Scientists at the University of Bath are beginning research to find a new chemical based on plant oils and sugar which would make washing powder, shampoos and soaps less damaging to the environment.
Researchers from the University’s Chemical Engineering Department have been given a £95,000 grant to develop a new complex chemical reaction which would produce a range of molecules that could replace the petroleum-based chemicals used now in many cleaning materials.
Household deter
Populations of antelope, elk and deer face growing gauntlet of gas fields and highways
Bottlenecks from increased development are choking off ancient migration routes for wildlife in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) and other regions, according to a study by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) that appears in the current issue of the journal Conservation Biology.
Increased gas development in particular is making it more and more difficult for specie
Forensic technique can be used for biological field studies A method used by forensic experts to collect evidence from crime scenes could soon be taken up by biologists studying animals in the wild. An article in BMC Ecology this week describes how DNA from animal blood and tissue samples can be stored on record cards made from specialist filter paper and used in experiments at a later date. “Techniques involving the analysis of DNA have become ubiquitous in many areas of wil
Research published in Nature suggests that enough greenhouse gases could be in the atmosphere as early as 2050 to melt the massive ice-sheet that covers Greenland. As a result, sea levels could rise by around seven metres over the next 1,000 years.
Along with colleagues in Belgium and Germany, Dr Jonathan Gregory, of the Centre for Global Atmospheric Modelling (CGAM) at the University of Reading and the Met Office Hadley Centre, has estimated that Greenland is likely to pass a threshold of w
Some 600 vials stored in a University of Michigan freezer for more than 30 years may hold keys to rescuing nearly extinct Tahitian land snails.
The snails, famous since the late 1800s as classic examples of species that had rapidly diversified in an isolated environment, later became victims of a “spectacularly inept attempt at biological control,” said U-M mollusk expert Diarmaid Ó Foighil.
The trouble started in 1975 when the predatory rosy wolf snail was deliberately introduced
A team of California scientists made headlines four years ago when it reported finding one of the largest insect colonies in the world – a 600-mile-long subterranean network of Argentine ants stretching from Northern California to the Mexican border. According to the researchers, this “supercolony” is made up of billions of closely related workers – all direct descendants of a small group of Argentine ants that were accidentally introduced into California more than a century ago.
But new st
Analysis of 11,633 species published in ’Nature’ underscores urgent need for major shift in conservation strategies
At least 300 Critically Endangered (CR) – as well as at least 237 Endangered (EN) and 267 Vulnerable (VU) – bird, mammal, turtle and amphibian species have no protection in any part of their ranges, according to the most comprehensive peer-reviewed analysis of its kind. The findings appear in the current issue of the journal Nature.
The “global gap analysis” au
A unique type of squirrel could become extinct within the next 20 years unless extra conservation measures are taken, say the authors of a new study.
Scientists from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne’s School of Biology have found that small number of red squirrels found in Cumbria, North West England, have a unique genetic make-up which sets them aside from those found in other areas of Britain and Europe.
But probably less than a thousand of these animals still survive and
Loggerheads along Florida’s Atlantic coast are laying eggs 10 days earlier than 15 years ago, UCF research shows
Loggerhead sea turtles along Florida’s Atlantic coast are laying their eggs about 10 days earlier than they did 15 years ago, a change that a University of Central Florida researcher believes was caused by global warming.
John Weishampel, an associate professor of biology, found that as the near-shore ocean temperatures increased by nearly 1.5 degrees Fa
Exploring for oil and extracting it from the Amazon region of northeastern Ecuador has boosted the country’s income over the last several decades, but it has also resulted in a “public health emergency” due to the negative effects on the local environment and on the health of persons who live in the petroleum-production areas. That is according to an English-language article published in the most recent (March 2004) issue of the “Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública/Pan American Journal of Publ
A novel method that uses bacteria to mine valuable minerals from the ocean has been developed. Nodules collected from the Indian Ocean seabed can be treated to extract scarce land-based minerals in an environmentally sound way, says research published in the Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology.
Using the marine species Bacillus M1, Cobalt, Copper and Nickel can be extracted from the nodules at a near neutral pH and room temperature. In a single four-hour process, 45% Cobalt and
Climate change could dramatically increase the forest cover of the Earth’s mountains, ecologists are predicting. Using data from the Austrian Alps, ecologists have developed a model that predicts the area covered by the local pine, Pinus mugo Turra, will increase from 10% today to 60% by the turn of the next millennium. The findings are published in the current issue of of the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Ecology and, the authors believe, this is the first paper to model tree lin
Experts find multiple threats and many extinctions
In the April, 2004, issue of BioScience, a team of 16 experts from around the world report on the diversity and plight of what may be the world’s most endangered group of animals – nonmarine mollusks (that is, terrestrial and freshwater mollusks). The World Conservation Union lists in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species a total of 1,930 threatened nonmarine mollusks, which is nearly half the number of all known amphibian spec
A faster, more efficient way of tracking water pollution and carrying out environmental surveys is being developed.
Work has begun to build “Springer”, an unmanned surface vehicle (USV) that will be able to operate in shallow water.
Funded primarily by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), this innovative vehicle will be built at the University of Plymouth by a multidisciplinary team including engineering and artificial intelligence experts. A wid
Promising results of soil treatments to sequester carbon lead to field tests
In a novel approach to stalling global warming while reinvigorating nutrient-depleted farmland, chemists have found they can promote soil’s natural ability to soak up greenhouse-gas carbon dioxide from the surrounding air.
Experiments led by Jim Amonette at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Richland, Wash., and reported today at the American Chemical Societ
The first phase of a working unit that can remove greenhouse gases from ordinary air is to be completed by the end of this year, according to a report in Chemistry & Industry magazine. Marina Murphy describes the groundbreaking work being done by brothers Allen and Burton Wright (and Burton’s engineering firm, Kelly Wright & Assoc, Tucson, AZ) to create a wind scrubber – a 10 square metre structure that will capture excess carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere around it.
Scientists have s
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