Greenhouse gases could cause global temperatures to rise by more than double the maximum warming so far considered likely by the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), according to results from the world’s largest climate prediction experiment, published in the journal Nature this week.
The first results from climateprediction.net, a global experiment using computing time donated by the general public, show that average temperatures could eventually rise by up to 11°
Heroic efforts by park guards have helped safeguard isolated population
An isolated population of rare Grauer’s gorillas, living among rebel armies and bands of poachers, has managed to survive in one of the most dangerous regions in Africa, and may even be increasing in numbers, according to a recent census by the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). WCS conservationists say that a band of park guards who have heroically defended the gorillas and their rainfore
Landscape burning by ancient hunters and gatherers may have triggered the failure of the annual Australian Monsoon some 12,000 years ago, resulting in the desertification of the country’s interior that is evident today, according to a new study.
University of Colorado at Boulder Professor Gifford Miller said the study builds on his research group’s previous findings that dozens of giant animal species went extinct in Australia roughly 50,000 years ago due to ecosystem changes ca
Researchers from Purdue University, government and the nuclear power industry are improving three computer programs that are critical to preventing disasters such as the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. The complex programs, or “reactor safety codes,” are used to simulate severe accidents and, in the process, provide data needed to ensure that power plants are designed properly.
Without such simulations of hypothetical accidents, the only available information is from the actu
Climate change and the future of air travel
Researchers are investigating how air travel can be adapted to ease its impact on the environment.
The investigation focuses on how aircraft can avoid creating vapour trails, also known as contrails. These spindly threads of condensation may not seem important but some persist for hours and behave in the same way as high altitude cirrus clouds, trapping warmth in the atmosphere and exacerbating global warming.
Air travel
The natural vegetation covering the globe looks like it does because of the climate, doesn’t it? Forests are found where water is abundant and it is not too cold, deserts are found where it is dry. This is what our intuition tells us – but it is not always true.
New research carried out by Bond, Woodward and Midgley from University of Cape Town, University of Sheffield and the South African National Biodiversity Institute of and published in the February 2005 issue of 
A model of the leak dynamics of the oil tanker, Prestige, that sunk off the coast of Spain in 2002, may help assess recovery and cleanup methods for future tanker accidents, according to an international team of researchers.
“We believe that 14,000 metric tons (15,400 British tons) of oil were recovered from the tanker using the shuttle-bag system, and that between 16,000 (17,600) and 23,000 (25,300) tons of oil are still in the ship,” says Dr. Bernd J. Haupt, senior research as
Females on top: Three Steps to Emancipation Classical polyandry occurs when a female breeds with several males who will raise their offspring alone. New research suggests that three evolutionary steps are crucial for this type of mating system with reversed sex roles to develop.
Firstly, males take on care of the eggs (the reasons why differ between fishes and birds).
Secondly, females become able to lay more eggs than a male can accommodate.
Thirdly, females compete
Many rivers and streams in the United States are believed to contain a toxic antimicrobial chemical whose environmental fate was never thoroughly scrutinized despite large-scale production and usage for almost half a century, according to an analysis conducted by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The chemical, triclocarban, has been widely used for decades in hand soaps and other cleaning products, but rarely was monitored for or detected in the environment. The
What is the world coming to? An unsuspecting reef fish steps up to have its parasites removed by its favourite cleaner fish, the bluestreak cleaner wrasse, but instead of a thorough going over, it gets a nasty nip from the cleverly disguised bluestriped fangblenny, intent on a quick feed.
Mimics in nature have usually evolved to resemble foul-tasting animals, in a bid to protect themselves from predators, but the bluestriped fangblenny fish mimics a model -the bluestreak cleaner wras
Using advanced remote-sensing techniques from a U-2 surveillance plane and field studies, scientists from the Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology have for the first time determined large-scale interactions between ecosystems and the climate during the process of desertification. The study, to be published in the January 2005 issue of Global Change Biology, is a milestone both for the new methods employed and for understanding what is happening as agricultural and grazing lands chan
Method could assist city and urban planners, architects, and landscape designers; affirms importance of restorative elements such as water and flowers
At $350 million, New York City’s Sept. 11 memorial for Ground Zero features pools of water, oak trees and vast open space for the sun to shine through. But given the huge investment, are these carefully chosen aesthetic touches truly the right ones? Will they resonate for visitors to the memorial? And what will they mean to those l
In research published today, scientists from Broom’s Barn Research Station conclusively show how to use GM herbicide tolerant (GMHT) crop technology for environmental benefit. The authors suggest that the new crop management approaches they have demonstrated could resolve legitimate concerns about indirect environmental effects of GM sugar beet on weeds, insects and birds. John Pidgeon, director of Broom’s Barn comments that ‘This work adds a new perspective to future discussions about the benefit
Recent studies have found that large, old and oily groundfish are significantly more important than their younger counterparts in maintaining healthy marine fish stocks – the larvae from their eggs better resist starvation and have a much greater chance of survival.
These same big, old fish are also routinely sought by fisherman, scientists say, and the age decline in fish populations helps to explain the collapsing fisheries off the Pacific Northwest coast. Other research also
Some Compounds Show Dramatic Differences in Toxicity And Rate of Break Down Between Isomers
Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have demonstrated that isomers – or the mirror-image structures – of some pesticides, although chemically identical, have very different biological and environmental impacts between the two sides. This may have significant implications for risk assessment and research and development directions of new products.
The environmen
In the course of 2003-2004, the Research Council of Norway organised a foresight analysis for Norwegian aquaculture. All in all, more than 70 people took part in a systematic dialogue about the future. The information presented here represents a very brief summary of an exhaustive report containing detailed analyses from the Foresight project: Aquaculture 2020: Transcending the Barriers – As long as…
In the course of 2003-2004, the Research Council of Norway organised a foresight a
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