Novel system uses polarized light pulses to reveal crop health

By firing rapid pulses of polarized light at corn, spinach and other crops, researchers have uncovered a picture of plant health that is invisible to the naked eye. Using a portable light source and detector technology, the researchers can differentiate minute differences in leaf colors – indicators of over- or under-fertilization, crop-nutrient levels and perhaps even disease.

The researchers hope their tra

Hurricane Emily’s 140-mile-per-hour winds, which last week blew roofs off hotels and flattened trees throughout the Caribbean, owed their force to an unlikely culprit – ocean spray.

According to a new study by two University of California, Berkeley, mathematicians and their Russian colleague, the water droplets kicked up by rough seas serve to lubricate the swirling winds of hurricanes and cyclones, letting them build to speeds approaching 200 miles per hour. Without the l

Tracing the larvae of marine organisms from where they were born to their ultimate destination has been regarded as one of the greatest challenges in ocean science. Managers of marine reserves areas have eagerly sought this information to help determine the optimal size and spacing of marine reserves; well-planned reserves should help ensure that protected populations can sustain themselves as well as provide a source of larvae to maintain exploited populations in areas open to fishing. In a

Ship strikes and entanglement in fishing gear are threatening the survival of the North Atlantic right whale, one of the most endangered whales with an estimated population of about 350. With eight recorded deaths in the past 16 months and a population growth rate that has declined since 1980, scientists say that unless emergency management actions are taken the population will face a catastrophic decline and become extinct.

A report in the July 22 issue of the journal Science say

The Arctic and Antarctic evoke images of virgin territories playing host to a rich variety of flora, fauna and indigenous populations, but also a hardy group of intrepid researchers and explorers. A special issue of RTD info, produced with the International Polar Foundation, joins the exploration of the poles’ vast scientific wonders.

The European Commission’s flagship research publication RTD info takes readers on a journey to the ends of the Earth in its exploration of polar r

Your breakfast this morning came at a cost not only to your wallet. Your bowl of Cheerios and cup of coffee and all the other meals for the other 6 billion people in our world cost the Earth a bit of its water, a bit of its ecological diversity, contributed to its pollution and may one day cost us our livelihood.

In the July 22, 2005 issue of the journal Science, co-author Terry Chapin, professor of ecology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) Institute of Arctic Biology

Paper appears in July 22 edition of Science, says government protections inadequate

The North Atlantic right whale’s future looks grim if the current mortality rates continue, according to Florida State University assistant professor of oceanography Douglas Nowacek and a group of fellow scientists from across the nation. They have co-authored a paper titled “North Atlantic Right Whales in Crisis” that appears in the July 22 edition of the journal Science.

In it, Nowa

East Africa now has some new NASA technology to monitor the tiny particles in the air known as aerosols.

Dr. Michael King, Senior Project Scientist of NASA’s Earth Observing System at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, Md., led a group of NASA scientists that traveled through Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda and Eritrea from February 26 to March 18, 2005, to find locations to place a number of NASA’s AErosol RObotic NETwork (AERONET) sunphotometer.

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After an interval of six weeks 60 scientists from ten countries returned to the parched heart of Spain to complete testing a new type of sensor intended to yield new insights into global vegetation growth, as well as gather data for the design of a next-generation ESA Earth Observation mission and support efforts to use satellite data for irrigation management.

In Cervantes’ comic tale the central Spanish region of La Mancha was where Don Quixote undertook a series of knightly

Geothermal heat from a depth of 4,000 metres to generate power in the future

Why roam far afield, when the good is so close at hand? Humankind burns coal, gas and oil to generate energy. It splits atoms, converts sunlight into electricity and tries to capture the wind. Yet, the earth beneath our feet contains energy enough to satisfy even the greatest demand, because 99% of the Earth is hotter that 1000°C, while 99% of the rest is actually hotter than 100°C. Only the Earth’s surf

The Earth’s magnetic field is strong enough for some kinds of analyses – this opens up new opportunities for carrying out examinations under difficult conditions

Where x-rays no longer manage to see, magnets allow us to look inside. Patients know what that means: they lay down in the “tube” surrounded by an enormous electromagnet, the so-called MRI scanner. Such large pieces of equipment artificially create strong magnetic fields which enable doctors to take the pictures inside

Researchers Track Underwater Noise Generated by December 26 Earthquake

When the sea floor off the coast of Sumatra split on the morning of December 26, 2004, it took days to measure the full extent of the rupture. Recently, researchers at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory analyzed recordings of the underwater sound produced by the magnitude 9.3 earthquake. Their unique approach enabled them to track the rupture as it moved along the Sumatra-Andaman Fault,

Saving large mammals such as elephants and rhino from extinction could be made more effective by focusing efforts on individual species as well as their habitats.

Scientists at the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology (IoZ) and Imperial College London have identified fundamental new approaches to improve the success of large mammal conservation. Published today in the journal Science, the largest study of its kind analyses key factors linked to the extinction of mam

Researchers from the Université de Montpellier II (France), the Institute of Geology of China, and the ESRF have been able to identify enigmatic fossils from Devonian (about 400 million years) as fructification of charophyte algae. Charophytes are land plants living in fresh water that still exist nowadays. This breakthrough allows researchers to better understand the evolution of these very old plants of the Paleozoic era and to have an improved overview of the climate at this period. The use of p

It is difficult to find out whether animals in the wild have enough food, but research suggests that they are hungry most of the time, according to a new paper published in the American journal, Science, on Friday 22 July.

Researchers at the University of Reading also argue that this surprising conclusion could provide valuable new insights into animal behaviour.

The researchers undertook an analysis of a huge data base, the Global Population Dynamics Database (1),

The environmental impact of what we buy and use is increasingly drawing the attention of business, governments, and consumers. The connection between consumption and environmental impact is analyzed in new and important ways in a special issue of Yale’s Journal of Industrial Ecology.

Articles in the special issue analyze the environmental impact of consumption and U.S. house size, diet change, work time reduction, time use, product life spans and the quality of life. Articl