As the spectacular New England fall foliage gives way to another of the region’s infamous winters, many wonder what this year will bring. Long-time residents think winter just isn’t what it used to be in New England. And mounting evidence from a series of studies suggests they’re right. The total number of days of ice on the region’s rivers has declined significantly in recent decades and particularly in the spring, according to the latest U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) resea

Understanding how pollution effects the dynamics of Earth and the spread of disease in ancient times are two areas in which ASU’s new School of Human Evolution & Social Change can make a dramatic and immediate impact, said Sander van der Leeuw, director of the school.

By drawing from a wide range of expertise and considering several perspectives outside the traditional anthropology disciplines, researchers at the school will be well equipped to take on important problems of today

New research which could help salvage huge amounts of the world’s oil that currently goes to waste is being carried out as a collaborative venture between Aston University in Birmingham, UK and Nottingham Trent University. Experts are looking at using Magnetic Resonance Image (MRI) scanners and special micro-bubbles to find a way of increasing the oil quantity being extracted from porous rock, which is often less than 30%.

All of the world’s oil is found in porous rock beneath t

After five years of being the world’s largest free-floating object, the B-15A iceberg has finally broken up off Antarctica’s Cape Adare.

ESA’s Envisat satellite’s Advanced Synthetic Aperture Radar (ASAR) is sensitive to ice, and has been tracking the movement of the drifting ice object since the beginning of this year. Its latest imagery reveals the bottle-shaped iceberg split into nine knife-shaped icebergs and a myriad of smaller pieces on 27-28 October,

A growing market for biodiesel fuels is heating up interest in canola among Texas producers.

Dr. Brent Bean, Texas Cooperative Extension agronomist here, said he quit participating in the National Winter Canola Variety Trials some time back when interest waned. But he’s participating once again due to calls from several producers.

David Bordovsky, Texas Agriculture Experiment Station research scientist in Chillicothe, said he hasn’t had a lot of producer interest, but

Duke University engineers are developing technology that may enable physicians to someday use high frequency ultrasound waves both to visualize the heart’s interior in three dimensions and then selectively destroy heart tissue with heat to correct arrhythmias.

“No one else has developed a way for ultrasound to combine therapy and imaging in a catheter, let alone 3-D imaging,” said Stephen Smith, the biomedical engineering professor who heads the project at Duke’s Pratt

A University of Alberta physicist who helped solve the age-old mystery of what keeps afloat the highest plateau on earth has added more pieces to the Tibetan puzzle. Dr. Martyn Unsworth has uncovered new research about the Tibetan Plateau–an immense region that for years has plagued scientists studying how the area became so elevated.
Several years ago, Unsworth and a team of scientists from China and the United States used low-frequency radio waves to detect that the mid-crust of the plate

Below the plains of the Big Sky states, where the Columbia and Snake rivers wind their way to the Pacific, might lie a geologic answer to one of our most pressing environmental problems: too much carbon dioxide in the air. The greenhouse gas traps heat to contribute to a slow warming of the atmosphere. For humans, who have been pumping carbon out of the earth for the last 200 years, part of the solution might be to finally learn how to do the reverse.

Along with researchers from

Researchers have utilised more than a decade’s worth of data from radar altimeters on ESA’s ERS satellites to produce the most detailed picture yet of thickness changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet.

A Norwegian-led team used the ERS data to measure elevation changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2003, finding recent growth in the interior sections estimated at around six centimetres per year during the study period. The research is due to be published by Sci

Wildly varying figures pose problems for tracking endangered species
Washington, DC– The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is supposed to help governments conserve endangered species by regulating the international sale and transport of wildlife.

However, a new study by scientists from Conservation International and the World Wildlife Fund shows that in some cases, the figures for trade recorded by CITES vary wildly from

In searching for ways to counteract the greenhouse effect, some scientists have proposed capturing the culprit—carbon dioxide—as it is emitted from power plants, then liquefying the gas and injecting it into the ocean. But there are pitfalls in that plan.

The carbon dioxide can rise toward the surface, turn into gas bubbles and vent to the atmosphere, defeating the purpose of the whole grand scheme. Even worse, if the liquid-to-gas conversion happens suddenly, the gas can bubbl

Interesting facts have been discovered in phytoimmunity sphere by the Russian-Belorus group of biochemists in the framework of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and Belorus Foundation for Basic Research projects. To protect themselves from pathogenic fungi, which penetrate plant tissues with the help of proteinase proteins, vegetables produce inhibitors to these proteinases. A peculiar “arms race” is taking place between them.

Animals’ immune system cells are aimed at resista

Researchers have utilised more than a decade’s worth of data from radar altimeters on ESA’s ERS satellites to produce the most detailed picture yet of thickness changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet.

A Norwegian-led team used the ERS data to measure elevation changes in the Greenland Ice Sheet from 1992 to 2003, finding recent growth in the interior sections estimated at around six centimetres per year during the study period. The research is due to be published by Scienc

The Marine Board of the European Science Foundation (ESF) has recently established a Working Group that will summarise current observations and identify possible future impacts of climate change in European marine waters. The Group will identify future needs for marine monitoring and R&D at both European and regional scales.

“It is becoming increasingly clear that effects of climate change (such as changes in water temperature, storm intensity, wave height, ocean currents and sea lev

Polluting carbon dioxide emissions generated by the food industry are the target of a new £800,000 research project involving The University of Nottingham.

Experts will look at new ways of cutting the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) created by the food processing industry — a major energy consumer through its reliance on cooking, refrigeration, freezing and air compressor systems.

The Carbon Vision project will be one of the biggest investigations ever undertaken into t

The new National Centre for Statistical Ecology (NCSE), a pioneering project which links research in the universities of Kent, Cambridge and St Andrews, has received a foundation grant of £1,101,447 from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The three partners in the new centre are the primary groups in the UK in the field of wildlife assessment, and all three are recognised internationally for their work on modelling population dynamics. By linking toget