Air quality has improved in most European countries over the last few decades. Yet, even at current levels, air pollution may aggravate respiratory diseases, shorten life expectancy by up to several months, and possibly increase infant mortality in highly polluted areas.

In October 2005 the World Health Organization (WHO) will reconsider current air quality guidelines. Does the latest research warrant new standards to better protect our health? To answer this key question, WHO expe

The flow of carbon through soil is ten times greater than the amount of carbon moved around by the burning of fossil fuel but until now how this happens was at best poorly understood. Soil was almost literally a black box to scientists interested in carbon. Now researchers at the University of Warwick have been able to shed light in that black box by getting a particular class of insects to expose the key underground carbon traffic system – by eating it.

The University of Warwick te

Swedes eat on average twice as much meat, and considerably more fruit and vegetables in the early 21st century than in the 1870s. Nevertheless, the surface area required to produce our food has decreased, measured per person. But this decrease is largely based on non-sustainable use of resources.

How did our eating habits, and food production, change between 1870 and 2000? And how have these changes in turn affected our environment? Tina Schmid Neset has studied these questions

From this week, researchers worldwide can follow the flow of rivers and height of lakes across the African continent from the comfort of their desks. A new web-based demonstration launched to coincide with this week’s TIGER Workshop makes Envisat-derived altimetry data for African inland water freely available in near-real time.

Envisat’s Radar Altimeter-2 (RA-2) sensor fires around 1800 radar pulses a second down to the surface of the Earth, then measures very precisely ho

Computer software developed by astrophysicists to locate stars and galaxies in the night sky could help save the whale shark – whose spotted skin is like a starry sky – from extinction, according to new research published in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology.

Together with Australian marine biologist Brad Norman and JAVA programmer and software specialist Jason Holmberg, astrophysicist Dr Zaven Arzoumanian of the Universities Space Research Associatio

Radio frequency technology tracks mixer efficiency

Fishing for a way to assess mixing behavior in treatment tanks for radioactive waste, ecologists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory came up with an innovative use of radio frequency technology previously used to track migrating fish.

But rather than swimming out to sea implanted in young steelhead and salmon, thousands of passive integrated transponder, or PIT, tags were added to a clay simulant and then whipped ar

Flowering plants near ponds may owe their pollination not only to the winged creatures of the air, but also to the finned ones of the deep.

Scientists have discovered that fish indirectly help spread pollen among flowers near the water. That’s because they eat dragonfly larva, which live in freshwater ponds and other water bodies. Adult dragonflies are major predators of bees, butterflies and other insect pollinators. The result is a simple but unexpected cascade: The more fish

Bovines of different ages need different kinds of social environments. Calves enjoy a safe environment with other familiar members of their species. Heiferson the other hand, can benefit from the social experience resulting from being introduced to a new group.

In her thesis, Senior Scientist Satu Raussi from Agrifood Research Finland observes that calves brought up in pairs show fewer symptoms of stress than those that have reared in individual pens, although they are a little m

Broadband access terminals from the ESA supported project ‘Pacific Skies’ are being used in the Aceh region of Indonesia, scene of the devastating 2004 tsunami. The communications needs of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) and local people are being met in an area that suffered severe infrastructural damage.

The service is being deployed in co-operation with the AirPutih Foundation. One of the foundation’s key roles is to provide emergency telecommunication facilities and a medi

A possible culprit? Gulf’s “Loop Current”

Scientists monitoring ocean heat and circulation in the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita have a new understanding of how these tropical storms can gain intensity so quickly: The Gulf of Mexico’s “Loop Current” is likely intensifying hurricanes that pass over eddies of warm water that spin off the main current.

“A positive outcome of a hurricane season like this is that we’ve been able to learn more a

As the Amazon River floods every year, a sizeable portion of South America sinks several inches because of the extra weight – and then rises again as the waters recede, a study has found.

This annual rise and fall of earth’s crust is the largest ever detected, and it may one day help scientists tally the total amount of water on Earth.

“What would you do if you knew how much water was on the planet?” asked Douglas Alsdorf, assistant professor of geological scienc

Inexpensive technique verified in full-scale tests at three coal-fired power plants

Researchers at Lehigh University’s Energy Research Center (ERC) have developed and successfully tested a cost-effective technique for reducing mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants.

In full-scale tests at three power plants, says lead investigator Carlos E. Romero, the Lehigh system reduced flue-gas emissions of mercury by as much as 70 percent or more with modest impact on

Humans have cultivated potatoes for millennia, but there has been great controversy about the ubiquitous vegetable’s origins. This week, writing in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences, a team led by a USDA potato taxonomist stationed at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has for the first time demonstrated a single origin in southern Peru for the cultivated potato.

The scientists analyzed DNA markers in 261 wild and 98 cultivated potato varieties to assess w

Two satellite sensors work better than one for the study of Earth’s oceans, atmosphere and land – that was the message of a major ESA workshop bringing together scientific users of Envisat’s MERIS and AATSR instruments.

Launched three and a half years ago, ESA’s Envisat satellite was built with a synergistic approach in mind. Its ten onboard instruments observe the Earth in a variety of ways, but Envisat’s two most closely aligned sensors are the Medium Resolu

Study does not discount the suspected contributions of ’greenhouse gases’ in elevating surface temperatures

At least 10 to 30 percent of global warming measured during the past two decades may be due to increased solar output rather than factors such as increased heat-absorbing carbon dioxide gas released by various human activities, two Duke University physicists report.

The physicists said that their findings indicate that climate models of global warming need to be co

In 75 years’ time, the UK could be plagued by fly populations 250% up on today’s levels if forecasts of climate change prove accurate, ecologists have warned. Writing in a special climate change issue of the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology, Dave Goulson and colleagues from the University of Southampton found that if the worst case scenario for climate change occurs – a 5 deg C rise in temperature by 2080 – house fly numbers in the UK could explode.

Studie