A group of scientists and wildlife health experts from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) say that closing Asia’s wild bird markets would reduce the spread of Avian flu. The markets place tens of thousands of wild and domestic birds in close quarters, allowing diseases to make the jump between wild animals, livestock, and ultimately humans, WCS says. The group also expressed concern that policies calling for widespread killing of birds living in the wild to prevent disease wo
As winter rains come, thousands of square kilometres of territory across Europe’s heart face a looming threat: steep slopes and waterlogged soils combine to trigger landslides.
A build-up of groundwater within a slope increases its weight and decreases its cohesiveness, weakening the slope’s ability to resist the remorseless pull of gravity. The heavy earth flows downward. For all in the path of a landslide the results are devastating, and frequently lethal.
“In Italy, landslides
After years of searching for a rare African primate, anthropologist Scott McGraw and his colleagues believed that the Miss Waldron’s red colobus monkey, Procolobus badius waldroni, was probably extinct. They had written a paper in 2000 saying so.
But recent hard evidence of the Miss Waldron’s red colobus’ existence has rekindled McGraw’s hopes of finding the primate, reportedly last seen in 1978. McGraw, an associate professor of anthropology at Ohio State University, det
The European Commission today adopted an action plan on GMES – Global Monitoring for the Environment and Security. The plan outlines firm steps towards the establishment of a system that will harness, co-ordinate and enhance existing Earth observation and monitoring information from satellites and Earth-based sensors, in order to support better decision-making for the environment and security. The initiative aims at providing independent, cost-effective, and user-friendly services that can help to a
In der Praxis werden Biodiesel (RME) und fossiler Dieselkraftstoff (DK) sowohl in reiner Form als auch im Mischbetrieb eingesetzt. Es erhebt sich die Frage, inwieweit Mischungen beider Kraftstoffe eine nichtlineare Änderung der Emission über dem Mischungsverhältnis zur Folge haben. Verschiedentlich waren in der entsprechenden Literatur überproportionale Effekte vermutet bzw. sogar messtechnisch ermittelt worden.
Wenn sich die Emissionen von Mischungen aus Biodiesel und DK nicht proportional
It’s common knowledge that stealing is wrong. Even if the thief is a dumb animal, for instance, a fox in a hen house, it deserves punishment anyway. But what if a leopard, a rare animal registered in the Red Book (their population being extremely limited on the planet) is a thief or has killed someone’s sheep or horse? How can environment protection interests be reconciled with stock-breeders’ losses? Specialists of WWF Russia have clearly proved that such reconciliation is possible.
Th
Research from Iron Mountain mine sheds light on acid drainage
Examining life extracted from toxic runoff at a northern California mine, researchers for the first time have reconstructed multiple individual genomes from a microbial community taken from an environmental sample rather than from a laboratory culture.
According to Jill Banfield, the leader of the scientific team behind the discovery, “This takes the study of natural biogeochemical systems to a new level.”
Last fall, ecologists at Ohio State University cracked open an acorn they had found in an Ohio park and discovered a colony of extremely rare ants.
They had uncovered Leptothorax minutissimus, an ant species that has been found in only four other areas of the eastern United States. The researchers found the acorn at a Columbus metro park – the first time the ant has been found in Ohio.
“What makes this find special is the lifestyle of these ants,” said Joan Herbers, an ant expert a
Poaching nearly eliminated in Central American nesting ground
Poaching of a critically important population of endangered hawksbill sea turtles along the coast of Nicaragua has dropped by more than 79 percent, thanks to a unique program developed by the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society that enlists support from local communities, fishing groups, and government agencies.
Over a four-year period, the practice of illegally removing turtle eggs from nests has droppe
URI student researcher: Chickadees avoid caterpillars that eat leaves exposed to high levels of CO2
In yet another example of the far-reaching impact of global warming, a University of Rhode Island student found evidence that suggests some songbirds may avoid eating insects that consume leaves exposed to high levels of carbon dioxide.
URI senior Martina Müller of Kingston, working in cooperation with Associate Professor Scott McWilliams, Ph.D. candidate David Podlesak and col
Earliest evidence of humans affecting aquatic ecology in Canada, United States
New findings from Canadian scientists dispel the belief that European settlers were the first humans to cause major changes to Canadian and U.S. freshwater ecosystems.
A University of Toronto-led, multidisciplinary team including researchers from Queen’s, McGill, and University of Ottawa show for the first time that prehistoric Inuit whalers dramatically altered high Arctic pond ecosystems through
Many types of vegetation have more or less ground cover and recruitment of new individuals often occurs only in temporarily empty patches or gaps. Ever since Watt’s (1947) Presidential address to the BES, the Journal of Ecology has been publishing the results of investigations into the importance of processes in such gaps in the determination of community structure. Three recent papers from Norway, the UK and the USA (Vandvik 2004, Turnbull et al. 2004 and Ewanchuk and Bertness, 2004, respectively –
North-Western Europe could be in for some sudden climatic surprises in the future, say scientists speaking at the launch of a new book on global environmental change.
North-Western Europe is kept warm by an ocean current known as the North Atlantic Current, an extension of the Gulf Stream which brings warm water from the tropics to the north. This current is sensitive to global warming and could slow down, or even break down as a result of increasing global temperatures.
Studies of
A leading expert from Staffordshire University – who led a study which revealed that people living in the most deprived areas of England are more likely to suffer the effects of pollution – says social injustice has to be tackled through environmental as well as economic policies.
Professor Gordon Walker from Staffordshire University made his comments after the publication of the results from the biggest research project of its kind ever conducted in the UK.
Professor Walker, Dire
The Ebola virus, identified for the first time in 1976 in the Democratic Republic of Congo (ex-Zaire), has unleashed several lethal epidemics in Central Africa. For several years, many outbreaks have been occurring simultaneously in the Republic of Congo and Gabon, making the control of Ebola virus infection a major public health priority for these countries. In humans infection triggers haemorrhagic fever. In 80% of cases it leads to death in a few days. High mortality generated by this particularly
Different viral strains responding to ideal conditions
Though they may appear as single outbreaks quickly spread by people and wildlife, recent flare-ups of the deadly Ebola virus in Central Africa are actually multiple epidemics of different viral strains, simultaneously appearing when conditions are ideal, according to a study appearing in the journal Science.
The study, authored by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups, said that scientists pr
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