Feature Channels: Environmental Science

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Oceanographers for the first time recorded an enormous wave breaking miles below the surface in a key bottleneck for global ocean circulation.

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The migration of mature female tiger sharks during late summer and fall to the main Hawaiian Islands, presumably to give birth, could provide insight into attacks in that area, according to a University of Florida scientist.

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A University of Iowa researcher says that although microbes living in the so-called “dark ocean”—below a depth of some 600 feet where light doesn’t penetrate—may not absorb enough carbon to curtail global warming, they do absorb considerable amounts of carbon and merit further study.

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University of Michigan researchers today released seven technical reports that together form the most comprehensive Michigan-focused resource on hydraulic fracturing, the controversial natural gas and oil extraction process commonly known as fracking.

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A collaborative project involving a Kansas State University ecologist has shown that the Clean Air Act has helped forest systems recover from decades of sulfur pollution and acid rain. The research team spent four years studying centuries-old eastern red cedar trees, or Juniperus virginiana, in the Central Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia.

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Wildfire smoke is complicated. A new understanding of its many particles and their properties may lead to a clearer vision of Earth's future climate.

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A Michigan Technological University water resources engineer is working with experts from 10 other universities across the nation to develop a sustainable model for water resources management in South Florida. It will serve other areas facing similar issues.

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The first field investigations of the effect of terrain elevation changes on tornado path, vortex, strength and damage have yielded valuable information that could help prevent the loss of human life and damage to property in future tornadoes. Engineering researchers at the University of Arkansas analyzed Google Earth images of the massive 2011 Tuscaloosa, Ala., and Joplin, Mo., tornadoes and found similarities between the two in behavior and interaction with the terrain. The findings likely apply to all tornadoes.

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University students are helping protect the environment and reduce public health risks at a Kansas site.

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Hints that a favorite ingredient in Mexican, Southeast Asian and other spicy cuisine may be an inexpensive new way of purifying drinking water are on the menu today at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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One of the first analyses of laws banning disposal of electronic waste (e-waste) in landfills has found that state e-waste recycling bans have been mostly ineffective, although California’s Cell Phone Recycling Act had a positive impact. However, e-waste recycling rates remain “dismally low,” and many demographic groups remain unaware of their alternatives, according to the study, which was presented today at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

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After studying the functioning of the lungs of birds and the swim bladders of fish, scientists described how they created an improved method to capture carbon dioxide that acts like a reverse natural lung, breathing in the polluting gas. Their study on the best way to arrange tubes in a carbon dioxide capture unit was presented at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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High school and college students got a recruiting call today to join the Solar Army and help solve one of the 21st century’s greatest scientific challenges: finding the dirt-cheap ingredients that would make sunlight a practical alternative to oil, coal and other traditional sources of energy. Harry B. Gray, Ph.D., described the army’s mission during the “Kavli Foundation Innovations in Chemistry Lecture” at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.

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With almost 40 billion tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) released each year from burning coal, gasoline, diesel and other fossil fuels in the United States alone, scientists are seeking ways to turn the tables on the No. 1 greenhouse gas and convert it back into fuel. Those efforts are the topic of a symposium in Indianapolis today at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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Nature has provided the food industry with the perfect packages to imitate in the drive to embrace a new genre of sustainable packaging material, according to a presentation on the topic here today. Speaking at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, Sara Risch, Ph.D., said that new packaging materials must meet the criteria for being sustainable without sacrificing the security, freshness and visibility of the food inside.

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Honey bees should be on everyone’s worry list, and not because of the risk of a nasty sting, an expert on the health of those beneficial insects said here today at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society. Despite years of intensive research, scientists do not understand the cause, nor can they provide remedies, for what is killing honey bees.

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In an advance toward providing mosquito-plagued people, pets and livestock with an invisibility cloak against these blood-sucking insects, scientists today described discovery of substances that block mosquitoes’ ability to smell and target their victims. The presentation was among almost 7,000 scheduled this week at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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Chemical processes are involved in production of almost 96 percent of all manufactured goods, and some of the latest advances in efforts to redesign those processes from the ground up with “green chemistry” are on the agenda here today at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

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The diets of people in North America shed almost 1.5 billion pounds of unhealthy saturated and trans fat over the last six years thanks to a new phase in the agricultural revolution, an expert said here today. In an interview before his address at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, Daniel Kittle, Ph.D., cited the achievement as part of an expanded mission for agricultural science and biotechnology.

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Glimpses of the nursery of life on Earth more than 3.5 billion years ago are coming from an unlikely venue almost 1 billion miles away, according to the leader of an effort to understand Titan, one of the most unusual moons in the solar system. In the talk here today at the 246th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, he said that Titan is providing insights into the evolution of life.

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University of Michigan researchers and their University of Hawaii colleagues say they've solved the longstanding mystery of how mercury gets into open-ocean fish, and their findings suggest that levels of the toxin in Pacific Ocean fish will likely rise in coming decades.

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Concerns about climate change topped a random sampling of this fall’s incoming class of approximately 290 students at SUNY-ESF.

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Reservoirs of silica-rich magma – the kind that causes the most explosive volcanic eruptions – can persist in Earth's upper crust for hundreds of thousands of years without triggering an eruption, according to new University of Washington research.

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When enough raindrops fall over land instead of the ocean, they begin to add up. New research led by NCAR shows that three atmospheric patterns drove so much precipitation over Australia in 2010 and 2011 that the world’s ocean levels dropped measurably.

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New research from an ice core taken from West Antarctica shows that the warming that ended the last ice age in Antarctica began at least two, and perhaps four, millennia earlier than previously thought.

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A gleaming wooden Adirondack guide boat, made from pine and cherry, and sporting original cane seats and graceful oars along with a history that dates to Theodore Roosevelt’s presidency, is again gliding through the waters of the Central Adirondacks where it was crafted at the turn of the 20th century. The Beaver returned to Newcomb this summer after an absence of more than 70 years.

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Periodic flooding in Texas—one the most flood-prone states in the nation—cannot be firmly linked to climate change due to numerous dams and other manmade structures introduced over the years, according to a University of Iowa study published in the August 2013 issue of the Journal of the American Water Resources Association.

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Forests have a limited capacity to soak up atmospheric carbon dioxide, according to a new study from Northern Arizona University.

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A team including Dalhousie Oceanography Professor Helmuth Thomas and recent Dal Oceanography PhD graduate Elizabeth Shadwick found evidence suggesting that the Arctic Ocean is more vulnerable to human-induced changes than the Antarctic Ocean.

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Global Temperature Report: July 2013.

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If history’s closest analog is any indication, the look of the oceans will change drastically in the future as the coming greenhouse world alters marine food webs and gives certain species advantages over others.

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Three new solar modeling developments at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) are bringing scientists closer to being able to predict the occurrence and timing of coronal mass ejections from the sun.

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ENERGY – Green battery. PROSTHETICS – Better fit, function. MATERIALS – Best of both worlds.

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A study on the mechanisms of how plants respond and adapt to elevated levels of carbon dioxide (C02) and higher temperatures has opened a new perspective in climate research. Lead researcher Qiong A. Liu (Alison) of theDepartment of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University found that elevatedC02 and higher temperatures affect the aspect of gene expression in plants that control flowering time and cell proliferation.

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What happens to a resonant wireless power transfer system in complex electromagnetic environments? Researchers explored the influences at play in this type of situation and describe in AIP Advances how efficient wireless power transfer can be achieved in the presence of metal plates.

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When it comes to carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in the soil, recent research at Texas Tech University shows that the new materials do not affect the sorption of the toxic part of oil called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs).

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Southerners are generally not as trusting as people who live in other parts of the country, but trusting people are more likely to cooperate in recycling, buying green products and conserving water, a new Baylor University study on environmental protection shows.

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A team of University of Michigan researchers has been awarded a $2 million federal grant to identify and test naturally diverse groups of green algae that can be grown together to create a high-yield, environmentally sustainable and cost-effective system to produce next-generation biofuels.

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It might be easier than previously thought for a planet to overheat into the scorchingly uninhabitable "runaway greenhouse" stage, according to new research by astronomers at the University of Washington and the University of Victoria published July 28 in the journal Nature Geoscience.

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Three URI students are on the trail of an invasive beetle that rapidly kills ash trees, but instead of searching for the beetle itself they are looking for wasps that feed on the beetle. The new strategy, called biosurveillance, is being implemented in collaboration with the RI Department of Environmental Management to determine whether populations of the emerald ash borer have arrived in Rhode Island.

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Scientists can study how supercell thunderstorms work by using the data from just one Doppler radar unit and an analysis technique called synthetic dual-Doppler (SDD) that normally requires two.

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Professor Paulette Clancy, associate director of the Energy Institute at Cornell University, comments on the economic and environmental dilemma presented by the findings of this week’s study in the Nature that warned of a massive methane release as Arctic ice sheets recede.

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If your local pond, lake, or watering hole is looking bright green this summer, chances are it has blue-green algae and it may be dangerous to you or your pets. A newly published study has used a novel approach to better understand why these algae form blooms and what makes them toxic.

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In events that could exacerbate sea level rise over the coming decades, stretches of ice on the coasts of Antarctica and Greenland are at risk of rapidly cracking apart and falling into the ocean, according to new iceberg calving simulations from the University of Michigan.

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Climate change could drive the Iberian lynx ‒ the world’s most threatened cat – to extinction within 50 years, despite substantial ongoing conservation efforts, a new international study has found.

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University of Adelaide marine biologists have found that reducing nutrient pollution in coastal marine environments should help protect kelp forests from the damaging effects of rising CO2.

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Two beachfront communities in New Jersey were hit hard by Hurricane Sandy, but one fared much better than the other thanks to a long-forgotten seawall buried beneath the sand, according to Virginia Tech researchers.

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Under elevated carbon dioxide levels, wetland plants can absorb up to 32 percent more carbon than they do at current levels, according to a 19-year study published in Global Change Biology from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center in Edgewater, Md. With atmospheric CO2 passing the 400 parts-per-million milestone this year, the findings offer hope that wetlands could help soften the blow of climate change.