A new CSIRO Plant Industry bred soybean variety, ’Snowy’, is set to enhance the profitability of the Australian soybean industry due to higher yields and better quality soybeans.

Developed by CSIRO Plant Industry’s Dr Andrew James, Snowy (name pending approval with Plant Breeder’s Rights) combines good tofu making qualities with good agronomic traits ­ one of the first soybeans to do so. “Snowy is highly suited to the Riverina region of NSW and northern Victoria

Scientists have discovered why there isn’t much impact-melted rock at Meteor Crater in northern Arizona. The iron meteorite that blasted out Meteor Crater almost 50,000 years ago was traveling much slower than has been assumed, University of Arizona Regents’ Professor H. Jay Melosh and Gareth Collins of the Imperial College London report in the cover article of Nature (March 10).

“Meteor Crater was the first terrestrial crater identified as a meteorite impact scar, and it’s proba

Earth’s ice-covered polar regions help to keep our climate cool and hold tremendous amounts of fresh water locked up in their glaciers, ice caps, and ice sheets. The ice contained in these vast freshwater reservoirs is the equivalent of nearly 220 feet of sea level. However, when most people think of polar ice, they usually do not think of Canada, the location of only a small percentage of the Arctic’s polar land ice.

Recent research conducted by NASA scientists has reve

New NSF plane will go higher and farther on environment studies

A new aircraft with exceptional research capabilities is scheduled to arrive at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Colo., this Friday. Known as HIAPER (High-performance Instrumented Airborne Platform for Environmental Research), the $81.5 million aircraft will serve the environmental research needs of the National Science Foundation, (NSF), NCAR’s primary sponsor and owner of the aircraft, for t

Researchers have long suspected that fertilizer runoff from big farms can trigger sudden explosions of marine algae capable of disrupting ocean ecosystems and even producing “dead zones” in the sea. Now a new study by Stanford University scientists presents the first direct evidence linking large-scale coastal farming to massive algal blooms in the sea.

Writing in the March 10 issue of the journal Nature, the authors conclude that some highly productive regions of the ocean are mu

An article in Journal of Applied Microbiology investigates how bacteria respond when they are subjected to environmental alterations, such as those of space stations, which feature lowered effects of gravity.

“Intra-specific differences in bacterial responses to modeled reduced gravity” by
Paul W. Baker and Laura G. Leff describes differences in bacterial responses to reduced gravity and how for some species, bacteria from the International Space Station (ISS), potentially are a

The occurrence of a super-eruption would have severe environmental effects and might threaten global civilisation. This is the assessment of a Geological Society of London working group [Notes 1,2] composed of senior Earth Scientists. The effects of a super-eruption would be comparable to those predicted for the impact of a 1km-diameter asteroid with the Earth. In fact, super-eruptions are 5-10 times more likely to occur than such an impact. The assessment of the working party has been presen

GRUMP mapping project finds urban areas increasing in surprising ways

The majority of the world’s population will soon live in urban rather than rural areas. Adding a spatial dimension to population estimates, a new study finds that as much as three percent of the Earth’s land area has already been urbanized, which is double previous estimates.

This new data collection, known as the Global Rural Urban Mapping Project, or GRUMP, has provided the basis for a number of im

The telltale paw prints with huge 10 centimetre-long nails spoke volumes. But now definitive corroborating DNA evidence seals the case of the most northerly sighting of a grizzly bear. The discovery fuels mounting evidence that Canada’s High Arctic is no longer the sole preserve of the polar bear – Nanuk is having to make room for its southern cousin.

The evidence of the barren ground grizzly bear (Ursus arctos) was discovered on Melville Island, an uninhabited part of the western

After skimming by the Earth at just 1954 km on 4 March 2005, Rosetta turned its Navigation Cameras back towards our home planet and recorded a series of black and white images.

These images were recorded by Navigation Camera 1 between 12:47 and 13:08 UTC, 5 March, with an integration time of between 0.01 and 0.05 seconds. The pictures show a field of view (FoV) of 4 degrees x 4 degrees.

At this time, Rosetta was flying away from the Earth having completed the closest-ever fly-by

Geothermal researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed sensors that can be placed in hotter and higher-pressure underground environments than previous instruments, a capability that is allowing geologists worldwide to make more precise measurements of subterranean conditions before and after large earthquakes occur.

The researchers hope the new sensors will provide geologists with a better understanding of earthquake-related phenomena and possibly provide more

By applying novel measurement techniques from a high-altitude aircraft, scientists detected two species of invading plants that are changing the ecology of rain forest near the Kilauea Volcano in the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. Lead author, Dr. Gregory Asner of the Carnegie Institution’s Department of Global Ecology, explained: “We found chemical fingerprints from the plant leaves and used them to tell which species dominated specific areas. We employed the recently upgraded NASA Airborne

Researchers who studied a man-made wetland in Ohio for two years concluded that the created wetland filtered and cleaned water as well as or better than would a natural marsh.

The wetland, which was built in an agricultural area, reduced levels of phosphorus by nearly 60 percent and nitrates by 40 percent. Phosphorus and nitrates are prime ingredients in both fertilizers and in water pollution.

High levels of these nutrients can cause algae to flourish, often to the detr

Spring starts early this year in Norway’s fjords and coastal waters, with sunny weather awakening a colourful bloom of marine phytoplankton. ESA’s Envisat spacecraft is being used to monitor its development.

Microscopic phytoplankton have been called ’the grass of the sea’ – they are the basic food on which all other marine life depends. Provided with sufficient light planktonic algae multiply by absorbing mineral nutrients and converting solar energy into o

One of nature’s most versatile microorganisms – a bacterium called Pseudomonas putida – could help mop up the toxic by-products caused by the destruction of the chemical weapon mustard, write Russian researchers in Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology this month.

At 40’000 tonnes, Russia houses the world’s largest stockpile of chemical warfare agents (CWAs). The country faces a race against time to dispose of the stockpile by 2007, in accordance with the Chemical We

While many infectious diseases are caused by human-to-human transmission, others are caused by microorganisms that exist in the outside environment. Scientists from a variety of fields, including medicine and the environment, must work together to address the challenges posed by these environmental pathogens, according to a new report, From Outside to Inside: Environmental Microorganisms as Human Pathogens, released today by the American Academy of Microbiology.

“The key differenc