Study shows river water, sewer lines are possible sources
Viruses from human sources occur in the La Crosse, Wisconsin municipal drinking water supply prior to its chlorination, according to a study published today in the scientific journal Applied and Environmental Microbiology. Although the city’s treated water meets or exceeds state and federal standards for drinking water, researchers and public health officials agree that more study is needed to pinpoint sources of the viruses
Autumn is marked out by spectacular changes in leaf colour as the greens of summer change into the yellows and reds of autumn. In parts of North American whole tourist industries are based on this change, but why do leaves turn these bright colours before falling off the trees?
New work by Dr Dave Wilkinson (an ecologist in the School of Biological and Earth Sciences at Liverpool John Moores University) and his colleague Martin Schaefer (University of Freiburg, Germany), published
Researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder have found that the extent of Arctic sea ice, the floating mass of ice that covers the Arctic Ocean, is continuing its rapid decline.
The latest satellite information indicates the September 2004 sea ice extent was 13.4 percent below average, a reduction in area nearly twice the size of Texas, said Mark Serreze of CU-Boulder’s National Snow and Ice Data Center, or NSIDC. In 2002, the decline in arctic sea ice during Septemb
As a result of fossil fuel emissions, many freshwater bodies in eastern North America have become acidified. When combusted, fossil fuels release sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, the precursors to acid precipitation, into the atmosphere. Persistent exposure to these pollutants, which return to Earth in rain, snow, sleet, hail and fog, can compromise the health of aquatic ecosystems.
In a recent Restoration Ecology paper, Institute of Ecosystem Studies President and Director Dr. Gen
Used plastic wrappings and containers make good fuel if incinerated, but are also dumped in huge quantities on landfill sites. Researchers are developing a compostable packaging tape that can be disposed of more cheaply, and ultimately creates less waste.
Companies often have to dig deep in their pockets to get rid of plastic packaging and the adhesive tape that holds it together. It costs about 100 euros to dispose of a metric ton of plastic waste by incineration and about 60 euros
Conservationists say six major breeding centres will be needed, for three species of vultures, if they are to be saved from extinction in the Indian subcontinent.
Numbers of three South Asian vulture species have plummeted since the early 1990s leading the IUCN – World Conservation Union to class them all as Critically Endangered, the highest risk status there is. If funds and government permission can be obtained, breeding centres will be established in India, Pakistan and Nepal.
A team of Texas A&M University and Louisiana State University scientists conducted a research cruise in late August to the “dead zone” – a region in the northern Gulf of Mexico that suffers from low oxygen and results in huge marine losses – and much to their surprise, the “dead zone” area had either moved or had disappeared completely.
Steven DiMarco, associate professor in the Department of Oceanography and leader of the team, found that some areas that were previously hypoxic – a
While most of us watched this summer’s violent and destructive storms on TV from the comfort of our sofas, a team of researchers from across the UK, including University of Leeds scientists Alan Blyth, Barbara Brooks and Lindsay Bennett, took to the skies in specially equipped planes to study their origins.
The convective storm which caused flooding in Boscastle with 75mm of rain in two hours, is recognisable as bubbly cumulous cloud often seen in the UK. The research team from the
Despite a long-standing international ban on ivory trade, African elephants continue to be killed in large numbers for their prized tusks. But a team headed by a University of Washington biologist has devised a new means of determining the geographic origin of ivory that could prove a potent tool in slowing elephant poaching and the illegal ivory trade by identifying hot spots where enforcement should be increased.
It is relatively easy to monitor elephant populations with flights
Carbon loss from soils exceeds storage by plants
Institute of Arctic Biology (IAB) ecologists Donie Bret-Harte and Terry Chapin and colleagues working in northern Alaska discovered that tundra plants and soils respond in surprisingly opposite ways to conditions that simulate long-term climate warming.
Their findings are published in the September 23, 2004 edition of the leading science journal Nature and are featured in the journal’s News and Views section.
Bret-Harte
Getting expertise where it is needed in wastewater treatment is the goal of TELEMAC, which has developed remote, and local monitoring and control solutions so industries can obtain all the benefits of anaerobic waste treatment while minimising costs and complications.
The TELEMAC system is currently being evaluated at three pilot sites ahead of extensive testing next year in preparation for commercialisation, potentially heralding a major boost for the use of anaerobic treatment, a cl
A leading biological scientist from the University of Southampton is warning of massive increases in the UK’s fly population if temperatures continue to rise.
Experts predict average temperatures will increase by three degrees or more within the next few years, if global warming continues across the planet. Dr Dave Goulson from the University’s School of Biological Sciences says this could mean the fly population growing by 97 per cent. He bases his predictions on work done at a landf
ESA’s Earth Observation Programme Board met at the Eden Project in Cornwall on 21 and 22 September. An agreement was reached at this meeting among ESA’s Member States to release a total of €80m to fund the next stage of the ESA component of the European GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) initiative.
Part of this funding will cover a socioeconomic assessment of the benefits of GMES and the follow-on to the work already done by ESA on definition and demonstrati
The scientific community’s work to create the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) enters a new phase today. Bruce Hayden, an ecologist at the University of Virginia and principal investigator for the project, along with William Michener, associate director of NSF’s Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network, will direct the NEON project office at the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) headquarters in Washington, D.C.
With a two-year, $6 million cooperative
ENVIRONNEMENT SA, which specialises in instrumentation for the environment sector, has just secured its largest ever contract, which entails providing a turnkey air-quality monitoring network for Poland. The French specialist company is due to install 31 monitoring stations across the country as part of the deal.
ENVIRONNEMENT SA will be participating in the POLLUTEC trade fair in November in Vienna (Austria). ENVIRONNEMENT SA manufactures automated equipment and systems for contin
Infectious disease epidemics are causing widespread and alarming declines in reef-building coral species, the foundation blocks of coral reef ecosystems. The emergence of these diseases has occurred simultaneously with large increases in the abundance of seaweeds, called macroalgae.
Macroalgae frequently interact with corals, usually by overgrowing them from their edges. In the October issue of Ecology Letters, Nugues, Smith, van Hooidonk, Seabra and Bak demonstrate a sinister asp
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