Scientists at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem have demonstrated that sea spray over the oceans contributes to cleansing air that has been polluted overland. The air pollution is washed down by rain, which occurs because the rain-suppressing effect of such pollution is significantly neutralized. An article on this research appears in the online magazine Science Express, published today.

In previous studies, Prof. Daniel Rosenfeld of the Ring Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and collea

Tamarix invading the southwest

Like modern day Sherlock Holmeses, plant biologists at Washington University in St. Louis have donned their deerstalkers to get to the bottom of some botanical mysteries.
Barbara A. Schaal, Ph.D., Washington University professor of biology and her graduate students use DNA sequences to reveal information on historical events. Schaal has traced the origins of cassava using molecular techniques, and now is using systematics and phylogeography to docum

On the eve of the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, scientists at UCL have detected a flaw in the Kyoto protocol`s global plans to reduce the impact of global warming, all because of something as simple as atmospheric dust.

Dr Mark Maslin of UCL`s Environmental Change Research Centre explains: “Dust is vital to the health of the planet. This is not household dust, but tiny fragments of rock and soil, almost too small to see with the naked eye”.

Billions of tons of this dust are blown a

Since the early 1980s, ocean phytoplankton concentrations that drive the marine food chain have declined substantially in many areas of open water in Northern oceans, according to a comparison of two datasets taken from satellites. At the same time, phytoplankton levels in open water areas near the equator have increased significantly. Since phytoplankton are especially concentrated in the North, the study found an overall annual decrease in phytoplankton globally.

The authors of the study,

Canned corn may be healthier for you than corn on the cob, according to a study by Cornell University scientists. The researchers say that heat processing of sweet corn significantly raises the level of naturally occurring compounds that help fight disease.
The findings are reported in the August 14 issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, a peer-reviewed publication of the American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society.

Sweet corn is the number-

Cornell University potato breeders are donating a disease-resistant potato to Russia in an effort to help combat aggressive strains of potato late blight that are threatening to devastate the nation’s essential small farms.

The Cornell-developed New York 121 potato, which also is able to fend off golden nematodes, scab and potato virus Y (PVY), will be given to Dokagene Technologies, a company specializing in producing pathogen-free seed in Russia, in a meeting and a field trip in Mosc

Corn, the preferred staple crop in many countries, requires large amounts of nitrogen for its growth. Usually fertilizer is necessary to sustain good yields. A Penn State graduate student, Ylva Besmer, is trying to find ways to improve corn yield for subsistence farmers in Zimbabwe without fertilizer.

“The government of Zimbabwe no longer provides a subsidy for fertilizer, resulting in significantly lower corn yields” says Besmer, a doctoral candidate in ecology. “The old-fashion use of legu

The overuse of antibiotics not only leads to more resistant strains of infection, but, according to new research from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, antibiotics also may be adversely affecting zooplankton, tiny organisms that underpin the health of all freshwater ecosystems.

In the last decade, European and American researchers have found more evidence that lakes and streams are tainted by common drugs, ranging from caffeine to anticancer agents.

This pollution, says Colleen

A study team led by experts at the University of Southampton has found that there is no significant risk to the public from radioactive contamination from the Atomic Weapons Establishments at Aldermaston and Burghfield in West Berkshire.

The three-year environmental radioactivity project, carried out by the University’s Geosciences Advisory Unit at the Southampton Oceanography Centre, examined over 600 soil and other samples from a wide variety of locations and environments.

Doctor

Computer predictions of the effects of commercial sea-sand dredging on coastal erosion, produced by an international team headed by Dr Alan Davies of the University of Wales, Bangor`s School of Ocean Sciences, will play a key role in developing new European Guidelines for siting commercial sand dredging activities.

Increased demand for North Sea sand is anticipated, both for use as beach and sand dune nourishment and to meet demand for sand from large-scale European construction projects. Sa

The prairie may appear to be a simple, rather plain scene at first glance. Gail Wilson knows better.

The tallgrass prairie teems with life. Fungi, plants and insects interact with each other in crucial ways scientists are trying to understand.

Wilson, a research associate in the Division of Biology at Kansas State University, David Hartnett, biology professor and director of the Konza Prairie Biological Station, and graduate student Abigail Kula, of Omaha, Neb., conducted a study sh

A strong and unexpected correlation between large numbers of howler monkeys and elevated counts of birds on islands created by a Venezuelan hydroelectric project has Duke University scientists looking for explanations. They say their discovery represents a prime example of the unexpected ecological insights that the science all-too-often yields.

The scientists’ working hypothesis is that excess plant-eating monkeys found on some of the smallest islands counterintuitively spur extra tre

Luckily for us, the economically devastating Karnal bunt fungus needs personal ads and singles bars more than we do.

Airborne spores from the fungus, which damages wheat crops, are limited in how well they can start new infections over long distances, according to the findings from a Kansas State University project.

A phenomenon known as the Allee effect occurs when a small population of a species spread over a large area has little success in reproduction. The reason is that when

In the northeastern corner of Minnesota stand towering groves of red pine trees stretching some 80 feet into the sky.

But these red pine groves could eventually vanish from Minnesota’s Boundary Water Canoe Area if what we usually view as a foe to forests — fire — fails to sweep the terrain occasionally, says a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

“The big, natural groves of red pine are one of the most unique features of the BWCA. But, because of fire suppres

Industrial fishing poses the biggest threat to life and fin for sharks, dolphins and billfish that inhabit the tropical and northern Pacific Ocean, says a new study forecasting the effects of commercial fishing on ocean ecosystems.

Though not targeted by the fishing industry, some ocean species often get caught unintentionally in nets or lines used to catch tuna and other commercially valuable fish, says a study presented to scientists today, Aug. 5, at the annual meeting of the Ecological

Satellite data since 1998 indicates the bulge in the Earth’s gravity field at the equator is growing, and scientists think that the ocean may hold the answer to the mystery of how the changes in the trend of Earth’s gravity are occurring.

Before 1998, Earth’s equatorial bulge in the gravity field was getting smaller because of the post-glacial rebound, or PGR, that occurred as a result of the melting of the ice sheets after the last Ice Age. When the ice sheets melted, land t