IODP team succeeds in recovering sub-seafloor sample

The first 40 million years of Arctic climate history have been recovered from beneath the Arctic seafloor this week. After four days of working in hazardous conditions, the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program’s (IODP) Arctic Coring Expedition (ACEX) retrieved 272 meters of core. Extreme sea ice then forced the ship to abandon its position.
Coring of the Arctic’s first scientific borehole–located roughly 145 miles (23

Only 300 Delacour’s langurs remain; majority likely to die by 2014

The Delacour’s langur (Trachypithecus delacouri), a charismatic monkey found only in a tiny area of northern Vietnam, is close to extinction, scientists at the International Primatological Society’s 20th Congress reported today. New research suggests that as many as 200 of the remaining 300 individuals, one of the most threatened primates in the world, are likely to disappear within the next decade.

Large, nutrient-poor expanses of the open ocean are getting a substantial nitrogen influx from an abundant group of unicellular organisms that “fix,” or chemically alter, nitrogen into a form usable for biological productivity.

First identified about five years ago, these organisms – about 7 microns in diameter – are fixing nitrogen at rates up to three times higher than previously reported for the Pacific Ocean, according to research published in the Aug. 26, 2004 edition of th

Soil beside the stream can remove harmful microbes and organic material, researchers find

Harmful contaminants often taint drinking water drawn directly from a river, but a low-cost natural filter may lie just beyond the banks. Johns Hopkins researchers have found that the soil alongside a river can remove dangerous microbes and organic material as water flows through it. The cleaner water is then pumped to the surface through wells drilled a short distance from the river.

New theory on drizzle formation says a few big drops get all the water

In research that could lead to more accurate weather forecasts and climate models, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Brookhaven National Laboratory say a physical limit on the number of cloud droplets that grow big enough to form drizzle paradoxically makes drizzle form faster. That’s because those few droplets that cross the drizzle “barrier” readily collect enough surrounding droplets to

Researchers have found that a common aquatic plant removes many persistent organic compounds that are discharged into natural waters and engineered wetlands.

Environmental engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have found that various chlorinated, fluorinated and mixed chloro-fluoro compounds are taken up and sequestered in the plant tissue of their model plant species – duckweed (Lemna minor), a floating aquatic plant. These organic compounds are representative of the

The air pollution emitted by cigarettes is 10 times greater than diesel car exhaust, suggests a controlled experiment, reported in Tobacco Control.

Environmental tobacco smoke produces fine particulate matter, which is the most dangerous element of air pollution for health. Levels indoors can far exceed those outdoors, because new engine models and lead free fuels have cut the levels of particulate matter emissions from car exhausts, say the authors.

The controlled experimen

The first 40 million years of Arctic climate history was recovered from beneath the Arctic sea floor on Monday 23 August.

After four days drilling in hazardous conditions the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program’s Arctic Coring Expedition retrieved a 272m core before sea ice forced the work to be abandoned.

The deepest ever Arctic borehole, just 233 kilometres from the North Pole, was interrupted late on Monday when very thick, moving ice floes meant that even the world’s most p

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed new technologies for further use of wastepaper in an optimal and environmentally acceptable way. The particular problem in this process was the mixing of digitally printed paper and normal household wastepaper in the collection phase, which deteriorates the de-inking result. The new technologies improve the recyclability of fibres and decrease the amount of unexploitable fibre. These alternative technologies can make the conventional de-inking pr

People in Georgia’s Dodge and Bleckley counties have for years picked up small pieces of natural glass called “Georgiaites,” which were produced by an unknown asteroid or comet impact millions of years ago. Just where these small, translucent green objects came from, however, was unclear.

Now researchers at the University of Georgia, studying a kaolin mine in Warren County, have found a layer of tiny grains, which indicate that the grains and the Georgiaites were products o

University of Arizona scientists have discovered that meteorites, particularly iron meteorites, may have been critical to the evolution of life on Earth.

Their research shows that meteorites easily could have provided more phosphorus than naturally occurs on Earth — enough phosphorus to give rise to biomolecules which eventually assembled into living, replicating organisms.

Phosphorus is central to life. It forms the backbone of DNA and RNA because it connects these molec

Microbial degradation products and other forms of natural organic matter can make water look, smell and taste bad. Natural organic matter also can foul the membranes used in water treatment plants, significantly reducing their efficiency.

Now, a polymer-based colloidal adsorbent developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign offers an environmentally friendly and cost-effective way of removing troublesome natural organic matter from municipal water supplies.

As the advance of global warming becomes more certain, accurate predictions about its impacts are still largely guesswork. How can we know what long-term warming will do to complex ecosystems? One way is to do a large experiment and see what happens. A new study published in the journal Ecology shows that artificially warming the seawater by 3.5oC in a California bay had dramatic effects on 150 species of seaweeds and animals.

David Schiel (University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zeal

New raw materials are proving a technological leap in packaging.

VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland has developed new products from potatoes and grain for the packaging, paper, construction and medical technology industries. The new glues and paper coatings developed from starch are economical, durable and can be completely recycled. They also enable lighter packaging products. The starch products and their manufacturing methods signify an enormous step forward for the packag

There’s nothing quite like going into the deep freeze to learn more about planet Earth.

That’s where Jihong Cole-Dai, assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry at South Dakota State University, and graduate students Drew Budner and Dave Ferris will find themselves when they head to Antarctica in December.

In a collaborative research project with the University of California-San Diego and funded by the National Science Foundation, they will collect ice cores from the

While the Earth is moistened by rainfall, scientists believe that the water in soil can, in turn, influence rainfall both regionally and globally. Forecasters, water resource managers and farmers may benefit once this connection is better understood.

A NASA researcher led an effort that used a dozen computer models to locate “hot spots” around the world where soil moisture may strongly affect rainfall during northern hemisphere summertime. The results appear in the August 20 issue