Science has a way of forcing us to reexamine some of our basic assumptions about nature. Consider the following statement: Animals that thrive in high temperatures are more likely to survive global warming than those that are less tolerant to heat. While this conclusion may seem obvious, a new study in the journal Science finds that the opposite may be true.
In an experiment published in the July 4 edition of Science, Stanford University postdoctoral fellow Jonathon H. Stillman examined th
Researchers have isolated a novel bacterium that flourishes as it destroys harmful chlorinated compounds in polluted environments, leaving behind environmentally benign end products. The finding opens the door for designing more efficient and successful bioremediation strategies for thousands of contaminated sites that remain threats, despite years of expensive cleanup work.
“This organism might be useful for cleaning contaminated subsurface environments and restoring drinking-water reservo
Explorers in the 1800s discovered through fossils that deciduous forests once covered the poles, but researchers still do not know why leaf-dropping trees were preferred over evergreens.
“The dominant idea since the 1940s was that because of the polar light regime of continuous darkness and warmth, leafless branches had an advantage over evergreen canopies in the polar forests,” says Dana Royer, research associate in geosciences, Penn State.
This carbon loss hypothesis states that
Scientists at the University of Reading are leading a consortium (universities of Reading, Cardiff and Southampton, and the Natural History Museum) that is developing a “virtual laboratory” to help researchers around the world make sense of the mass of diverse, incomplete and often incompatible databases available on different species, according to an article published in the July edition of BBSRC business.
One species covered by the scientists is the yellow-flowered Spanish Broom which is
Maps of burning Spanish forests taken from space have been relayed to local fire fighters in near real-time. A successful demonstration campaign using Earth Observation data has taken place in Galicia – delivery time from raw orbital data to final value-added product in the hands of the user came to 92 minutes.
Around 45 000 forest fires start across Europe every year, with half a million hectares of woodland lost in the Mediterranean region alone. The European Commission estimates the cost
What determines the number of species in a given area? The amount of energy available to organisms (an area’s primary productivity) has been shown to be a key determinant of plant and animal biodiversity. However, it is not known if primary productivity can affect bacterial biodiversity. In an article to appear in the July 2003 issue of Ecology Letters, researchers led by a team at Stanford University report for the first time that primary productivity can, in fact, influence the diversity of ba
Stop smoking and leave your car at home. Encouraging people in cities to make simple lifestyle changes, such as using alternative forms of transport to the car, can significantly reduce their exposure to harmful air pollutants. The findings of the first in a series of Europe-wide air quality studies was announced today in Brussels by European Research Commissioner Philippe Busquin and Didier Gosuin, Environment Minister of the Brussels-Capital Region. The first phase of the “Population Exposure to Ai
EU satellite research project tackles urban air quality from space
A three-year project led by the Commission with ten partners from Greece, Germany, Hungary and Italy has developed an innovative system for monitoring and managing urban air quality and the related health risks. Results of the “ICAROS NET” technique were presented today in Budapest. ICAROS uses satellite-borne sensors to monitor the concentration of harmful particles in the air, caused by heavy industry, traffic and ho
Today in Washington the European Commission, represented by Loyola de Palacio, Vice President in charge of Energy and Transport, signed an international charter on CO2 capture and storage (CO2/carbon sequestration).
This will create the “Carbon Sequestration Leadership Forum” with Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Italy, India, Japan, Mexico, Norway, the People’s Republic of China, Russia, the United Kingdom and the US. The Forum aims to stimulate research into carbon sequestratio
High in the canopy of a Neotropical Panamanian forest, researchers have discovered that birds, especially native ones during the rainy season, protect trees by reducing the numbers of leaf-eating insects.
The finding — being published this week on the Online Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — was a mild surprise, said researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. That birds help crops and low-lying plants in temperate forests by devouri
In a high-performance machine, each part is essential to the overall function of the whole. In ecology, species diversity is necessary to the smooth operation of the ecosystem. Until recently, little attention has been paid to the potential ecological effects on plant diversity from combined global environmental changes including increased atmospheric CO2, warming, elevated nitrogen pollution, and increased precipitation. Scientists from the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology in
Doubling the amount of carbon dioxide in the air significantly reduces the number of plant species that grow in the wild, according to a newly released study on climate change in California.
The results, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), are the latest findings from the Jasper Ridge Global Change Project at Stanford University – a multiyear experiment designed to demonstrate how grassland ecosystems will respond to predicted increases in temperature an
Critically endangered bird to be named after Gordon Moore
A newly described and critically endangered pygmy-owl species discovered in Brazil was named today after Intel founder Gordon Moore and his wife Betty Moore, announced Conservation International. The description of the bird appears in the most recent edition of the “Brazilian Journal of Ornithology.”
The tiny owl, measuring 6 inches from bill to tail and weighing a mere 2 ounces, was found in fragmented secondary fore
Researchers will assess how businesses manage waste
Researchers at Cardiff University, UK, are aiming to gather vital information from a load of garbage.
Businesses and commercial organisations in Wales, UK, generate millions of tonnes of waste each year, and much of it goes to landfill sites – a method of disposal which is causing mounting environmental concern and is increasingly subject to legislation.
Yet current data on how much waste is produced, what it comp
There is a strong link between poor health and environmental problems. A recent report from the European Environmental Agency, EEA, shows that as many as 60 000 deaths per year in large European cities are caused by long-term exposure to air pollution. Children are more exposed to environmental risks than adults.
One child in seven is affected by asthma. Compared to 30 years ago this is a dramatic increase. In order to reverse this alarming trend the European Commission is today launc
Statistically, there is little likelihood of anybody experiencing a major river flood whose average recurrence interval is one hundred or one thousand years. Predicting and designing of such events involves going back in time, three or four centuries, by scrutinising records of severe flooding. Joint researches by Cemagref hydrologist Michel Lang and historian Denis Coeur have reconstructed the history of three French rivers, the Guiers, Isere and Ardeche, a unique picture which has been incorporated
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