Approximately 75,000 years ago, a massive explosive eruption from a volcano in western Indonesia (Toba caldera) coincided with the onset of the Earth’s last Ice Age.

In the current issue of Geology, University of Rhode Island geological oceanographers Meng-Yang Lee and Steven Carey; Chang-Hwa Chen and Yoshiyuki Iizuka of the Academia Sinica in Taiwan; and Kuo-Yen Wei of National Taiwan University describe their investigation into the possibility that eruptions from the Toba caldera on

URI student researcher: Chickadees avoid caterpillars that eat leaves exposed to high levels of CO2

In yet another example of the far-reaching impact of global warming, a University of Rhode Island student found evidence that suggests some songbirds may avoid eating insects that consume leaves exposed to high levels of carbon dioxide.

URI senior Martina Müller of Kingston, working in cooperation with Associate Professor Scott McWilliams, Ph.D. candidate David Podlesak and col

Earliest evidence of humans affecting aquatic ecology in Canada, United States

New findings from Canadian scientists dispel the belief that European settlers were the first humans to cause major changes to Canadian and U.S. freshwater ecosystems.

A University of Toronto-led, multidisciplinary team including researchers from Queen’s, McGill, and University of Ottawa show for the first time that prehistoric Inuit whalers dramatically altered high Arctic pond ecosystems through

Research at the University of Leeds into herbal remedies in the farmyard could soon see pigswill garnished with garlic and cows chewing on cinnamon-flavoured cud. With an EU ban on antibiotic growth promoters in animal feed from 2006, alternatives need to be found urgently. The use of plant extracts, once dismissed as quack science, is attracting growing interest from the industry.

Dr Henry Greathead, researcher at the department of biology, is experimenting with essential oils from thyme as

In Europe, 8.5 million tons of tomatoes are cultivated annually. 1.5 million tons are sold directly to the consumer and 7 million are processed for products such as ketchup, sauces, etc. During this processing, some 40% of the tomato raw material ends up as residue mainly skin and seeds. The seeds, considered by the processing industry simply as waste or used as animal feed, is still an excellent source of nutrients such as carotenoids, proteins, sugars, fibre, wax and oils, these oils being nutritio

Scientists have discovered why icy clouds found at the edge of space are higher at the South Pole than at the North. The answer to this puzzle is that the intensity of solar radiation at the South Pole is six percent higher than at the North Pole during the austral summer, as the Earth comes closer to the sun. New research from British Antarctic Survey and University of Illinois is reported in this month’s Geophysical Research Letters (published online 29 January 2004). This research helps under

Many types of vegetation have more or less ground cover and recruitment of new individuals often occurs only in temporarily empty patches or gaps. Ever since Watt’s (1947) Presidential address to the BES, the Journal of Ecology has been publishing the results of investigations into the importance of processes in such gaps in the determination of community structure. Three recent papers from Norway, the UK and the USA (Vandvik 2004, Turnbull et al. 2004 and Ewanchuk and Bertness, 2004, respectively –

The aim of Navarre engineer Ana Zabalza Aznárez’s PhD thesis – entitled “The inhibition of the biosynthesis of amino acids in ramified chain and their use as a target-site for herbicides” – was to find out what effects herbicides produce on the metabolism of plants so as to enable a more rational use of them.

According to lecturer Zabalza Aznárez, herbicides have undergone considerable development since they began to be developed in the fifties of the last century in order to eliminate wee

Two scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have discovered that iron in Earth-core conditions melts at a pressure of 225 GPa (or 32 million pounds per square inch) or about 5,100 kelvins (8,720 degrees Fahrenheit).

Determining the melting point of iron is essential to determine the temperatures at core boundaries and the crystal structure of the Earth’s solid inner core. To date, the properties of iron at high pressure have been investigated experimentally through laser-h

Eleven Earth and space scientists say that a recent paper attributing most climate change on Earth to cosmic rays is incorrect and based on questionable methodology. Writing in the January 27 issue of Eos, published by the American Geophysical Union, Stefan Rahmstorf of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and colleagues in Canada, France, Germany, Switzerland, and the United States challenge the cosmic ray hypothesis. In July 2003, astrophysicist Nir Shaviv and geologist Jan Ve

NASA’s Earth satellite observing systems are helping the U.S. Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) improve the accuracy and timeliness of information they provide about important crops around the world. FAS information is crucial in decisions affecting U.S. agriculture, trade policy, and food aid.

NASA and the University of Maryland are providing the FAS with observations and data products from instruments on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites and from the TO

Long-term research by CSIRO Livestock Industries has proved that selectively breeding sheep for worm resistance can significantly reduce Australian farmers’ traditional reliance on drenching products in high rainfall areas.

Coordinator of the Nemesis project, CSIRO’s Amy Bell, says that over a two-year monitoring period, merino weaners bred for parasitic worm resistance within the project’s demonstration flock required seven fewer drenches to maintain worm levels equivalent t

At the end of the Cretaceous, when large-sized theropods, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, roamed terrestrial environments, shallow seas and oceans were invaded by giant marine monitors – the mosasaurs. A recent investigation, presented in a new dissertation at Lund University in Sweden, has revealed that the Swedish mosasaur fauna is one of the most diverse assemblages known. Moreover, available data indicate that a major faunal turnover occurred about 80 million years ago.

The family Mosasaur

North-Western Europe could be in for some sudden climatic surprises in the future, say scientists speaking at the launch of a new book on global environmental change.

North-Western Europe is kept warm by an ocean current known as the North Atlantic Current, an extension of the Gulf Stream which brings warm water from the tropics to the north. This current is sensitive to global warming and could slow down, or even break down as a result of increasing global temperatures.

Studies of

A leading expert from Staffordshire University – who led a study which revealed that people living in the most deprived areas of England are more likely to suffer the effects of pollution – says social injustice has to be tackled through environmental as well as economic policies.

Professor Gordon Walker from Staffordshire University made his comments after the publication of the results from the biggest research project of its kind ever conducted in the UK.

Professor Walker, Dire

Massive Siberian peat bogs, widely known as the permanently frozen home of untold kilometers of moss and uncountable hordes of mosquitoes, also are huge repositories for gases that are thought to play an important role in the Earth’s climate balance, according to newly published research by a team of U.S. and Russian scientists in the Jan. 16 edition of the journal Science.

Those gases, carbon dioxide and methane, are known to trap heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, but the enormous