Scientists at the University of Sussex are working with local communities in Ecuador to help save one of the world’s rarest species of monkey – and the endangered rainforest where it lives.

The Brown-headed Spider Monkey (Ateles fusciceps) is “critically endangered”, which means that without urgent action to protect the 50 known breeding pairs still in the wild, the species could become extinct. The spider monkey – unusual in that it is exclusively a fruit-eater – is under threat

If humans continue to use fossil fuels in a business as usual manner for the next several centuries, the polar ice caps will be depleted, ocean sea levels will rise by seven meters and median air temperatures will soar 14.5 degrees warmer than current day.

These are the stunning results of climate and carbon cycle model simulations conducted by scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. By using a coupled climate and carbon cycle model to look at global climate and

Using alum and a polymer, researchers improve water quality by ninety percent

UC Riverside scientists are able to improve water quality by 90 percent in the rivers flowing into the Salton Sea, the largest lake in California, by using two kinds of water-treatment chemicals that remove phosphorus and silt from the river water.

The researchers investigated the use of alum, a type of salt that has been used to treat phosphorus-rich lakes for decades. They also cleaned wa

The deepest, darkest, most inhospitable place on Earth is the focus of a new £2 million research project funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

The ECOMAR project will explore the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a mountain range about the size of the Alps, located deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean. The research will be mainly concentrated around the Charlie Gibbs Fracture Zone, a giant canyon hundreds of miles long and about 20 miles wide, that cuts through the mountain ra

An international team of scientists including the University of Leeds’ Liane Benning have successfully trialled techniques to search for life on Mars. Their findings – microbes deep within ice-filled volcanic tubes – reveal how to test for life on the red planet.

Dr Benning from earth and environment is the sole UK member of the AMASE team studying rocks, ice and micro-organisms on the arctic island of Svalbard in Norway, which has a geology similar to that of parts of Mars. “

Flight simulator technology is to be applied to the precast concrete manufacturing industry in a bid to promote resource efficiency, reduce waste and encourage recycling.

The move, led by the Centre for Construction Innovation and Research at the University of Teesside and Nottingham Centre for Infrastructure at the University of Nottingham involves partners at British Precast Federation, Tarmac, Aggregate Industries, Buckan and a host of precast companies.

The two-year

Researchers at Duke’s Pratt School of Engineering have developed a new way to measure microbes’ exposure to ultraviolet light. The tool could bolster efforts to use UV light to improve the quality and safety of tap water in the U.S.

The novel “microsphere dosimeter” technique is the first direct test of how much UV light microorganisms in fluids have been exposed to, said the researchers — a critical step in validating the use of UV light treatment for preventing

Petroleum exploration tool may have new use in hurricane study

In 2004 and now in 2005, the hurricane seasons have been horrifyingly intense – so how bad is the long-range forecast? Based on a century of data, meteorologists currently believe that a 30-year lull in hurricane activity is over and we are at the beginning of a new multi-decade period of larger and more frequent storms. However, there is other data that suggests we may also be coming to the end of a thousand year peri

IODP Expedition 311 returns to port with core samples

An international team of scientists supported by the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program (IODP) has completed a unique research expedition aimed at recovering samples of gas hydrate, an ice-like substance hidden beneath the seafloor off Canada’s western coast. Gas hydrate, a mixture of water and mostly methane, is believed to occur under the world’s oceans in great abundance, but it quickly “melts” once removed from the h

California’s iconic oak woodlands have endured many assaults over the years–they’ve been cut for fuel, cleared for vineyards and housing developments, and their seedlings face intense grazing pressure and competition from invasive grasses. But the future will bring a new threat–climate change–which could drastically reduce the areas in which oaks can grow.

Researchers at the University of California, Santa Cruz, have taken a close look at the implications of climate

Scientists aboard pioneering icebreaking ships investigate ocean conditions in unexplored region to better understand Arctic’s role in global climate change

Two ships taking part in a recently completed research voyage investigating the oceanography, marine geology, geophysics and ice cover of the Arctic Ocean have become the first surface vessels to traverse the Canada Basin, the ice-covered sea between Alaska and the North Pole.

The Swedish vessel Oden and the

The economic benefits of protecting a rainforest reserve outweigh the costs of preserving it, says University of Alberta research–the first of its kind to have conducted a cost-benefit analysis on the conservation of species diversity.

“The traditional moral and aesthetic arguments have been made about why we should conserve the biodiversity in rainforests, but little has been done that looks at whether it makes pure economic sense to do so,” said Dr. Robin Naidoo, who did hi

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved a new partnership with Virginia Tech’s College of Natural Resources to improve the way the Clean Water Act is implemented in Virginia.

The stated purpose of the Clean Water Act is “to protect the biological integrity of the Nation’s waters,” said Nathaniel “Than” Hitt, a doctoral student in the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences. “However, the law does not define what biological integrity is. That

A landmark discussion paper, published by the Agricultural Institute of Canada, proposes that the GST or some other levy be applied to groceries to help achieve sustainable agriculture and staunch a potentially disastrous collapse of smaller sized farms.

The paper (online at www.aic.ca/issues/AIC_discussion_paper_Final_ENG.pdf), commissioned by Canada’s foremost agricultural institute to help catalyze a national roadmap to sustainable agriculture, also calls for governments to us

A new study released today in the journal Science shows that areas buffered by coastal forests, like mangroves, were strikingly less damaged by the 2004 tsunami than areas without tree vegetation. This is believed to be the first peer-reviewed empirical and field-based study to document a clear link between coastal vegetation and protection from the tsunami. The study was undertaken by a large research team, comprising ecologists, a botanist, geographers, a forester, and a tsunami wave enginee

An agreement on space-based information services and access to, and provision of, Earth Observation data was signed today by ESA and the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission. The signature took place at ESRIN, the ESA Earth Observation Centre in Frascati, Italy.

Dr Volker Liebig, Director of ESA’s Earth Observation Programme, signed the agreement on the ’Specific arrangement concerning the development of space-based information services and the access to and provi