An Australian geologist has identified what could be the first ever active flow of fluids through gullies on Mars.

University of Melbourne geologist, Dr Nick Hoffman, identified recent gully and channel development near the polar regions of Mars from images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft. But contrary to the majority of scientific opinion which suggests that such features were carved by liquid water, Hoffman says the flow is most likely frozen carbon dioxide.

University of Colorado at Boulder researchers have found, ironically, that two pollutants – carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons emitted from agricultural forest trees – offset each other somewhat in mitigating air quality problems.

Carbon dioxide, believed by scientists to be a major factor in greenhouse warming, has been shown to reduce “agriforest” emissions of hydrocarbons that contribute to ground-based ozone pollution, according to CU-Boulder doctoral candidate Todd Rosenstiel of the envir

Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have discovered another fingerprint of human effects on global climate.

Recent research has shown that increases in the height of the tropopause over the past two decades are directly linked to ozone depletion and increased greenhouse gases.

The tropopause is the transition zone between the lowest layer of the atmosphere — the turbulently-mixed troposphere — and the more stable stratosphere. The tropopause lies rough

More trees are dying following forest fires in the Amazon than was previously thought, according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).
Trees that initially appear to survive fires, such as those caused by El Niño, are in fact dying two to three years later, increasing carbon emissions and causing further loss of Amazonian vegetation.

Dr Barlow of UEA’s School of Environmental Sciences found that many of the large, thicker-barked trees that survive up to two years fol

Researchers from the University of California have found a natural detox program for selenium-contaminated farm runoff in the form of wetland vegetation and microbes.

Results from a two-year study by UC Berkeley researchers show that man-made wetlands in the state’s San Joaquin Valley were able to remove an average of 69.2 percent of the selenium in agricultural drainage water. More significantly, some plant populations showed remarkable promise at converting selenium into a harmless g

Rocks deposited by glaciers on mountain ranges in West Antarctica have given scientists the most direct evidence yet that parts of the ice sheet are on a long-term, natural trajectory of melting.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet has been melting and contributing water continuously to the ocean for the last 10,000 years and is likely to keep doing so, says John Stone, University of Washington associate professor of Earth and space sciences.

Measuring and understanding changes in the Eart

The flora and fauna are sending signals about the impact of global warming – a message that is being heard in backyards around the world.

A study in the Jan. 2 edition of the British science journal Nature synthesized data from 143 scientific papers to examine whether a signal, or “fingerprint,” of climate change can be found in how animals and plants have reacted to increasing temperatures.

Among their findings: In the temperate zone, the researchers estimate that, for spe

Changes to farming practices in rice paddies in China may have led to a decrease in methane emissions, and an observed decline in the rate that methane has entered the Earth’s atmosphere over the last 20 years, a NASA-funded study finds.

Changsheng Li, a professor of natural resources in the University of New Hampshire’s Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans, and Space, and lead author of the study, notes that in the early 1980s Chinese farmers began draining their paddies midw

Using models that simulate the interaction between global climate and land ecosystems, atmospheric scientists from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have shown that compensating for the carbon dioxide “greenhouse effect” by decreasing the amount of sunlight reaching the planet (geoengineering) could create a more vigorous ecosystem while helping to curb global warming.

The study suggests that planetary-scale engineering projects to lessen the amount of solar radiation reaching the

Life expectancy and prosperity will continue to rise and food production should keep up with population growth, but the Kyoto agreement will have little effect on global warming according to this week’s Christmas issue of the BMJ.

Using official statistics and global trends, Bjørn Lomborg, Director of the Danish Environmental Assessment Institute and author of The Skeptical Environmentalist attempts to draw a reasonably good picture of the true state of the world.

Life expectancy fo

What’s seven feet long, 250 million years old, and currently lurking in the depths of Oregon’s Rogue River? It’s the green sturgeon, the craggy, shark-like fish that has quietly eked out a living since the time of the dinosaurs. But according to a new study published by researchers from the Bronx-Zoo based Wildlife Conservation Society and other groups, this living fossil is extremely vulnerable to both overfishing and habitat alteration such as water diversion for irrigation and pollu

Pioneering new solvent systems which are recyclable and environmentally compatible have been developed by researchers at the University of Leicester.

The team, led by Drs Andy Abbott and David Davies, has developed a wide range of new solvents made from bulk commodity materials such as urea (a common fertiliser) and vitamin B4. These have been studied extensively in recent years as they offer a potentially clean way to carry out chemical processes. They are non-volatile whilst liquid over a

The fact that many animal species, such as herds of antelope or shoals of fish, live together in herds is well understood: there is safety in numbers. Why limpets live together is a mystery, but ecologist Tim Theobalds thinks he has come up with the answer, and his findings could have important implications for their conservation and commercial collection.

Speaking at the British Ecological Society’s Winter Meeting, being held at the University of York on 18–20 December 2002, Theobalds of th

Novel developments in electronics which are giving ecologists important new tools to quickly and easily measure biodiversity will be described at the British Ecological Society’s Winter Meeting, being held at the University of York on 18–20 December 2002.

Speaking at the meeting, electronics expert and entomologist Dr David Chesmore from the University of York will explain a novel method of identifying different grasshopper species using time domain signal coding and artificial neural netwo

Jolly Old St. Nick depends on his team of reindeer to complete his Christmas rounds on time. But new research indicates that, because of the world’s changing climate, Santa might want to start thinking of new ways to power his sleigh.

Scientists have long known that rain falling on snow in the far northern latitudes during winter months can play havoc with herds of hoofed animals – primarily reindeer, caribou and musk ox – that feed on lichens and mosses growing on the soil surface. In

IFDC — an International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development — has developed an innovative approach to agricultural development called Integrated Soil Fertility Management (ISFM), involving not just farmers, researchers, and extension workers but also bankers and traders, including inputs dealers and fertilizer enterprises. The holistic approach, based on the agribusiness system at the regional level, combines participatory methods to develop and extend ISFM technologies