Scientists from the University of Aarhus, Denmark, have developed a technique that could improve the commercial processes used to remove environmentally harmful sulphur from fossil fuels. This is currently done using a catalyst, which binds the harmful sulphur molecules to it, in much the same way as a car’s catalytic converter works.
In a paper published today in the Institute of Physics journal Nanotechnology the Danish team explain how they have studied the chemical reactions which
Groundbreaking research released on the economics of marine protected areas
For the first time anywhere, the analysis of leading economists and ecologists worldwide has been brought together in one place, to examine the economics of Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Two special issues of the international research journal Natural Resource Modeling (Vol. 15 Nos. 3 &4) have just been published, within which the editors, Ussif Rashid Sumaila (University of British Columbia) and Anthony Char
Psychologists and human behaviorists are being enlisted by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in a pioneering new initiative to save the planet.
Experts believe that the traditional messages from governments and green groups, urging the public to adopt environmentally-friendly life-styles and purchasing habitats, need to be overhauled.
There is concern that many of these messages are too ‘guilt-laden’ and disapproving and instead of ‘turning people on’ to the env
Sopow and colleagues report in the February issue of Ecology Letters that a chemical stimulus from a galling insect changes the morphology and physiology of its host to benefit these specialized plant feeders.
Galls are atypical plant growths that provide nourishment and shelter for gall-inducing insects. Previous studies could not determine whether insect galls are induced by mechanical or chemical stimuli because gall formation occurred at the sites where the insects were active.
Whilst experimenting with nanospheres and perfluorodecalin, a liquid used in the production of synthetic blood, researchers at Germany’s University of Ulm have stumbled across a phenomenon that could ultimately help remove ozone-harming chemicals from the atmosphere. The perfluorodecalin, against all expectations, was taken up by a water-based suspension of 60 nm diameter polystyrene particles.
The scientists believe that this occurred because nanoscopic perfluorodecalin droplets became
The key role of multidisciplinary research in developing a landmark intergovernmental strategy to combat air pollution across Europe will be considered by Professor Helen ApSimon of Imperial College London in her inaugural lecture, A lot of Hot Air – Transboundary Air Pollution Over Europe.
The new Professor of Air Pollution Studies will focus on how her research using computer modelling of air pollution contributed to the formulation of the Gothenburg protocol under the United Nations’ Con
As Rebecca Brown kayaked down the Nolichucky River in North Carolina one summer, she followed a path similar to many of her own study subjects. Seeds and other propagules often float downstream before settling along riverbanks. Rampant with change, these areas offer a nutrient-rich location for new plants, yet pose the danger of sweeping vegetation away in a flood. It is this high volatility that makes the area resource rich and perfect for invasive and native plants to put down their roots. In a stu
A long-standing debate in ecology has been the effect of diversity on the temporal stability of biological systems.
Ecological theory predicts that the stability of populations should decline as community diversity increases, in part, because population size is assumed to decline with community richness.
In the February issue of Ecology Letters, Valone and Hoffman, using an 11-year dataset, have shown that the temporal stability of 17 species of annual plants in natural communitie
A study led by a Duke University scientist suggests that the current emphasis on controlling upstream nitrogen pollution fails to adequately address the impacts on water quality of another potential contaminant, phosphorus. Thus, according to the scientists, current strategies used by environmental managers to control excessive nutrients in coastal wetlands may not achieve their intended goals.
The finding was published in a report in the Friday, Jan. 24, 2003, issue of the journal Science b
Since the end of the 1960s West Africa has continuously been suffering hard drought. The rainfall deficit for the 1970s and 1980s, calculated to compare with the 1950s and 1960s, thus reached as high as 50% over the northern part of the Sahel. The hydrological cycle as a whole is affected by this drought, which results in serious consequences for agriculture and food security.
IRD researchers, aiming to understand the mechanisms behind this situation, examined rainfall data from 1950 to 1990
With measures aimed at reducing the emission of pollutants such as ammonia, policy makers pay too little attention to the consequences for the emission of other substances. This is revealed in a computer model constructed by Corjan Brink from Wageningen University during his doctoral research. For example, the model shows that reducing the amount of ammonia emitted leads to an increase in the emission of nitrous oxide (laughing gas).
The computer model developed by the environmental economis
Voluntary Initiative, Born Out of WSSD, Set to Deliver Major Health and Environmental Benefits to Continent’s 800 Million Citizens
UNEP’s Governing Council 3 to 7 February: Environment for Development
An international effort to phase out lead, the health-hazardous heavy metal, from petrol is accelerating as increasing numbers of African countries switch to unleaded fuel.
Research, to be presented to environment ministers attending a key conference organized by the Un
An immense grassland in Mongolia – an area likened to the long-gone prairies of the American West, complete with staggering migrations of hundreds of thousands of animals – is threatened by a proposal to build a road through its center, according to scientists with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society.
The road proposal is part of the “Millennium Highway,” which plans to connect Mongolia to China and the Russian Far East. The current version of the plan calls for de-gazetteing al
GAIKER is a participant in a project at a multinational level which is financed by the European Union Competitive and Sustainable Growth Project. The project is to develop innovative technology which will have two aspects or stages: firstly the separation and recovery of components capable of being reused and, subsequently, the recycling of materials used in electronic printed circuit boards (from telephones, T.V.’s, and so on). The great quantity of small parts, different components, solder and oth
A dramatic increase in deformed frogs and other amphibians is being caused by a range of environmental factors, all of which ultimately can be linked to human impacts on habitat, but the primary cause of many of the deformities is an epidemic of a key parasite.
These findings are the results of eight years of research by scientists around the world, and are presented in the February issue of Scientific American by researchers from Oregon State University and the University of Wisconsin.
A rare dolphin species known for assisting fishermen by driving fish into their nets may soon disappear from the great Asian river for which the animals are named. According to a recent scientific survey by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and its partners, the Irrawaddy dolphin may vanish from the Ayeyarwady River (formerly Irrawaddy) without efforts to protect these aquatic mammals from human activities along the river.
A research team with members from WCS, WDCS (the Whale and Dol
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