A simple tank-and-siphon system for removing oil from oily water and protecting the environment is about to be launched internationally by an engineering team from the University of New South Wales.
The Extended Gravity Oil Water Separation (EGOWS) concept is an improvement on the industry-standard American Petroleum Institute (API) gravity separator that has been widely used for the last 60 years.
The API separator, originally designed for oil refineries, is not designed
Long-distance dispersal (LDD) of wind-borne organisms is central to quantifying risk for transgenic escape and gene flow, control of pests and invasions, persistence in fragmented landscapes and species co-existence; yet LDD remains notoriously difficult to define, measure and model. This difficulty has shaped the current paradigm that the frequency and spatial extent of LDD events are almost impossible to predict.
In the September issue of The American Naturalist, G. G. Katul (Duke Uni
Ecological specialization is an important process underlying the self-organization of ecosystems. Insight into this process leads to a better understanding of the structure and functioning of the real and complex ecosystems surrounding us. In an article in the September issue of The American Naturalist, Tineke A. Troost and colleagues address these fundamental issues, while focusing on a simple but common aquatic system.
Their research integrates three separate threads of modern ecolog
Study says Nicargua are last stop for endangered green turtles
Sea turtles that receive the highest protection in Costa Rica and other neighboring countries are dying by the thousands at the hands of unregulated – and unsustainable – commercial fishing in Nicaragua, according to a study by the Bronx Zoo based Wildlife Conservation Society.
The study, appearing in the latest issue of the journal Herpetologica, found that turtles tagged in Nicaragua have only little mor
Researchers have obtained further evidence that one of the oldest biological laws can also be applied to bacteria living in the sump tank reservoirs of machines in an engineering workshop in Oxford, according to a paper published in Environmental Microbiology.
Scientists from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) in Oxford, found that the patterns of abundance and genetic diversity of bacteria living in oil-based metal-cutting fluid reservoirs were similar to those found in
After reviewing new sound recordings from the White River of Arkansas, an independent team of ornithologists has confirmed the existence of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker.
Working from previously unpublished data provided to them in the last few days by John Fitzpatrick and colleagues at Cornell University, ornithologists at Yale, the University of Kansas, and Florida Gulf Coast University have concluded that the bird has been indeed been detected for the first time in decades.
Teams responding to devastating flooding in Romania received assistance from orbit, with satellite images and maps of affected areas provided in near-real time following activation of the International Charter on Space and Major Disasters.
Torrential rainfall across Southeast Europe has led to serious floods across Romania, described as the worst for half a century. Some 31 counties out of 42 have been affected, the worst hit being the counties of Bacau, Vrancea and Galati in Mo
Presence of canine predator cascades through populations of elk, trees, beavers, and songbirds
Willow trees, riparian willow warblers and beaver dams once were bountiful in an area near the town of Banff, Alberta, Canada. But once wolves left this area, elk grew more plentiful, browsing heavily on young willows. Today, there is little trace of beavers, and sparrows have replaced the warblers in what is now a grassland meadow. These profound changes were driven by the absence
Since Darwin, the peacock exhibiting an elongated tail composed of ocelli has been considered a prime example of the strength of sexual selection. Professor Marion Petrie’s classical studies have shown that females prefer males with a high number of ocelli. However, a remaining question concerning the role played by ocelli is how peahens value their number. New research published today in Ethology describes that females may actually assess ocelli density.
Adeline Loyau, Michel Saint
First global map reveals rapidly shrinking hotspots for tuna, marlin, swordfish
Diversity has declined by up to 50% over 50 years due to fishing
A new study released in Science (via Science Express http://www.sciencexpress.org) on July 28th reveals a striking downward trend in the diversity of fish in the open ocean – the largest and least known part of our planet. Teasing apart the effects of climate change and fishing over the past 50 years, the authors show a clear
Fiery chillies keep elephants out of crops and make a great sauce, African entrepreneurs say
What do hot sauce aficionados and African elephants have in common? They both feel the burn of chilli peppers, the key ingredient for resolving human-elephant conflicts in Africa while raising money for farmers and conservation.
Supported by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and other groups, the Elephant Pepper Development Trust (EPDT) has not only promoted the use of
The rivers of South America’s Amazon basin are “breathing” far harder – cycling the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide more quickly – than anyone realized.
Most of the carbon being exhaled – or outgassed – as carbon dioxide from Amazonian rivers and wetlands has spent a mere 5 years sequestered in the trees, other plants and soils of the surrounding landscape, U.S. and Brazilian researchers report in the July 28 issue of Nature.
It had been hoped that regions such as the
Almost 150 years after Charles Darwin proposed a mechanism for biological evolution, previously unrecognized diversity has been discovered among the giant tortoises of the Galápagos, Geochelone nigra, whose distinctiveness was an inspiration in formulating the theory of natural selection.
The new taxon (species or sub-species) of Galápagos tortoise was characterized by a team of scientists led by Michael Russello, Adalgisa Caccone and Jeffrey Powell in the Department of Ecolog
During last week’s enervating hot spell in the Northeast, the discomfort was not entirely due to the heat or the relative humidity. The real culprit, say Cornell University climatologists, was the high dew point.
The dew point is the day-to-day measure of humidity in the atmosphere. Another critical measure is the “design dew point” — the maximum humidity level at which air-conditioning systems can operate efficiently in different regions.
According to the Northe
Fruit-eating fish in South America help disperse fruit trees during flood season. Fungi that attack sea fans get even nastier when the tropical waters warm by just a few degrees, and although sea fans counterattack with upgraded defenses, the fungi win out. A moth that attacks pine trees has expanded its range in the past three decades, and tests show that global warming is to blame.
These are just three of the research results that almost 50 Cornell University scientists w
A central goal of ecology is to determine the mechanisms that explain large-scale patterns of abundance and distribution of the earth’s organisms. For most organisms, however, these mechanisms remain elusive. In an article in the August 2005 issue of The American Naturalist, Stefan A. Schnitzer reports that the abundance of lianas (woody vines), a taxonomically diverse and important group of plants, actually decreases in tropical forests as mean annual precipitation increases, a pattern prec
Feedback
