A Kansas State University research team is prototyping a small, inexpensive remote-control plane as a sensing tool, also known as an unmanned aerial vehicle, to collect environmental data. The team plans to test it over the Konza Prairie Biological Station near Manhattan this summer.

If the sensing tool performs as the team hopes, it will be made available to climate scientists, who would then be able to reconstruct it to obtain high-resolution images and reliable data.

University of Utah study reveals another contributor to polar warming

Arctic climate already is known to be particularly prone to global warming caused by industrial and automotive emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. Now, a University of Utah study finds a surprising new way society’s pollutants warm the far north: the Arctic’s well-known haze – made of particulate pollution from mid-latitude cities – mixes with thin clouds, making them better able to tra

Michael Schlesinger, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, will participate in news conferences in New York City on May 9, and Washington, D.C., on May 10, publicizing the U.S. debut of the book “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change.”

Published by Cambridge University Press, the book builds upon scientific findings presented at the “Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change” conference held in Exeter, England, in February last year. The conf

Ecologists are getting ready to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the world’s oldest ecological experiment. The Park Grass Experiment was set up at Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire in 1856 – three years before Darwin published Origin of Species – to answer crucial agricultural questions of the day but has since proved an invaluable resource for studying natural selection and biodiversity.

To mark the occasion, a major review of Park Grass is published today in the British Eco

A team of Los Alamos scientists recently returned from a month-long data-gathering trip to Mexico City as part of an international, multi-agency environmental science collaboration. The March campaign was designed to examine the chemical and physical transformations of gases and aerosols in the polluted outflow from the Mexico City metropolitan area. With a population of 25 million, Mexico City is North America’s largest city, what scientists are calling a megacity. As such, it provides an

Technique Could be Applied to All Nitrogen-Poor Ecosystems

A new method to calculate the transfer of nitrogen from Arctic mushrooms to plants is shedding light on how fungi living symbiotically on plant roots transfer vital nutrients to their hosts. The analytical technique, developed by John E. Hobbie, MBL Distinguished Scientist and co-director of the laboratory’s Ecosystems Center and his son, Erik A. Hobbie of the University of New Hampshire, may be applied to nearly all con

Sri Lanka’s coastal drinking water supply continues to suffer the effects of the December 2004 tsunami, which caused major death and destruction in the region. Much of the island nation’s coastal area relies on wells, usually hand dug and relatively shallow. Some 40,000 such wells, each typically serving several families, were destroyed or contaminated by the tsunami. The continued sustainability of the aquifers that supply such wells is in doubt, due to continued saltwater contaminat

Researchers from the universities of Cadiz, Seville and Cordoba are working on a study to shorten the traditional biological ageing process of sherry wines, brandies and wine vinegars in oak butts and casks (the soleras and criaderas system) in Andalusia without losing quality in the final product.

The project is funded by the Andalusian Ministry of Innovation, Science and Enterprise (148,200 Euros), and is aimed at obtaining detailed information about the key parameters in the ageing proce

A team of researchers from the University of Seville (US) participate in the setting up of a technical and professional Euro-Mediterranean network for the protection, promotion and territorial development of artisanal Mediterranean cheeses. The network, named MIREDAF, is part of the INTERREG III B MEDOCC European Programme. Andalusia, through the University of Seville, participates in this project together with four French regions (Provence, Alps, Côte d’Azur, and Corsica), and three Italia

Researchers have isolated two Chinese soybean lines that grow without the primary protein linked to soy allergies in children and adults. The two lines already are adapted to Illinois-like conditions and will be given away to breeders seeking to produce new varieties of allergy-free soybeans without genetic engineering.

Crop scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the USDA-Agricultural Research Service’s Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis s

The narrow search for water may miss important clues, say USC geobiologists

The great search for extraterrestrial life has focused on water at the expense of a crucial element, say geobiologists at the University of Southern California.

Writing in the Perspectives section of the May 5 issue of Science, four USC researchers propose searching for organic nitrogen as a direct indicator of the presence of life. Nitrogen is essential to the chemistry of living organisms.

Ecologists are getting ready to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the world’s oldest ecological experiment. The Park Grass Experiment was set up at Rothamsted Research in Hertfordshire in 1856 – three years before Darwin published Origin of Species – to answer crucial agricultural questions of the day but has since proved an invaluable resource for studying natural selection and biodiversity.

To mark the occasion, a major review of Park Grass is published today in the British Ecologi

Alternative energy solutions

Carnegie Mellon University researchers say the use of switchgrass could help break U.S. dependence on fossil fuels and curb costly transportation costs.

“Our report indicates the time is right for America to begin a transition to ethanol derived from switchgrass,” said Scott Matthews, an assistant professor in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department. A 25 percent hike in gas prices at the pump since December adds to the researcher

Scientists at the Umeå Plant Science Centre (UPSC) and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU) report today about a breakthrough in our understanding of how the growth and development of forest trees is controlled. In an article published in the international journal Science, May 4, they show that the FT gene that was previously shown to control the flowering time of annual plants, also controls tree flowering.

With the help of this gene poplar trees can be stimulated

Maite Estevan Muguerza, a researcher of the University of Navarra, has improved existing treatments against brucellosis and sheep salmonella, by applying, in her doctoral thesis, techniques of micro- and nano-technology which permit the encapsulation of vaccines.

In this way the sustained liberation of the vaccine or antigenic compound is assured, so that it remains active in the body of the animal over the period of at least six months”. The existing treatments possess a limited effect du

Census of Marine Life scientists trawled rarely explored tropical ocean depths between the southeast US coast and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge to inventory and photograph the variety and abundance of zooplankton – small sea “bugs” that form a vital link in the ocean food chain – and other life forms.

Though relatively few in number compared with the uppermost ocean layer, scientists were amazed by the variety of tiny animals found at depths of 1 to 5 km (0.6 to 3 miles). Among thou