To arrange for an interview with a researcher, please contact the Communications staff member identified at the end of each tip. For more information on ORNL and its research and development activities, please refer to one of our media contacts. If you have a general media-related question or comment, you can send it to [email protected].
A pair of air pollutants linked to climate change could also be major contributors to the unparalleled rise in the number of people sneezing, sniffling and wheezing during allergy season. The gases, nitrogen dioxide and ground-level ozone, appear to provoke chemical changes in certain airborne allergens that may increase their potency. That, in combination with changes in global climate could help explain why allergies are becoming more common.
Changes in the biochemical balance of the ocean were a crucial factor in the end-Triassic mass extinction, during which half of all plant, animal and marine life on Earth perished, according to new research involving the University of Southampton.
University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers have developed a modeling tool to help local communities better understand their vulnerabilities to large storms stoked by climate change.
The following statement was given today by John Robinson, WCS Executive Vice President for Conservation and Science at the 2015 ECOSOC Integration Segment held by the Permanent Missions of Germany and Gabon:
The endangered desert pupfish has made itself at home in the harsh, hot environment of Death Valley hot springs by using a surprising evolutionary adaptation: They can go for up to five hours without oxygen. Research will be presented at the 2015 Experimental Biology Meeting in Boston on Tuesday, March 31.
Landfills can make a profit from all their rotting waste and a new patent explains exactly how to make the most out of the stinky garbage sites.
An international research team, led by a Virginia Tech geoscientist, has revealed information about how continents were generated on Earth more than 2.5 billion years ago — and how those processes have continued within the last 70 million years to profoundly affect the planet’s life and climate.
Argentina might seem a long way to go for an environmental engineer seeking to better understand land use in Wisconsin. But there are some surprising parallels between the two countries' histories of land use and ecohydrology that could help farmers and officials make better groundwater decisions.
Even during a good year, soybean farmers nationwide are, in essence, taking a loss. That's because changes in weather patterns have been eating into their profits and taking quite a bite: $11 billion over the past 20 years, according to a study by University of Wisconsin-Madison agronomists published last month in Nature Plants.
Research published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Rhawn Denniston, professor of geology at Cornell College, and his research team, created a 2,200-year-long record of extreme rainfall events that might also help predict future climate change.
As more people move to different regions of the country it will require planners to use as many tools as they can to develop urban areas that satisfy population demands and not over burden the environment. A new study from Arizona State University (ASU) details some of the dynamics at play as one region of the country, the Central Valley of California, braces for substantial population growth and all it entails.
Researchers have identified a new source of methane for gas hydrates — ice-like substances that trap methane within the crystal structure of frozen water — in the Arctic Ocean. The findings point to a previously undiscovered, stable reservoir for methane that is “locked” away from the atmosphere, where it could impact global climate change.
Researchers surveying for endangered primates in national parks and forest reserves of Ivory Coast found, to their surprise, that most of these protected areas had been turned into illegal cocoa farms, a new study reports.
A new study led by Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego researchers has revealed that the thickness of Antarctica’s floating ice shelves has recently decreased by as much as 18 percent in certain areas over nearly two decades, providing new insights on how the Antarctic ice sheet is responding to climate change.
Two of the most destructive termite species in the world are swarming together in South Florida. They might mate, forming a hybrid, and that worries the UF/IFAS scientists who found the superswarm.
Researchers at the SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry (ESF) have developed a county-by-county map of the United States’ “lower 48” that tells a story of land cover and development across the nation, and could provide a framework for planners and policy makers as they consider future development.
The industrial metal manganese, once scarce, is now ubiquitous in our environment. New work suggests that it addles honey bees, which often act as sentinel species for environmental contaminants, even at levels considered safe for humans.
Amidst fears that global warming could zap a vital source of protein that has sustained humans for centuries, bean breeders with the CGIAR global agriculture research partnership announced today the discovery of 30 new types, or lines as plant breeders refer to them, of “heat-beater” beans that could keep production from crashing in large swaths of bean-dependent Latin America and Africa.
Lead researcher Atsushi Nakao’s study is the first to investigate the soil’s physical and chemical properties in rice fields around the Fukushima site. The study, published in the Journal of Environmental Quality, examined factors affecting soil-to-plant transfer of radioactive cesium (radiocesium) in the Fukushima area.
Scientific leaders in the U.S. and Mexico recently took steps to strengthen their collaborations to develop better ocean-observing capabilities and improve data sharing Gulf-wide.
A team of researchers, including Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor Morgan Schaller, has used mathematical modeling to show that continental erosion over the last 40 million years has contributed to the success of diatoms, a group of tiny marine algae that plays a key role in the global carbon cycle. The research was published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers discovered new information about the relationship between symbiotic microbial communities and amphibian disease resistance.
Soil performs physical, biological and chemical cleaning of water.
There will be a lot more carbon released from thawing permafrost than the amount taken in by more Arctic vegetation, according to new computer simulations conducted by Berkeley Lab scientists.
A team of scientists including Minghua Zhang, Dean and Director of Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS), have found that the size of tropical cyclones is controlled by their underlying sea-surface temperatures (SST) relative to the conditions of the mean SST within the surrounding tropical zone of the storms. Their findings, published early online in Nature Communications, imply that under a warmer climate, the size of tropical cyclones (including hurricanes), are not based on the absolute value of SST alone.
Land managers use prescribed burns to help prevent wildfires and protect the ecosystem. They prefer to burn every few years, but costs, liability and proximity to development prevent them from performing the prescriptive burns.
Berkeley Lab researchers have discovered a means by which the removal of carbon dioxide (CO2) from coal-fired power plants might one day be done far more efficiently and at far lower costs than today. By appending a diamine molecule to the sponge-like solid materials known as metal-organic-frameworks (MOFs), the researchers were able to more than triple the CO2-scrubbing capacity of the MOFs, while significantly reducing parasitic energy.
During 2000-12, an average of one football pitch of forest was illegally cleared every two minutes to supply the EU with beef, leather, palm oil and soy used for groceries, animal feed, leather shoes and biofuels, according to a new study released today. It finds that the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, France and the UK are by far the largest consumers of illegally sourced commodities flowing into the EU, which, as a whole, imports 25% of all soy, 18% of all palm oil, 15% of all beef and 31% of all leather in international trade stemming from illegal tropical forest destruction.
Wherever you are, if it's 8 a.m. it’s time for the kids to be in school, time perhaps for a second cup of coffee, and time for the most powerful lightning strokes of the day. Not the largest number of lightning flashes, just the most powerful.
New study provides evidence naturally occurring methane gas leaks in the sea floor vital to the microbial diversity are highly diverse themselves.
How much would you pay to save a species from becoming extinct? A thousand dollars, $1 million or $10 million or more? A new study shows that a subset of species – in this case 841 to be exact – can be saved from extinction for about $1.3 million per species per year.
A study led by researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has found that the monitoring and prevention of road construction within protected areas and stepping up control measures in illegal logging hotspots would be more effective for conservation than reliance on protected areas alone.
A new book by Harvey Mudd College Professor Paul Steinberg, is part of something bigger: The Social Rules Project, a free multi-media initiative developed by Steinberg and 100 students, which explores the institutional dimensions of today’s most pressing environmental problems.
A team of investors, development organizations, conservationists, economists, and ecologists have published in the journal Science six natural science principles to ensure success of Payments for Ecosystem Services, mechanisms that have helped preserve carbon stocks stored in Madagascar’s rainforests, maintain wildlife populations important for tourism in Tanzania, and protect watersheds in France by working with local farmers.
Ponds in the Arctic tundra are shrinking and slowly disappearing, according to a new study by University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP) researchers. More than 2,800 Arctic tundra ponds in the northern region of Alaska’s Barrow Peninsula were analyzed using historical photos and satellite images taken between 1948 and 2010. Over the 62-year period, the researchers found that the number of ponds in the region had decreased by about 17 percent, while pond size had shrunk by an average of one-third.
Storing Ebola-infected sewage for a week at 86° Fahrenheit or higher should allow enough time for more than 99.99 percent of the virus to die, though lower ambient temperatures may require a longer holding period, according to a new study by researchers at Georgia State University’s School of Public Health.
Until now scientists have believed that the variations in traits such as our height, skin colour, tendency to gain weight or not, intelligence, tendency to develop certain diseases, etc., all of them traits that exist along a continuum, were a result of both genetic and environmental factors. But they didn’t know how exactly these things worked together. By studying ants, McGill researchers have identified a key mechanism by which environmental (or epigenetic) factors influence the expression of all of these traits, (along with many more).
Construction crews may someday use a plant molecule called lignin in their asphalt and sealant mixtures to help roads and roofs hold up better under various weather conditions and make them more environmentally friendly. The research will be presented today at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
Chlorine, a disinfectant used in most wastewater treatment plants, may be failing to eliminate pharmaceuticals from wastes. As a result, trace levels get discharged from the treatment plants into waterways. Now, scientists are reporting that chlorine treatment may encourage the formation of new, unknown antibiotics that could enter the environment, potentially contributing to the problem of antibiotic resistance. They will present the research at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
Water-borne algal blooms from farm fertilizer runoff can destroy aquatic life and clog rivers and lakes, but scientists will report today that they are working on a way to clean up these environmental scourges and turn them into useful products. The algae could serve as a feedstock for biofuels, and the feedstock leftovers could be recycled back into farm soil nutrients.
Squid are the ultimate camouflage artists, blending almost flawlessly with their backgrounds so that unsuspecting prey can’t detect them. Using a protein that’s key to this process, scientists have designed “invisibility stickers” that could one day help soldiers disguise themselves, even when sought by enemies with tough-to-fool infrared cameras.
Increasing natural gas production could provide a bridge to a lower carbon future. However, methane that is leaked into the atmosphere from this process could speed global warming and climate change. And there is controversy over just how much methane is lost. Researchers today will present new methods to determine methane’s leakage rate and problems inherent in discovering and assessing leakage at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society.
What inspires people to support conservation? A new study by researchers at Cornell University provides one simple answer: bird watching and hunting.
Isotopic analysis of animal teeth from a 2,000-year-old herding settlement near Lake Victoria in southern Kenya show the area was once home to large grassland corridors — routes that could have been used to dodge tsetse flies and bring domesticated livestock to southern Africa, according to new research in the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.
The Earth is now entering a period of changing climate that will likely be faster than what’s occurred naturally over the last thousand years, according to a new paper in Nature Climate Change, committing people to live through and adapt to a warming world.
RSS
Medicine keyboard_arrow_right
Sciencekeyboard_arrow_right
Life keyboard_arrow_right
Business keyboard_arrow_right
Journal News keyboard_arrow_right
By Location keyboard_arrow_right
Meetings, Grants, and Events keyboard_arrow_right