New source of larvae could make large-scale lobster farms feasible

Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution has begun a new program scientists hope will make large-scale culturing of spiny lobster economically feasible. The project is based on the serendipitous discovery that lobster larvae are settling on open water fish cages in Puerto Rico by the thousands.

“Spiny lobsters are one of the most highly-prized fisheries species in the world, and especially in Florida wa

Virginia Tech’s Small Grains Breeding Program is developing a new type of barley that lacks the fibrous covering. This new hulless barley offers producers an alternative grain for both traditional and new markets, including food, feed, and ethanol.

The price for winter barley has declined since 1996. Even though winter barley was an integral component of the region’s cropping system, growers stopped producing it because it was not profitable. The Small Grains Breeding P

A team in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences is leading the development of the Pastureland Management System (PLMS), a free, practical, and portable computer-based aid program that helps livestock farmers compare different strategies for managing their land and livestock.

The system’s goal is to seasonally balance forage produced on the farm and forage needed by livestock. John Galbraith, assistant professor of crop and soil environmental sciences,

Virginia’s soybean growers are worried that a devastating problem — Asian Soybean Rust — will strike Virginia’s crop, valued at $81 million in 2003. Agricultural leaders, including those in Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, have been working with Virginia growers to ensure they are well prepared to deal with the disease if it occurs.

The disease, which extensively reduced soybean yields in Brazil, was identified in Louisiana last fa

A different style of coastal barrier islands that forms under lower-energy conditions than classic ocean-facing barriers, such as North Carolina’s Outer Banks, has been identified by coastal geological researchers at Duke University and the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland. The new style of islands is typically found in protected bays and lagoons.

“This is a major and important recognition,” said Orrin Pilkey, a geology professor emeritus at Duke’s Nicholas

Over 35 million could be affected

The potential for devastating tsunamis in the northern Caribbean is high, say marine scientists, based on their analysis of historical data since the arrival of Columbus. Several natural phenomena could trigger giant tsunamis, they say, with effects felt in the islands of the Greater and Lesser Antilles and along the east and Gulf coasts of the United States.

Nancy Grindlay and Meghan Hearne of the University of North Carolina Wilmingto

It does not appear there will be any major relief this spring or summer from the unusually dry weather that has recently hit the Pacific Northwest, according to new projections of drought severity and fire risk that are based on “general circulation” models that forecast global climate.

The analysis, which was developed by researchers at the U.S.D.A. Forest Service and Oregon State University, also shows that the northwestern part of the country will face forest and rangeland fire

The highest levels of silver contamination ever observed in the open ocean turned up in samples collected during a survey of the North Pacific in 2002. Researchers from the University of California, Santa Cruz, measured silver concentrations 50 times greater than the natural background level. Though still well below levels that would be toxic to marine life, this contamination of what had been considered relatively pristine waters highlights the increasingly global impact of industrial emission

WWF and the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) published results of scientific assessment of the “Sakhalin-2” oil and gas project’s (Sakhalin Energy company) impact on the Okhotsk-Korean population of grey whales. The findings are distressing: if only three females perish, this grey whale (Eschrichtius robustus) population will inevitably disappear.

An independent expert group of researchers has confirmed ecologists’ confidence: the “Sakhalin-2” oil and gas project threa

If farmers talk big about 2004 crops as they get ready to head out into the fields this spring, let them talk. Believe them. Last year’s crop season saw record yields in every major crop amid the closest-to-perfect weather conditions of the last century, scientists say.

“Never before have corn, soybeans, sorghum, and alfalfa hay all achieved record yields in the same year,” said Stanley A. Changnon, chief emeritus of the Illinois State Water Survey (ISWS) and an adjunct prof

A recent international scientific study on Russian soils raises concerns that acid rain may have serious implications for forest growth in the U.S., particularly in eastern areas such as the Adirondack and Catskill regions of New York according to the U.S. Geological Survey.

“We’ve known that acid rain acidifies surface waters, but this is the first time we’ve been able to compare and track tree growth in forests that include soil changes due to acid rain,” said USGS s

Acquired from orbit 800 kilometres away, this Envisat image shows two volcanoes erupting simultaneously on Russia’s snowy Kamchatka Peninsula this week.

Located in the Russian Far East, the Kamchatka Peninsula is a landscape covered with volcanoes, part of the Pacific ’Ring of Fire’. Two stratovolcanoes, Kliuchevskoi and Shiveluch are currently erupting simultaneously.

The more southerly 4835-metre-high Kliuchevskoi volcano began its latest eruption on 17 January 2005.

Seismologists have long relied on earthquakes or expensive tools like explosives to help create images of Earth’s interior, but a new method created by University of Colorado at Boulder researchers will produce quicker, cheaper and clearer images.

Rather than waiting for earthquakes, the researchers have now recovered surface wave information from ambient seismic noise that is constantly produced by fluctuations in the Earth’s atmosphere and oceans. Measuring surface wa

Frees seismologists from ’tyranny’ of waiting for earthquakes

Seismologists have long relied on earthquakes or expensive tools like explosives to help create images of Earth’s interior, but a new method created by University of Colorado at Boulder (CU-Boulder) researchers will produce quicker, cheaper and clearer images.
Rather than waiting for earthquakes, the researchers have recovered surface-wave information from normal seismic noise that is constantly produc

Foreign species, such as zebra mussels and carp, are invading the Great Lakes and changing the ecology of this vital ecosystem. A study from McMaster University published in the March issue of the Journal of Great Lakes Research suggests that for the round goby, a recently introduced fish species, their ability to wrest territory from native fish plays a key role in their dominance of the Great Lakes.

In the study, McMaster’s Sigal Balshine, an assistant professor of psychol

Ecologists know that when it comes to habitats, size matters, and now a new study finds that contrary to earlier beliefs, that maxim holds true right down to the tiny plants at the bottom of many oceanic and freshwater food chains.

The study, conducted by University of Florida, University of Kansas and University of Texas researchers, is important because it shows that tiny microbes follow the same diversity patterns as larger organisms, said Robert D. Holt, a UF professor of zoolog