Efforts to protect coral reefs should be refocused on terminating self-reinforcing processes that accelerate degradation of these biological marvels, according to a Forum article published in the November 2004 issue of BioScience. The article, by Charles Birkeland of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, blames a series of “ratchets” — destructive forces that are hard to reverse — for the failure of most current efforts to halt continuing losses.
Birkeland identifies seven ecological
Copper mining in Butte and Anaconda, Montana, starting in 1860’s, poisoned the air, the land, and the water; well over 100 years later, contaminants are still found as far as 300 miles down the Clark Fork River, whose headwaters are in that area.
The presence of the contaminants has been known for many decades. But the interaction of the heavy metals and other compounds in the soil, streams, and rivers were unknown until Virginia Tech professor of geosciences Michael Hochella
There were 20 million metric tons of lead bullets fired in the United States in the 20th century. Is that lead having an environmental impact? Not at or near the U.S. Forest Service firing range near Blacksburg, Va., according to research by Virginia Tech geological scientists. Donald Rimstidt, a professor in the Department of Geosciences, College of Science at Virginia Tech will report the conclusions of a five-year study at the 116th national meeting of the Geological Sciences of America
Representatives of civic groups and local council members have been invited to a meeting on Monday 1st November to discuss how they see land and water uses in the Slea catchment changing in the future. The meeting is being organised by Sleaford Development Group at the Solo Club, Seaford and will brief those attending about a study investigating ways to manage nitrate pollution of groundwater.
The study, being carried out in collaboration with the School of Environmental Sciences a
An Iowa State University agronomy professor is using erosion control methods to restore the Sahel and Niger River in West Africa.
Andrew Manu, associate professor of soil science, has been working with the people of Niger to restore degraded lands in the Sahel, the region of West Africa that separates the Sahara Desert from the savannah. Land degradation is threatening the economic stability of the region. “There is hope in the Sahel,” Manu said. “We can restore the Sahel and make
Reduced adaptability, hyperactivity, and disturbances in memory and learning functions. These are deficiencies mice and rats evince when exposed to bromide flame retardants, such as those found in computers, textiles, and other materials in our surroundings, during the period when the brain develops most rapidly.
Our environment contains a multitude of pollutants, including bromide flame retardants (polybromide diphenylethers, PBDEs) used in plastics, electronic circuit boards, c
Scientists have produced a potential solution to a problem fishing activity which costs the industry millions of pounds and has a major impact on the marine environment worldwide.
A team from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, writing in the academic journal Marine Policy, say fishermen should be given incentives not to return unwanted fish and other marine animals – known as ’discards’ – back into the sea after they are caught in their trawlers’ nets.
The study fo
Some of the first written evidence of food taboos can be found in Leviticus in the Bible, forbidding the consumption of fish and underwater creatures without fins or scales, among other dietary restrictions. Throughout the world in different cultures and religions, a variety of dietary restrictions exist. The origin of these rules is often debated. For Alpina Begossi, Natalia Hanazaki and Rossano Ramos (Universidade de Campinas, Brazil), the question of food taboos led to an investigation of t
Region once slated for logging supports tool-making chimps
Scientists have discovered that a remote rainforest in Central Africa, saved from logging by a collaboration among the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society, a timber company and the Republic of Congo, is home to a population of innovative, tool-making chimpanzees that “fish” for termite dinners. According to a study in the November issue of the journal The American Naturalist, chimps living in the 100-square-mile
Microbial processes ultimately determine whether arsenic builds to dangerous levels in groundwater, say researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Remediation may be as simple as stimulating certain microbes to grow.
Arsenic contamination is a serious threat to human health. In the Ganges Delta of Bangladesh, for example, chronic exposure to arsenic has been linked to serious medical conditions, including hypertension, cardiovascular disease and a variety
Retiring croplands and switching to no-till agriculture can contribute in a modest way to reducing the increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but doubling fuel efficiencies of cars and light trucks would achieve much greater results, according to two Duke University ecologists.
In an analysis to be published the week of Oct. 25, 2004, in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Robert Jackson and William Schlesinger of Duke’s Nichola
Issued on behalf of NERC’s Centre for Ecology & Hydrology
The first comprehensive national ‘stocktake’ of freshwater fishes in Britain is published this weekend in a fascinating hard-back book and a new internet-based database. The book includes a unique set of species distribution maps incorporating records dating from the 17th Century through to the present day.
Until the compilation of this data, freshwater fish were the only vertebrate group that did not have
In an epic research project spanning 14 years and seven continents, a research team based at Brown University has photographed and cataloged nearly 3,000 species of sponges, corals and other shallow water ocean invertebrates from Antarctica to Australia. The key finding: Large-scale forces play a pivotal role in local species diversity. Results are published in the current online early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
In a groundbreaking, globetr
Global warming poses an increasingly sizeable threat to the continued existence of man. James Lovelock, atmospheric chemist and author of Gaia warns that the gravity of the situation facing Earth’s inhabitants is greater than we have yet realized and accepted. Lovelock sets forth his predictions — and proposed solutions — in a commentary piece published this week in Atmospheric Science Letters.
The laws of Gaia – a hypothesis set forth by Lovelock – imply that any species that
Scientists from the University of Dundee and the University of York hope to improve the long term sustainability of certain ecosystems after being awarded a £359,422 grant from the Natural Environment Research Council to investigate unusual bacteria that live in the roots of trees and shrubs in the fragile and threatened savannah ecosystem of Central Brazil known as the “Cerrado”.
Dr Euan James, Dr Alan Prescott and Dr Sam Swift in the School of Life Sciences and Emeritus Profess
The increase in cultivation of herbicide-resistant GM Canola (also known as rapeseed) in Canada has led to a significant decrease in herbicide use, says research published in the journal Pest Management Science. This has led to a decrease in the environmental impact of weed control and could have similar effects elsewhere in the world.
Between 1995 and 2000, the amount of GM Canola grown increased from 10% to 80% of the total Canola area, causing herbicide use to decrease by ov
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