A landmark study released today reveals that approximately 60 percent of the ecosystem services that support life on Earth – such as fresh water, capture fisheries, air and water regulation, and the regulation of regional climate, natural hazards and pests – are being degraded or used unsustainably. Scientists warn that the harmful consequences of this degradation could grow significantly worse in the next 50 years.

“Any progress achieved in addressing the goals of poverty and

Engineers at the University of Liverpool are conducting research to reduce the threat posed to homes and property by ocean waves.

Approximately 10% of people in England live in areas at risk from flooding or coastal erosion. In the absence of man-made defences such as sea walls, the annual damage to property and roads in these areas would exceed £2 billion.

Terry Hedges, from the University’s Department of Civil Engineering has produced a computer model to assess volum

The innumerable benefits provided by the Earth – everything from fresh water and clean air to productive soils, wild fisheries, and genetic resources – have been depleted at an unprecedented rate in the past 50 years, and in many cases humans are living on borrowed time unless they wake up, a group of scientific experts said today.

In presentations made jointly in 12 cities around the world, authors of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment delivered a major report on the grim sta

New dehydration method ensures inexpensiv granulated food of high quality

The Norwegian company Dtech AS – a spin-off of SINTEF and NTNU – is in the process of building a large factory on the basis of the results obtained by the three scientists.

The new plant will supply the international food industry with dried maize and dried peas – ingredients which will end up in dried soups and powdered casserole dishes all over the world.

High quality at low price

Tilt is a 100,000-year planetary pacemaker

Scientists have long debated what causes glacial/interglacial cycles, which have occurred most recently at intervals of about 100,000 years. A new study reported in the March 24 issue of Nature finds that these glacial cycles are paced by variations in the tilt of Earth’s axis, and that glaciations end when Earth’s tilt is large.

With more than 30 explanations proposed for these glacial cycles, researchers at the Woods Hole Oc

For the first time, a group of scientists has accomplished the daunting task of evaluating the status of all of the ecosystems on Earth, and the outlook is troubling.

Commissioned by the United Nations in 2001, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment program will issue its primary report on March 30 during press conferences in London, Washington, D.C., Tokyo, Beijing, New Delhi, Brasilia, Cairo, Nairobi and Rome. More than 2,000 scientists from 95 countries participated in the

Economic assistance to areas surrounding Africa’s rain forest parks does not, as currently applied, contribute to their health, suggests an extensive survey of park scientists and managers. Rather, the survey found the most successful parks are those with public support and strong law enforcement. The survey’s authors also said that their findings indicate that careful ecological and compliance monitoring and stable long-term funding are key to park success.

The survey

A small autonomous underwater vehicle, or AUV, named Spray was launched yesterday about 12 miles southeast of Bermuda. The two-meter-(6-foot)-long orange glider with a four-foot wingspan will slowly make its way northwest, crossing the Gulf Stream and reaching the continental shelf on the other side before turning around and heading back to Bermuda, where it will be recovered in July.

The voyage will be the vehicle’s second trip across the Gulf Stream.Spray made history last

Predicting when large earthquakes might occur may be a step closer to reality, thanks to a new study of undersea earthquakes in the eastern Pacific Ocean. The study, reported in today’s Nature, is the first to suggest that small seismic shocks or foreshocks preceding a major earthquake can be used in some cases to predict the main tremors.

Scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and the University of Southern California (USC) report that some types of larg

Siberian researchers have developed a biologically active sorbent of a new generation. The sorbent provides for the 100-percent efficient water purification from microorganisms and bacteriophages. Microbiological researches were performed with partial support of the U.S. Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CRDF) grant.

Specialists of the Tomsk Polytechnical University and Scientific Research Institute “Microorganism Culture Collection” (VECTOR State Research Center

Contradicting previous assumptions, new fisheries research shows that allocating catch among vessels reduces the amount of fish discarded at sea.

The study in Canada’s British Columbia waters compared so-called individual transferable quotas with a previously used system of trip limits where vessels are only allowed to land a certain quantity of each species every two months.

The findings come at a time when individual transferable quotas are being considered for

The recent killer tsunami has highlighted once more the importance of coastline protection. In natural conditions, this function is taken up by mangroves, forests thriving at the edge of land and sea that are ecologically and socio-economically important for local people in tropical countries on all continents. Using biology, geography, hydrology, socio-economic interviews, and 18th-century history, an international team led by Dr. Farid Dahdouh-Guebas has demonstrated that in the recent past an

NASA continues to explore the impact of black carbon or soot on the Earth’s climate. NASA uses satellite data and computer models that recreate the climate. New findings show soot may be contributing to changes happening near the North Pole, such as accelerating melting of sea ice and snow and changing atmospheric temperatures.

Dorothy Koch of Columbia University, New York, and NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), New York, and James Hansen of NASA GISS are c

Research published in Nature shows theoretical feasibility of quake forecasting

Earthquakes along a set of fault lines in the Pacific Ocean emit small “foreshocks” that can be used to forecast the main tremor, according to research in the March 24 issue of Nature. It is the first demonstration that some types of large imminent earthquakes may be systematically predictable on time scales of hours or less. Statistically reliable forecasting of imminent quakes has been an elusive goal f

Surveys for other countries underway

Climate change and the threat of global warming are poorly understood by the U.S. public, and taking action to reduce their impact is not a high priority, according to a recent MIT survey.

These results suggest that change in U.S. climate policy will not be led by public opinion. Elected officials will have to provide leadership–a task they will find difficult because achieving significant reduction of the greenhouse gases linked to cl

Rising sea levels 20,000 years ago, as the last ice age was beginning to wane, often are attributed in part to melting in West Antarctica.

But in a new study led by University of Washington researchers, an ice core of 1,000 meters was used as a sort of dipstick to show that a key section of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet probably never contained as much ice as scientists originally thought it did. That means it couldn’t have contributed as much to the higher sea level. In an area c