Warmer oceans, more moisture in the atmosphere, and other factors suggest that human-induced climate change will increase hurricane intensity and rainfall, according to climate expert Kevin Trenberth of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. His paper, “Uncertainty in Hurricanes and Global Warming,” appears in the Perspectives section of the June 17 issue of Science.

“Trends in human-influenced environmental changes are now evident in hurricane regions,” says Trenberth. “Th

Could Earth have had an even more violent infancy than previously imagined? New isotope data suggest that the Earth not only had a very violent beginning but also point to new information about our planet’s chemical evolution.

New and precise measurements of a neodymium isotope ratio (142Nd/144Nd) led Maud Boyet and Rick Carlson of Carnegie Institution’s Department of Terrestrial Magnetism to the discovery that all terrestrial rocks have an excess of 142Nd compared

Rising dust storms a health problem, even continents away; infant mortality worst in drylands: Report

Growing desertification worldwide threatens to swell by millions the number of poor forced to seek new homes and livelihoods. And a rising number of large, intense dust storms plaguing many areas menace the health of people even continents away, international experts warn in a new report.

Thick storms rising out of the Gobi Desert affect much of China, Korea and Japan and

Results of latest survey show tiger numbers in Russia stable

Results of the latest full range survey indicate that tiger numbers in Russia appear to be stable, say the coordinators of a 2005 winter effort to count the animals, led by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society. After a massive winter endeavor to determine distribution and abundance of tigers in the Russian Far East, the last stronghold of Siberian tigers, researchers report that approximately 334-417 adult t

Foreign affairs and WCS offer a ’one world, one health’ solution

The threat of potential pandemics such as Ebola, SARS, and avian influenza demands a more holistic approach to disease control, one that prevents diseases from crossing the divide between humans, their livestock, and wildlife, according to the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in the most recent issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. This “One World, One Health” concept, as described by WCS veterinary st

Continued Freshening of the North Atlantic Could Slow the Conveyor in the 21st Century

Large regions of the North Atlantic Ocean have been growing fresher since the late 1960s as melting glaciers and increased precipitation, both associated with greenhouse warming, have enhanced continental runoff into the Arctic and sub-Arctic seas. Over the same time period, salinity records show that large pulses of extra sea ice and fresh water from the Arctic have flowed into the North Atl

European challenges for hydrodynamic modelling in coastal and shelf seas is the focus of the latest report from the European Science Foundation (ESF) Marine Board, released on 6 June at the fourth annual EuroGOOS (Global Ocean Observing System) conference in Brest, France.

Produced by a Marine Board Working Group, chaired by Dr. David Prandle of the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool, England, the report presents the latest findings from this Group which concentrates

Dutch Researcher Katja Heister investigated how electrical potential differences in clay layers influence the transport of salt and water through these. The outcomes of her research have important implications for new models of water transport, for example, those which predict the distribution of substances from waste deposits.

The transport of water and its solutes through clay plays an important role, for example, in the intrusion of seawater into the groundwater of coastal areas, t

New Zealand’s moa, a group of giant flightless birds including the largest birds ever to have lived, died out because they grew almost ten times slower than living species, reveals a study by researchers at the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology (IoZ) in London.

The new study published today in the journal Nature, in collaboration with the University of Oxford and the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, analysed moa leg bones and discovered up to nine growt

The world’s largest and most species rich forests are changing faster than we thought. We know the Amazonian rainforests are disappearing – around a fifth has been lost to logging and cattle ranging – but University geographers have discovered that the forests are changing at a remarkable rate. Their findings suggest we still don’t understand exactly how long the rainforests can continue to be the planet’s ‘lung’ or even how they really work.

Geographers and earth scientists h

Too many sheep in Britain’s uplands could be responsible for the decline of some native birds according to research published today in the journal Biology Letters.

The research, led by Dr Darren Evans from the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology in Banchory, provides the first hard evidence of a link between increased sheep grazing and the breeding patterns of the meadow pipit, Britain’s most common upland bird.

The researchers examined the effects of sheep grazing on egg s

Findings show that ice fracturing occurs in episodes and may be tied to changes evolving over seasons

A multifaceted research effort by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, and their international colleagues from the University of Tasmania and the Australian Antarctic Division, has resulted in several important new findings about Antarctica and the changing dynamics of its ice structure.

Scientists have been

Twenty-eight years after intense selective logging stopped in the region now known as Uganda’s Kibale National Park, the red-tailed guenon (Cercophithecus ascanius) is a primate still in decline. The logging practice, scientists report in a new study, changed the ecological balance for these monkeys, leading to behavioral changes and opening the door for multiple parasitic infections.

The researchers focused on three primate species, collecting 1,076 fecal samples from the

“There is great potential for Mid Sweden University to be one of the world’s leading departments of ecotechnology,” writes Arto Usenius, professor at VTT­-Technical Research Center of Finland, in his external assessment of the first phase of Mid Sweden University’s project “More Efficient Use of Forests.”

Within the framework of the project “More Efficient Use of Forests” researchers are investigating and promoting the possibility of replacing the consumption of finite resources

MTT Agrifood Research Finland has identified in a collaboration with the German Institute for Animal Breeding Mariensee (Federal Agricultural Research Centre, FAL) and Lohmann Tierzucht GmbH a genetic defect, which impairs the quality of brown eggs by producing a fishy odour. The MTT research team has also developed an efficient procedure to test for the defect. Lohmann Tierzucht (LTZ), one of the world’s largest chicken breeding companies, has already begun to apply this procedure, and marke

Researchers at the University of Alberta have discovered that chickens raised for meat can choose whether or not they’ll funnel the nutrients they eat towards themselves or their eggs.

That phenomenon of ’reproductive attitude’ is a headache for producers who must figure out how to deal with less productive hens that “partition” nutrients needed for egg production into their own bodies. “They like to be a little bit more selfish with their nutrients, and continue g