Crystal ball gazing has long been part of what scientists do, whether it’s forecasting the weather or predicting long term climate change, but now researchers at the University of East Anglia (UEA) will be able to present people with highly realistic visions of what the future might look like and then ask them to vote on which one they prefer.
In a set up unique in the UK academic world, a state-of-the-art, purpose built virtual reality theatre has been installed at UEA, coupled to a ‘decisi
The University of Bradford and the Bolton Institute have been given more than £150,000 for a joint project to consider ways to recycle carpet waste into novel underlays.
Part of the funding, given to the University’s School of Engineering, Design and Technology, will be used will help investigate and test the characteristics of different materials.
The two-year project will utilise industrial carpet process waste resulting from edge cuts, mismatches and rejects to produce underlay
The ultrafine particles will flow underground and destroy toxic compounds in place
An ultrafine, “nanoscale” powder made from iron, one of the most abundant metals on Earth, is turning out to be a remarkably effective tool for cleaning up contaminated soil and groundwater-a trillion-dollar problem that encompasses more than 1000 still-untreated Superfund sites in the United States, some 150,000 underground storage tank releases, and a staggering number of landfills, abandoned mines
The oldest ecological experiment in the world, set up almost 150 years ago to see whether inorganic fertilisers could produce more grass than traditional animal manures, is becoming an important source of evidence on the impact of climate change on genetic variation in plants.
Speaking at the British Ecological Society’s Annual Meeting, being held at Manchester Metropolitan University on 9-11 September 2003, Professor Jonathan Silvertown of the Open University will explain what the Park Gra
Scientists are a step closer to understanding how the world’s oceans influence global warming – as well supply us with the oxygen we breathe.
A study led by Imperial College London has revealed how the most abundant ocean bound photosynthetic bacterium helps control levels of the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide.
Reporting in Nature the researchers provide new detail on how Prochlorococcus cyanobacteria traps atmospheric carbon dioxide and stores it in the deep sea.
Wo
The concentration of certain toxic organic chemicals in waterway sediments can be reduced by 83 percent using electron beams—the same technology already used to decontaminate mail—scientists from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland will report in the Sept. 1 issue of Environmental Science & Technology. In an additional series of laboratory experiments, the team found that ultraviolet light also can substantially reduce the concentration of these ch
Global warming isn’t what it used to be.
“Some people will tell you that the planet has warmed in the past and that species always managed to adapt, so there’s no cause for alarm. Unfortunately that’s not the case,” said Johannes Foufopoulos, assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment. Foufopoulos says new research illustrates major differences between global warming today and past natural climate fluctuations as they relate to spec
A paper in this week’s journal Nature, building on radically new ecological theory by University of Georgia professor Stephen Hubbell, challenges half-century-old ideas about how natural plant and animal communities are put together.
The paper in Nature includes research by physicists Jayanth Banavar and Igor Volkov of Penn State University and Amos Maritan of the International School for Advanced Studies in Trieste, Italy, along with Hubbell.
Conventional ecological theory s
The Energy and Biodiversity Initiative (EBI), a partnership of four energy companies and five conservation organizations, release collaborative report, Energy and Biodiversity: Integrating Biodiversity Conservation into Oil and Gas Development
The Energy and Biodiversity Initiative (EBI), a partnership of four energy companies and five conservation organizations, released its collaborative report, “Energy and Biodiversity: Integrating Biodiversity Conservation into Oil and Gas Develop
Some of the defenses plants use to fight off disease leave them more susceptible to attack by insects, according to a Don Cipollini, Ph.D., a chemical ecologist at Wright State University.
Cipollini, an assistant professor of biological sciences, will present a research paper on this topic at the annual meeting of the Ecological Society of America in Savannah, Ga., on Tuesday, Aug. 5. Some 3,000 national and international scientists are expected to attend the meeting.
“Plant Resis
Melbourne scientists plan to harness the strange appetite of newly discovered Australian bacteria to help purify arsenic-contaminated water.
The research group, led by microbiologist Dr Joanne Santini of La Trobe University, is working out how to use bacteria that eat arsenic to clean up contaminated wastewater in Australian and overseas mining environments and drinking wells in Bangladesh and West Bengal, India.
Dr Santini presented her research at Fresh Science, a British Council
Fire fighters tackling the blazes that have ravaged Portugal are doing so with the aid of a satellite data-link.
For the first time, ESA’s satellite Artemis has been used to support an emergency request under the International Charter on “Space and Major Disasters”.
Portugal’s civil protection unit (SNPC) was able to receive information and groups of images that showed the scope of the fires. The data, transmitted from ESA’s Earth observation satellite, Envisat, via the Artemis d
A new study settles a long-standing dispute about the genesis of an endangered species. With scant fossil evidence supporting a prehistoric presence, scientists could not say for sure where Borneo’s elephants came from. Did they descend from ancient prototypes of the Pleistocene era or from modern relatives introduced just 300–500 years ago? That question, as Fernando et al. report in an article that will appear in the inaugural issue of PLoS Biology (and currently available online at http://bio
Five areas, including North America’s deserts, top conservation priorities
According to the most comprehensive global analysis of its kind ever conducted, wilderness still covers a large portion of the Earth’s land surface and contains only a tiny percentage of the world’s population but, surprisingly, only five wilderness areas hold globally significant levels of biodiversity. More than 200 international scientists contributed to the analysis, which is featured in this week
High air pollution does more than just irritate your lungs, research confirms it also affects the way you look. By using ESA-provided pollution maps along with ultraviolet radiation data, cosmetics firm L’Oreal plans to investigate the future possibility of producing skincare products customised for local conditions.
Today the skin-ageing effects of ultraviolet (UV) rays are well known, but the harmful consequences of air pollution on our skin are less easily quantified outside of laboratori
Global warming and pollution are among the modern-day threats commonly blamed for decline of coral reefs, but new research shows the downfall of those resplendent and diverse signatures of tropical oceans actually may have begun centuries ago.
According to a paper set to appear Friday (8/15) in the journal Science, the downward spiral started when people first began killing off reef-frequenting large fish, turtles, seals and other top predators or herbivores – a process that started thousands of
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