Using a new analysis of satellite temperature measurements, scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have determined that uncertainties in satellite data are a significant factor in studies attempting to detect human effects on climate.

Since 1979, Microwave Sounding Units (MSUs) have been flown on 12 different polar-orbiting weather satellites operated by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. MSU instruments measure the microwave emissions of oxygen mo

The number of housing developments on greenfield sites could be significantly reduced thanks to technology, pioneered by University of Greenwich environmental scientists, which can quickly decontaminate polluted and brownfield land, ready for building affordable environmentally friendly housing.

nown as Accelerated Carbonation Technology (ACT), this new process can treat contaminated land and hazardous waste in minutes rather than the days or weeks required by some conventional methods.

Several industrial activities of the previous decades resulted in serious contamination of groundwater. For instance, polyvinyl chloride (PVC) production and related activities cause annual underground releases of 137 tonnes of 1,2-dichloroethane (1,2-DCA) in the USA (1988-1999). The latter molecule has an environmental half-life of about 50 years, is the most abundant groundwater pollutant of all chloroethenes and –ethanes, and is a suspected carcinogen. Its physico-chemical properties result in a s

The Ntumu (the Beti-Fang), live in the equatorial forest in southern Cameroon, in the north of Gabon and of Equatorial Guinea. They practice a semi-nomadic slash-and-burn form of agriculture. Their farming is highly diversified, mainly of food crops (such as cassava, plantain banana, sweet potato, yam and taro) but they also produce cash crops (cacao, groundnuts). When they clear a plot (1 ha on average), the Ntumu systematically spare certain trees, generally about 15 whatever cutting methods or imp

Areas deforested in Brazil increased from 152 000 km_ in 1976 to 517 000 km_ in 1996. That figure is the equivalent of the surface area of France. Deforestation is a complex process and involves a host of changing and widely differing situations. The factors behind it are many and varied. They include rising demand for agricultural land, international trade needs for timber and political decisions regarding strategic planning and development.

Researchers of the IRD Space Unit conducted an i

A recent study by a team of Syracuse University geologists has punched holes in a relatively new theory of species evolution called coordinated stasis; the theories involved are based on findings from fossil-bearing rocks that underlie Central New York. The SU study was published in “Geology,” the premier journal of the Geological Society of America.
First proposed in 1995 by Carl Brett of the University of Cincinnati and Gordon Baird of the State University of New York at Fredonia, coordinated

In honor of the Earth Day celebration, NASA scientists unveiled the first consistent and continuous global measurements of Earth’s “metabolism.” Data from the Terra and Aqua satellites are helping scientists frequently update maps of the rate at which plant life on Earth is absorbing carbon out of the atmosphere.

Combining space-based measurements of a range of plant properties collected by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) with a suite of other satellite and su

It might be 500,000 years or five years, but the Central Valley of Costa Rica will definitely experience major volcanic activity again, according to Phillip B. Gans, professor of geology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He presented a study of volcanic rocks of Costa Rica in his recent talk at the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America.

“The Costa Ricans were not around for the last big one, but it’s inevitable,” said Gans. “Another pyroclastic flow like the

Researchers found surprising evidence of sea salt and frozen plankton in high, cold, cirrus clouds, the remnants of Hurricane Nora, over the U.S. plains states. Although the 1997 hurricane was a strong eastern Pacific storm, her high ice-crystal clouds extended many miles inland, carrying ocean phenomena deep into the U.S. heartland.

Kenneth Sassen of the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, and University of Alaska Fairbanks; W. Patrick Arnott of the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Reno,

The relationship between leguminous plants such as peas and beans and nitrogen-fixing bacteria is even closer than previously thought, with bacteria acting like an intrinsic part of the plant, according to research published in the journal Nature today.

Researchers from the University of Reading and the John Innes Centre, Norwich, have found that nitrogen-fixing bacteria provide more than just a supply of useable nitrogen to the plants. They have found that amino acid cycling between the pl

The bizarre hydrothermal vent field discovered a little more than two years ago surprised scientists not only with vents that are the tallest ever seen – the one that’s 18 stories dwarfs most vents at other sites by at least 100 feet – but also because the fluids forming these vents are heated by seawater reacting with million-year-old mantle rocks, not by young volcanism.

The remarkable Lost City hydrothermal vent field, so named partly because it sits on a seafloor mountain named the

Sunlight can convert triclosan, a common disinfectant used in anti-bacterial soaps, into a form of dioxin, and this process may produce some of the dioxin found in the environment, according to research at the University of Minnesota. The researchers said that although the dioxin was a relatively benign form, treating wastewater with chlorine could possibly lead to the production of a much more toxic species of dioxin. The study is in press in the Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology A: Chemist

Nature has many patterns and ecologists seek to both describe and understand them. Nature also is very complex. One challenge is to find patterns in that complexity and to ask whether simple explanations lie beneath them.

Ecologists have tackled this challenge for decades, erecting various hypotheses and debating their plausibility. In an important paper featured in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), an international team of ecologists describes

Scientists at the John Innes Centre (JIC) (1), Norwich, UK1 and the INRA (Institut National de Recherche Agronomique) at Evry, France(2) have today announced the creation of the largest library of genetic resources, for the study of wheat, in the world. The two scientific teams have exchanged so-called BAC libraries(3) that when combined together, represent the entire genome(4) of wheat. The research material in the libraries, and associated information, is freely available to academic and industrial scient

Pesticides are one of the most significant sources of poison to the human nervous system when misused. New research indicates that various cultures may misinterpret the directions provided by the manufacturers, thereby increasing the chances for mishandling.

The pesticide industry considers culture to be an increasing concern due to changing demographic trends – specifically, increases in migrant laborers and overall language diversity. As these trends continue, the opportunities for commun

Dutch epidemiologists have calculated that partial vaccination can stop outbreaks of swine fever. What’’s more, mother sows do not need to be vaccinated. The research was carried out at the Institute for Animal Science and Health, Lelystad, and Utrecht University.

PhD student Don Klinkenberg calculated that partial vaccinations do not exceed the limit for the outbreak of an epidemic. If the mother sows are not vaccinated, the spread of the swine fever is limited to transfer to less than on