The Arctic Ocean receives about 10 percent of Earth’s river water and with it some 25 teragrams [28 million tons] per year of dissolved organic carbon that had been held in far northern bogs and other soils.

Now an international team of U.S. and German scientists, including some funded by the National Science Foundation, have used carbon-14 dating techniques to determine that most of that carbon is fairly young and not likely to affect the balance of global climate.

They report

Sea-level rise and changes to cyclone intensity under enhanced greenhouse conditions would pose a considerable increase in risk to coastal property and infrastructure, according to a recent CSIRO study.

Dr John Church, of CSIRO and the Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems CRC, said a recent study had confirmed that sea-level in the Australian region was rising at rates which would have a significant impact over decades to come.

Speaking at the Coast to Coast 04 conference in Hobart tod

It may be possible to alter plants so they are more nutritious and easier to process without weakening them so much they fall over, according to Purdue University researchers who found a new twist in a plant formation biochemical pathway.

Decreasing the amount of two acids in plant cell walls may enhance livestock feed digestibility for better nutrition, while increasing the potential uses of various plants, said Clint Chapple, Purdue biochemistry professor.

The findings, published

Scientists at the University of Bath are beginning research to find a new chemical based on plant oils and sugar which would make washing powder, shampoos and soaps less damaging to the environment.

Researchers from the University’s Chemical Engineering Department have been given a £95,000 grant to develop a new complex chemical reaction which would produce a range of molecules that could replace the petroleum-based chemicals used now in many cleaning materials.

Household deter

Populations of antelope, elk and deer face growing gauntlet of gas fields and highways

Bottlenecks from increased development are choking off ancient migration routes for wildlife in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE) and other regions, according to a study by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) that appears in the current issue of the journal Conservation Biology.

Increased gas development in particular is making it more and more difficult for specie

Researchers have found perforated shells that appear to be beads dating back 76,000 years ago, causing the development of language and symbolic communication to be older than previously thought by 30,000 years.

The 41 tick shells, punctured with holes of roughly one centimetre across in the same place, were found at Blombos Cave site, 300 km east of Cape Town, South Africa, by Christopher Henshilwood, a professor at the Centre for Development Studies of the University of Bergen in Norway,

Dumping iron in the ocean is known to spur the growth of plankton that remove carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, from the atmosphere, but a new study indicates iron fertilization may not be the quick fix to climate problems that some had hoped.

Scientists have quantified the transport of carbon from surface waters to the deep ocean in response to fertilizing the ocean with iron, an essential nutrient for marine plants, or phytoplankton. Prior work suggested that in some ocean regions

A remarkable expedition to the waters of Antarctica reveals that iron supply to the Southern Ocean may have controlled Earth’s climate during past ice ages. A multi-institutional group of scientists, led by Dr. Kenneth Coale of Moss Landing Marine Laboratories (MLML) and Dr. Ken Johnson of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI), fertilized two key areas of the Southern Ocean with trace amounts of iron. Their goal was to observe the growth and fate of microscopic marine plants (phytopla

A North Atlantic Ocean circulation system weakened considerably in the late 1990s, compared to the 1970s and 1980s, according to a NASA study.

Sirpa Hakkinen, lead author and researcher at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. and co-author Peter Rhines, an oceanographer at the University of Washington, Seattle, believe slowing of this ocean current is an indication of dramatic changes in the North Atlantic Ocean climate. The study’s results about the system tha

Polar clouds are known to play a major role in the destruction of Earth’s protective ozone layer, creating the springtime “ozone hole” above Antarctica. Now, scientists have found that polar clouds also play a significant role in removing meteoric iron from Earth’s mesosphere. The discovery could help researchers refine their models of atmospheric chemistry and global warming.

Using a sensitive laser radar (lidar) system, laboratory experiments and computer modeling, researchers from the Uni

Remote ‘marine deserts’ in the Atlantic Ocean could provide scientists with valuable clues to understanding climate change.

A research team led by the Plymouth Marine Laboratory will shortly set sail from the Falkland Islands, for the start of an expedition to study the interaction between tiny floating marine organisms (plankton) and the atmosphere. By monitoring the plankton and the influence of changing climate on its growth, they hope to discover whether the plankton act as a so

Researchers in the Netherlands have investigated the molecular structure of plant proteins that must provide alternatives for the animal proteins in our food over the next 10 years. They discovered that proteins with a similar chemical structure behaved differently after heating. The behaviour of the proteins after heating plays an important role in the development of a new type of meat substitute product.

Francesca O’Kane used various proteins from peas and soya for her research. After h

Research in the Netherlands has revealed that under sub-otpimal conditions, the best way for rice breeders to improve the rice harvest is to produce varieties whose performance is not fertiliser dependent. However, specifically modified varieties need to be developed for rice growing under saline conditions.

Gambian researcher Baboucarr Manneh investigated variations in the rice yield and the possibilities for increasing this under a variety of environmental circumstances by means of plant

Adding small amounts of seaweed to contaminated soil could prove to be a natural and effective way of breaking down the toxic pesticide DDT, according to new research in the Journal of Chemical Technology and Biotechnology. A British biologist, Ian Singleton, worked with colleagues in Australia and Thailand to find the right formula to use. Too much seaweed hindered biodegradation, but the most effective mix – 0.5% seaweed added to waterlogged soil – managed to remove 80% of the DDT present over si

The Granada Basin, home to the Alhambra, is located in one of the most seismically active zones in the Iberian Peninsula. Historical evidence shows that the last major earthquake occurred there in 1431. New evidence indicates, however, that the topographical features of the area surrounding the Alhambra reflect recent and recurrent, though moderate, seismic activity. The research is published this week in Journal of Quaternary Science.

The Alhambra, one of the most visited monuments in Euro

When it comes to air pollution, what goes on at night can be just as important as what happens during the day, say National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists and their colleagues in a study published 10 April in Geophysical Research Letters. The scientists found that nighttime chemical processes remove nitrogen oxides (NOx) from the atmosphere in the marine boundary layer off the coast of New England. These gases are one of the two basic ingredients for making ozone po