instrument aboard a 3-year-old satellite, a University of Alabama in Huntsville graduate student hopes to develop a system that will automatically detect and measure crop damage caused by hail storms anywhere in the U.S.

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A new study has found that implementing stricter fisheries management overcame the expected detrimental effects of climate change disturbances in coral reef fisheries badly impacted by the 1997/98 El Niño, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society.

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Southern California water agencies have turned to new pricing structures, expanded rebate programs and implemented other means to encourage their customers to reduce consumption. Some of those policies have greatly reduced per capita consumption, while others have produced mixed results.

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In a large scale study of native and invasive Phargmites, researchers from URI and LSU found that the intensity of plant invasions by non-native species can vary considerably with changes in latitude.

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Planned wind turbine farms in California --- intended to create new, renewable energy resources --- are endangering the lives of rare birds of prey populations. A geography professor at West Virginia University is monitoring the birds' flight patterns to protect them and preserve the efforts to harvest wind energy.

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Phytoplankton blooms can fix as much carbon as an equivalent-size rainforest, but where does the carbon go when the bloom collapses? Three Weizmann Institute scientists – a marine microbiologist, a cloud physicist, and an oceanographer – investigate.

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In a new study published this month in the Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology, University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers highlight the urban heat island effect in Madison: The city’s concentrated asphalt, brick and concrete lead to higher temperatures than its nonurban surroundings.

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Over the past two decades, the resident communities of birds that attend eastern North America’s backyard bird feeders in winter have quietly been remade, most likely as a result of a warming climate.

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Alcohol consumption isn't the only thing a breath analysis can reveal. Scientists have been studying its possible use for diagnosing a wide range of conditions in humans — and now in the beloved bottlenose dolphin. In a report in the ACS journal Analytical Chemistry, one team describes a new instrument that can analyze the metabolites in breath from dolphins, which have been dying in alarming numbers along the Atlantic coast this year.

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A new analysis of global energy use, economics and the climate shows that expanding the current bounty of inexpensive natural gas alone would not slow the growth of global greenhouse gas emissions worldwide, according to a study appearing today in Nature.

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An invasive beetle has spread to 22 states and could kill millions of Ash trees. A forest health specialist from the Kansas Forest Service encourages the use of local firewood to prevent the spread of Emerald Ash Borer.

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Lake Erie has become increasingly susceptible to large blooms of toxin-producing cyanobacteria since 2002, potentially complicating efforts to rein in the problem in the wake of this year's Toledo drinking water crisis, according to a new study led by University of Michigan researchers.

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Often overlooked in estimates of the carbon footprint created by the health care industry, inhaled anesthetics contribute significantly to greenhouse gas emissions, suggests research being presented at the ANESTHESIOLOGY™ 2014 annual meeting. Switching to different types of anesthesia can reduce anesthesia-related emissions by more than 11 times, the study found.

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In the race to find solutions to critical water issues, the launch of a new cost-effective water quality sensor device is the first step in overcoming hurdles of historically prohibitive costs for long-term water resource monitoring.

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Birds’ individual personalities may be among the factors that could improve its chances of successfully coping with environmental stressors. Research presented at the APS intersociety meeting “Comparative Approaches to Grand Challenges in Physiology.”

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Human-driven climate change will put much of the Earth’s biodiversity at risk of extinction. This session will feature four presentations on how individual species are adapting to environmental changes. It will be presented on Tuesday, October 7, 2014 at the APS Intersociety meeting “Comparative Approaches to Grand Challenges in Physiology.”

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Global Temperature Report: September 2014

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Mulches do a lot for the soil—and the environment.

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A new paper from the Wildlife Conservation Society, Montana State University, Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and the U.S. Geological Survey looks at the feasibility of electrofishing to selectively remove invasive trout species from Montana streams as an alternative to using fish toxicants known as piscicides that effect all gill-breathing organisms.

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The following articles are freely available online from Physics Today, the most influential and closely followed magazine in the world devoted to physics and the physical science community.

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Americans love their dogs, but they don't always love to pick up after them. And that's a problem. Dog feces left on the ground wash into waterways, sometimes carrying bacteria — including antibiotic-resistant strains — that can make people sick. Now scientists have developed a new genetic test to figure out how much dogs are contributing to this health concern, according to a report in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.

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Researchers led by Colorado State University uncovered more than 167,000 kinds of bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes in the soil beneath one of the nation's iconic urban environments. That’s 260 times as many species of birds, plants and invertebrates that live in the Park - combined.

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New standards could raise workers' living standards and help clean up the earth and its oceans.

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Expanding our knowledge of the way molecules interact with ice surfaces is a key goal not only for climate change but also a much wider range of other environmental, scientific and defense-related issues. Now, a team of researchers has discovered a new mechanism they call “stable energetic embedding” of atoms and molecules within ice. The work is described in The Journal of Chemical Physics.

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A University of Florida research team, whose EPA-funded study is published online in the journal Water Resources Research, shows that geographically isolated wetlands can be connected in ways that are largely ignored, but that may be critically important for watershed storage and stabilizing downstream flows.

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The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries (MMAF), Government of Indonesia, and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)’s Wildlife Crimes Unit announced today the first-ever series of enforcement actions against a trader of sharks and rays in Indonesia.

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Sequestration helps mitigate carbon-based gases from getting into the atmosphere. A new UF/IFAS study shows Florida's warm, wet climate helps keep carbon in the soil.

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Scientists estimate that fewer than 100 Devils Hole pupfish remain in their Mojave Desert home, but a conservation biologist at the University of California, Berkeley, is giving important guidance in the efforts to rescue them by establishing a captive breeding program.

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Two Kansas State University biologists are studying streams to prevent tallgrass prairies from turning into shrublands and forests.

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New research, featured symposia and information on plenary sessions and workshops to be presented at the 2014 Comparative Approaches to Grand Challenges in Physiology meeting in San Diego. View the full meeting program at http://ow.ly/BEI2K.

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ActiveEarth to facilitate convergence of physical activity, health, economics and the environment

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A team of researchers from McGill University and the Quebec government have discovered microplastics (in the form of polyethylene ‘microbeads,’ less than 2 mm in diameter) widely distributed across the bottom of the St. Lawrence River, the first time such pollutants have been found in freshwater sediments.

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Group nature walks: wonder drug for your mood?

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The number of extremely hot days in Eastern and Midwestern U.S. cities is projected to triple by mid-century, according to a new study. In presenting their synthesis, the study authors seek to encourage efforts that benefit both the health of the planet and the health of people.

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Geologists have long debated when and how the Tibetan Plateau reached a 14,000-foot-plus elevation, but new research shows it once was probably thousands of feet higher.

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It’s the first day of autumn, and the telltale signs are here: crisp weather, pumpkin spice lattes and, most importantly, the leaves are changing colors. Ever wonder why some leaves turn red, others yellow and some just turn brown? We’ll tell you all about the chemistry behind this seasonal spectacle in the latest Reactions episode.

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The smell of cut grass in recent years has been identified as the plant’s way of signalling distress, but new research says the aroma also summons beneficial insects to the rescue.

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Rising temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns may get the lion’s share of our climate change attention, but predators may want to give some thought to wind, according to a University of Wisconsin Madison zoologist’s study, which is among the first to demonstrate the way “global stilling” may alter predator-prey relationships.

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A nearly 600-year reconstruction of climate indicators along the West Coast of North America indicates that upwelling in the California Current became more variable over the latter part of the 20th century.

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A three-continent research consortium is evaluating a novel environmental crowdsourcing technique for assessing water quality in India. The technique relies on 53-cent test kits and the nation’s ubiquitous mobile phone service.