Giving a mix of farm animals a controlled ’right to roam’ will help to improve biodiversity and solve a vole conservation dilemma in upland Britain, according to new research published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology.
As numbers of hill farmers and grazing animals dwindle, field voles are thriving in undisturbed upland and forest areas. This is great news for protected birds of prey such as hen harriers that use voles as a source of food, but not so good for Br
Bacteria that can munch through confectionery could be a valuable source of non-polluting energy in the years ahead, new research has shown.
In a feasibility study funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, bioscientists at the University of Birmingham have demonstrated that these bacteria give off hydrogen gas as they consume high-sugar waste produced by the confectionery industry.
The hydrogen has been used to generate clean electricity via a fu
Economic expansion in China is threatening the country’s scarce water resources, according to a new study by the University of Leeds. Uneven development of trade across the country means that water-intensive or polluting industries are expanding in areas where water is in shortest supply.
Dr Klaus Hubacek and Mr Dabo Guan from the University’s Sustainability Research Institute assessed how much water different industries consume or pollute. Using these figures, they compared the ‘virtual
Wood is the main energy source in the Sahel. In order to plan for changes in stocks, it is essential to be able to produce a common estimate of the productivity of savannahs in all the countries concerned. This is the aim of the Savafor network, which was founded recently.
Wood and charcoal cover a substantial part of domestic energy requirements in Sahel countries: from 47% of requirements in Senegal to 96% in Chad, according to a 1986 FAO study. Wooded formations, primarily dry s
In findings that could influence our understanding of climate change, a Princeton research team has learned that tropical forests return to the atmosphere up to half the nitrogen they receive each year, thanks to a particular type of bacteria that lives in those forests.
The bacteria, referred to as “denitrifiers,” exist in forest soil, where they live by converting the nitrates fed upon by tree roots back into nitrogen gas, which is lost to the atmosphere. The researchers who
Rainforests and savannas contain 70% of the world’s plants and are critical to the health of our planet. A new £1.6m international project involving researchers from the Leeds Earth and Biosphere Institute is looking at the impact of global warming on these sensitive areas.
The researchers think we may be at the start of a vicious cycle, where global warming causes the rainforests to shrink, so increasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, raising the earth’s temperature and
From May 22-30, Harbor Branch scientists, along with colleagues from the University of Miami, will use the Harbor Branch Johnson-Sea-Link II submersible to explore for the first time newly discovered deep-sea reefs between Florida and the Bahamas. The reefs were discovered in 2,000 to 2,900 feet of water last December by a University of Miami team using advanced sonar techniques. A primary goal of the upcoming expedition, which is funded largely by the State of Florida’s “Florida Oceans Ini
Ecologists have at last got a view of sperm whales’ behaviour during their long, deep dives, thanks to the use of recently developed electronic “dtags”. According to new research published in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Animal Ecology, sperm whales – like bats – use echolocation consistently to track down their prey at depth.
Working in the Atlantic, the Gulf of Mexico and the Ligurian Sea, scientists from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and the Universit
Scientists at The University of Manchester are to create the first 3D model of the maze-like crystals known as Zeolites.
Professor Michael Anderson of the University’s Centre for Microporous Materials will lead an international research team in a bid to create the first 3D ‘map’ of the material.
Zeolites are porous crystals commonly known as molecular sieves. They are made up of a complex maze of tunnels which can be used to purify or filter materials such as
Discovery Shows Some Species Can Survive Fungus Decimating Amphibians
Researchers exploring a Colombian mountain range found surviving members of a species of Harlequin frog believed extinct due to a killer fungus wiping out amphibian populations in Central and South America.
The discovery of what could be the last population of the painted frog (Atelopus ebenoides marinkellei) indicates the species has survived the fungus, providing hope that other species also might a
What do month-to-month changes in temperature have to do with century-to-century changes in temperature? At first it might seem like not much. But in a report published in this week’s Nature, scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) have found some unifying themes in the global variations of temperature at time scales ranging from a single season to hundreds of thousands of years. These findings help place climate observed at individual places and times into a larger glo
It’s designed to explore the depths of large bodies of water—and one recent weekend, that’s exactly where it was found: searching the depths of the deep end of Judson Pool in Rochester Institute of Technology’s Gordon Field House and Activities Center. (As the adage goes, every journey begins with a single step.)
A team of RIT engineering majors built the explorer, an underwater remote-operated vehicle, or ROV—and it has been described as one of the most ambitious student project
Academy-funded biosciences and environmental research projects have many different kinds of scientific and social impacts. Basic research in these fields promotes not only the advancement of science, but also many social objectives. This is clear from a report published by the Academy of Finland on 17 May on the impact of biosciences and environmental research. The report is one of the Academy’s SIGHT2006 publications on the state, level and impact of Finnish scientific research published thi
At least three people have been killed and an estimated 25 000 people have been displaced in Suriname as a result of flooding caused by torrential rains since 1 May. Approximately 25 000-30 000 square kilometres are currently under water, and the government has declared the southwest and central lowlands disaster zones.
In response to the crisis, the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has called for helicopters to deliver relief supplies. According to media r
ESA has for the first time acquired and processed images sent by ALOS – Japan’s four-tonne satellite dedicated to land-based Earth Observation – including views of Italy, The Netherlands and Norway.
ESA is supporting ALOS as a ’Third Party Mission’, which means the agency is utilising its multi-mission ground segment of existing European facilities and expertise to acquire, process and distribute data from the satellite.
“We have received high-quality data
Pile driving and industrial noise may adversely affect dolphin behaviour, communication and breeding, according to a scientific paper in CIWEM’s Water and Environment Journal.
Bottlenose dolphins that reside in designated Special Areas of Conservation throughout the UK, including Dorset, Anglesey and Cornwall, might be at risk from pile driving. The frequency range of pile driving noise could interfere with their ability to communicate, find food and avoid predators. This has the
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