While the raccoon that raids your trash at night may look cute and mischievous, think again. Its claws can be nasty. Even worse, it might carry rabies.

Now, scientists at Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia and at Molecular Targeting Technologies, Inc. (MTTI) in West Chester, Pa., are taking steps to prevent the disease. They have created a more powerful, safer vaccine than currently is available to combat rabies in wildlife.

Wildlife rabies is no small matter in

Researchers at North Carolina State University have shown that the amount of aerosols – dust particles, soot from automobile emissions and factories, and other airborne particles – in the atmosphere has a significant impact on whether the surface area below either absorbs or emits more carbon dioxide (CO2).

The researchers discovered that changes in the levels of airborne aerosols resulted in changes to the terrestrial carbon cycle, or the cycle in which CO2 is absorbed by plant

Research about wolves that began in Yellowstone National Park has been replicated in an adjacent area, and a growing body of evidence leads scientists to conclude that this historic predator may have an ecological impact far more important than realized in the American West.

A withering stand of aspen in Yellowstone National Park reflect a phenomenon that researchers from Oregon State University believe is now far more widespread – the loss of wolves in the American West leading to

When Mount St. Helen’s blew its top in 1980, Charlie Crisafulli was 22 years old and just beginning his career as a research ecologist. One of his first assignments: travel to Mount St. Helens 2 months after the historic eruption and study the aftermath.

Crisafulli and his colleagues traveled by helicopter into the volcanic disturbance zones to gather ecological data. Crisafulli, a scientist at the USDA Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station, spent the next 25 years

Hundreds of miles from the legendary California research centers where pioneering aircraft like the supersonic X-1 were put through their paces, National Aeronautics and Space Administration representatives are pushing the envelope in the Idaho desert with a very different, but equally unique aircraft. These space agency specialists are working with engineers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory to test unmanned aerial vehicles as part

There’s trouble in paradise. In Hawaii, where cattle have dotted the landscape for decades, ranching is becoming less profitable. Some landowners are cashing in on the vacation resort market by developing their land with high-rise hotels, cottages and “ranchettes.”

But a group from Stanford University’s Center for Conservation Biology (CCB) is working to make restoration of native forests just as economically attractive. They will be presenting their research Dec.

Issued jointly by the University of Cambridge and the Natural Environment Research Council.

A new institute is being launched today (9 December) in Cambridge that will offer a truly integrated approach to predicting and mitigating the future effects of aircraft emissions.

The ‘Institute for Aviation and the Environment’ (IAE) will look at the physics and chemistry of aviation emissions from their formation in the aircraft engine to their impact on near-airport pollut

In less than a month new EU food hygiene regulations will come into effect, forcing farmers, processors and distributors to definitively implement farm to fork traceability. E-FRUITRACE has validated a Europe-wide Internet-based solution for the fruit sector.

“From January 1, 2006 traceability will cease to be an added-value element in the agricultural industry and will become obligatory because of the introduction of the new EU legislation,” explains Pedro de la Peña, the tech

The length of time necessary to recover from a mass extinction may seem like a problem from the past, but a team of Penn State researchers is investigating recovery from the second largest extinction in Earth’s history at the end of the Ordovician 443 million years ago and sees some parallels to today’s Earth.

“We are currently in an undeniable biotic crisis,” says Andrew Z. Krug, graduate student in geosciences. “We are not just interested in what will disappear, but

Over the next few weeks researchers at the National Nuclear Security Administration’s Sandia National Laboratories will begin testing innovative ways to treat arsenic-contaminated water in an effort to reduce costs to municipalities of meeting the new arsenic standard issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The testing is sponsored by the Arsenic Water Technology Partnership (AWTP), a multiyear-program funded by a congressional appropriation through the U.S. Department of Energ

In the week that the UK is expected to admit it risks missing its targets on greenhouse gas emissions, two British universities can reveal they have formed a strategic partnership with one of the world’s biggest banks to help launch a new wave of environmental research.

HSBC, which this week announced it would go ’carbon neutral’, is putting £650,000 into a three year collaboration with Newcastle University and the University of East Anglia to support a new type of

No matter whether they’re big, little, long, short, skinny or fat — classic stalactites have the same singular shape. Almost everyone knows that stalactites, formations that hang from the roof of caves, are generally long, slender and pointy. But the uniqueness of their form had gone unrecognized. “There’s only one shape that all stalactites tend to be. The difference is one of magnification — it’s either big or it’s small, but it’s still the same shape,”

There is undeniable proof that water once existed on the planet Mars, a team of researchers has concluded in a series of 11 articles this week in a special issue of the journal Science.

A team of more than 100 scientists from numerous government agencies and universities, among them Mark Lemmon of Texas A&M University’s College of Geosciences, co-wrote the articles. Lemmon was the principal author on one article and co-author on three others describing the work of Spiri

Populations of the black-legged kittiwake will not recover unless the commercial sandeel fishery off the east coast of Scotland and north-east England remains closed indefinitely, ecologists have said. The stark warning comes from a paper published today in the British Ecological Society’s Journal of Applied Ecology. It is the first study to examine the combined effects of oceanography and fisheries on a North Sea seabird.

Kittiwake numbers in the North Sea have declined by more

A new approach to aircraft scheduling that uses computer models could allow a safe increase in airport throughput and reduce pollution.

The system under development would, for the first time, provide runway controllers with advice, based on state-of-the-art computer models, on the most efficient, safe sequence in which aircraft can take-off. Currently, runway controllers carry out their demanding job using their own observations and mental calculations, with limited reliance on t

The daily business of fishing and trawling and its effect on the marine environment is scrutinised in a new report from the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, published Tuesday, 7 December 04.

The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) welcomes the report, which is expected to highlight the extent of damage caused by overfishing and dredging of the seabed.

NERC is currently exploring the potential for a new programme, ‘Science for Sustainable Marine Biores