New research on untreated green olives has found that products with a stated shelf-life of 2-3 years can be ‘unacceptable’ long before their sell-by date. The study, published in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, looked at the growing trend towards using polyethylene pouches which are vacuum-packed, filled with brine or packed in ‘modified atmospheres’. Only the vacuum pouches gave promising results, producing a shelf-life of nearly two years, while those packed in ordinary air had

Planter size has a significant impact on per acre costs, according to a University of Illinois Extension study examining planter costs with different farm sizes.

“Planting more hours per day could result in a smaller planter size having lower costs,” added Gary Schnitkey, U of I Extension farm management specialist who conducted the study.

The study’s objective was to determine the planter size that had the lowest cost for a given farm size. Farm sizes from 400 to 4,000 acres

Long-debated, a firm answer is now on the horizon

Earth’s magnetic field reverses every few thousand years at low latitudes and every 10,000 years at high latitudes, a geologist funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) has concluded. Brad Clement of Florida International University published his findings in this week’s issue of the journal Nature. The results are a major step forward in scientists’ understanding of how Earth’s magnetic field works.

Next time an asteroid or comet is on a collision course with Earth you can go to a web site to find out if you have time to finish lunch or need to jump in the car and DRIVE.

University of Arizona scientists are launching an easy-to-use, web-based program that tells you how the collision will affect your spot on the globe by calculating several environmental consequences of its impact.

Starting today, the program is online at http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/impacteffects

Forensic technique can be used for biological field studies A method used by forensic experts to collect evidence from crime scenes could soon be taken up by biologists studying animals in the wild. An article in BMC Ecology this week describes how DNA from animal blood and tissue samples can be stored on record cards made from specialist filter paper and used in experiments at a later date. “Techniques involving the analysis of DNA have become ubiquitous in many areas of wil

Research published in Nature suggests that enough greenhouse gases could be in the atmosphere as early as 2050 to melt the massive ice-sheet that covers Greenland. As a result, sea levels could rise by around seven metres over the next 1,000 years.

Along with colleagues in Belgium and Germany, Dr Jonathan Gregory, of the Centre for Global Atmospheric Modelling (CGAM) at the University of Reading and the Met Office Hadley Centre, has estimated that Greenland is likely to pass a threshold of w

Some 600 vials stored in a University of Michigan freezer for more than 30 years may hold keys to rescuing nearly extinct Tahitian land snails.

The snails, famous since the late 1800s as classic examples of species that had rapidly diversified in an isolated environment, later became victims of a “spectacularly inept attempt at biological control,” said U-M mollusk expert Diarmaid Ó Foighil.

The trouble started in 1975 when the predatory rosy wolf snail was deliberately introduced

A team of California scientists made headlines four years ago when it reported finding one of the largest insect colonies in the world – a 600-mile-long subterranean network of Argentine ants stretching from Northern California to the Mexican border. According to the researchers, this “supercolony” is made up of billions of closely related workers – all direct descendants of a small group of Argentine ants that were accidentally introduced into California more than a century ago.

But new st

Analysis of 11,633 species published in ’Nature’ underscores urgent need for major shift in conservation strategies

At least 300 Critically Endangered (CR) – as well as at least 237 Endangered (EN) and 267 Vulnerable (VU) – bird, mammal, turtle and amphibian species have no protection in any part of their ranges, according to the most comprehensive peer-reviewed analysis of its kind. The findings appear in the current issue of the journal Nature.

The “global gap analysis” au

Szechuan pepper can be used to deter crop-destroying mammals such as the prairie vole, without affecting non-targeted species, says research published in the journal Pest Management Science.

Researchers discovered that compounds in the pepper probably repel prairie voles by stimulating pain receptors in the nose, mouth and eyes. The component Zanthoxylum, found in Szechuan pepper, stimulate neurons different to those stimulated by other natural deterrents such as capsaicin, from capsicum pep

It’s bad enough that fossils, buried deep in layers of rock for thousands or millions of years, may be damaged or missing pieces, but what really challenges paleontologists, according to University at Buffalo researchers, is the amount of deformation that most fossils exhibit.

That’s why Tammy Dunlavey, a master’s degree candidate in the Department of Geology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences, and her colleagues are working on a computational method to morph fossils back

A unique type of squirrel could become extinct within the next 20 years unless extra conservation measures are taken, say the authors of a new study.

Scientists from the University of Newcastle upon Tyne’s School of Biology have found that small number of red squirrels found in Cumbria, North West England, have a unique genetic make-up which sets them aside from those found in other areas of Britain and Europe.

But probably less than a thousand of these animals still survive and

Loggerheads along Florida’s Atlantic coast are laying eggs 10 days earlier than 15 years ago, UCF research shows

Loggerhead sea turtles along Florida’s Atlantic coast are laying their eggs about 10 days earlier than they did 15 years ago, a change that a University of Central Florida researcher believes was caused by global warming.

John Weishampel, an associate professor of biology, found that as the near-shore ocean temperatures increased by nearly 1.5 degrees Fa

Exploring for oil and extracting it from the Amazon region of northeastern Ecuador has boosted the country’s income over the last several decades, but it has also resulted in a “public health emergency” due to the negative effects on the local environment and on the health of persons who live in the petroleum-production areas. That is according to an English-language article published in the most recent (March 2004) issue of the “Revista Panamericana de Salud Pública/Pan American Journal of Publ

A group of researchers at the Navarre Public University, together with technical experts from the Navarre Provincial Government, are evaluating the impact of agricultural activity on water resources, based on a Net of Experimental Catchment Areas that the Provincial Administration has installed in several areas of Navarre.

To put this project into effect, the Agricultural Non Point Source Pollution method is being used; AGNPS is a technology which has been developed by the Department of Agri

Using a unique combination of ground-based and space-based tools, scientists have determined for the first time how drought conditions, and possibly carbon uptake, in the Amazon rainforest can be quantified over large forest areas from space. The results are published in the on-line early edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, April 5-9.

“Understanding the Amazon environment is an essential puzzle piece needed to understand how the biosphere interacts with the clima