Feature Channels: Environmental Science

• share
• favorite_border

Unleashing the creativity of farmers and agroecologists

• share
• favorite_border

From climate to the peninsula’s very shape, not much in Florida has stayed the same over the last 8 million years.

• share
• favorite_border

Throughout his academic career, Dr. Alexander E. Ellinger has conducted research that seeks to quantify the value of strategic decisions to aid decision making in industry. After publishing more than 70 articles in peer-reviewed academic journals, this Culverhouse professor of marketing and supply chain management knows which studies are of particular significance. He believes his latest co-authored research reveals multiple truths about what happens when organizations make critical investments in purchasing renewable energy.

• share
• favorite_border

In this study, the researchers designed and conducted a novel experiment to directly measure behavioral impairment and brain chemistry of the Spiny damselfish.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at the University of Delaware studied the behavior of watermelon consumers and found that participants were more willing to pay a premium for watermelons labeled as grown on preserved farmland — as opposed to fruit bearing no label.

• share
• favorite_border

Milken Institute School of Public Health (Milken Institute SPH) at the George Washington University (GW) will hold a public forum on September 22 that will address the Frank R. Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, which offers much-needed reforms to the nation’s system of regulating chemicals. Join us on September 22 for a lively discussion of new law and what it will take to implement some of its key health protection measures.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers are now able to capture the cells of animals, sequence their DNA and identify which species were present in water at a point in time. A new University of Washington study is the first to use these genetic markers to understand the impact urbanization has on the environment — specifically, whether animal diversity flourishes or suffers.

• share
• favorite_border

The U.S. cut flower industry all but wilted over the past 20 years, but much of the loss stems from lack of progress, which could blossom under more university research, according to Jim Daly, keynoter at the Ellison Chair in International Floriculture lecture at Texas A&M University.

• share
• favorite_border

• share
• favorite_border

Underneath our feet, soil’s complex system of tiny channels has huge implications for water. The Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) September 15th Soils Matter blog post explains how water’s movement through soil affects us all.

• share
• favorite_border

Leon Kochian was named the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Food Systems and Security at the University of Saskatchewan—a $20-million initiative that will use cutting-edge plant and soil science to help feed a growing world.

• share
• favorite_border

A wide-ranging analysis of water vulnerability across the Pacific — including the U.S., China, Russia and Japan — has identified hundreds of locations where energy production depends upon scarce water supplies. The Sandia National Laboratories study, “Mapping Water Consumption for Energy Production Around the Pacific Rim,” was published in Environmental Research Letters.

• share
• favorite_border

By observing how fish swim and use their fins to move seamlessly within the ocean depths, a researcher at FAU is mimicking this movement to increase maneuverability and enhance the motion of underwater vehicles and robotic systems.

• share
• favorite_border

Professor Ashish Sinha and a team of international researchers used their analysis of stalagmites recovered from a cave deep in central China to not only map over 640,000 years of history of the Asian Monsoon—the longest and most accurate record to date—but also change the understanding of how ice ages terminate.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists from the University of Rhode Island’s Graduate School of Oceanography will try to answer that question during an international research expedition off the coast of Japan.

• share
• favorite_border

South America was home to a host of unique animals during the 60-some million years the continent was isolated, during most of the Cenozic Period. Details and constructions of mammals ranging from mouse-sized marsupials to elephant-size sloths, with photos of fossil remains and 15 collections sites across the continent are included in a new book.

• share
• favorite_border

Farmers have been using a mix-and-match approach to practices for growing their organic veggies. Which combination of practices was best, however, was uncertain. Recent research sheds light on long-term effects of different combinations to productivity and soil.

• share
• favorite_border

An international team led by the U.S. Geological Survey and co-organized by Biodiversity Research Institute, recently documented widespread mercury contamination in air, soil, sediment, plants, fish, and wildlife at various levels across Western North America.

• share
• favorite_border

While current efforts to curtail agricultural runoff will improve the health of Lake Erie, much more work will be needed to protect the streams that feed the lake, new research shows.

• share
• favorite_border

A new University of Washington study finds a trend toward earlier sea ice melt in the spring and later ice growth in the fall across all 19 polar bear populations, which can negatively impact the feeding and breeding capabilities of the bears. The paper is the first to quantify the sea ice changes in each polar bear subpopulation across the entire Arctic region using metrics that are specifically relevant to polar bear biology.

• share
• favorite_border

A new desert city in the United Arab Emirates without light switches or water taps has much to teach people around the world about saving energy and precious resources.

• share
• favorite_border

Study Links Altered Brain Chemistry, Behavioral Impairments in Fish Exposed to Elevated CO2 Research team studied damselfish behavior and physiology under ocean acidification conditions predicted for year 2300

• share
• favorite_border

The winds that gust across the Tibetan Plateau have done so for far longer than previously believed, showing they are resilient to the formation of mountains and changes in carbon dioxide and temperature.

• share
• favorite_border

The newest Cornell University strawberry variety concentrates intense flavor in a berry big enough to fill the palm of your hand

• share
• favorite_border

Florida beekeepers are concerned after 2.5 million bees that were killed during an aerial spraying with Naled/Dibrom for Zika-carrying mosquitoes in Dorchester County, S.C. Now, Floridians are looking for ways to avoid the same tragedy. Florida is the third-largest beekeeping state in the nation.

• share
• favorite_border

The many faces of bats — and their extraordinary diversity in flight, form and function — are the focus of the 10th Annual Indiana Bat Festival at Indiana State University and Dobbs Park Nature Center on Saturday, Sept. 24.

• share
• favorite_border

Understanding root zone-soil interaction key to increasing sustainability

• share
• favorite_border

MIAMI, Florida - Mote Marine Laboratory and The Nature Conservancy are partnering on a coral conservation initiative that will enable coral restoration at unprecedented scales throughout the Caribbean and the Florida Keys. The collaboration officially began Sept. 12, 2016, in Miami, with the signing of a one-year memorandum of understanding (MOU), enabling the first steps in a proposed 15-year initiative of joint coral reef restoration and conservation efforts.

• share
• favorite_border

Rabies is likely to appear on the Pacific coast of Peru—an area where it currently does not occur—within four years, according to a report by an international team of researchers just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers with the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences are closer to helping producers better meet global food demand, now that they’ve combined simulation and statistical methods to help them predict how temperature affects wheat crops worldwide.

• share
• favorite_border

To resolve open questions about water transport in plants and how they respond to stress such as drought, science teams from around the world gathered at Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley for an intensive round of experiments.

• share
• favorite_border

In the popular nursery story The Three Little Pigs, the prudent porker who builds his house of brick is chided by his pals, who choose much easier ways to construct their respective abodes. Only later in the cautionary tale does the reader discover the benefits of extra cost and effort in erecting shelter.

• share
• favorite_border

Separating evaporation measurements from transpiration could be a key to better management practices

• share
• favorite_border

Loss of megaherbivores such as elephants and hippos can allow woody plants and non-grassy herbs and flowering plants to encroach on grasslands in African national parks, according to a new University of Utah study, published September 12 in Scientific Reports.

• share
• favorite_border

A University of Oklahoma study demonstrates for the first time that remote sensing data from weather surveillance radar and on-the-ground data from the eBird citizen science database both yield robust indices of migration timing, also known as migration phenology.

• share
• favorite_border

With three new detectors coming online in the next several years, scientists are confident they will collect enough geoneutrino data to measure Earth's fuel level

• share
• favorite_border

Dams around the world provide critical water supplies and hydropower to growing communities and hundreds of new dams are proposed for developing economies. Though viewed as sources of potential green energy, their construction also poses a significant environmental cost.

• share
• favorite_border

This fall researchers at the Georgia Museum of Natural History at the University of Georgia will lead an effort to digitize around 2.1 million specimens from the order Lepidoptera—moths and butterflies—and to make that data available to scientists studying climate, natural habitats and agricultural pests. They hope the insect specimens will tell the story of the world’s climatic shifts, animals on the move and changing fauna.

• share
• favorite_border

New research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison shows that Asian jumping worms, an invasive species first found in Wisconsin in 2013, may do their work too well, speeding up the exit of nutrients from the soil before plants can process them.

• share
• favorite_border

Range of climate, soil forming factors and geologic history created arid southwest

• share
• favorite_border

A recent University of Washington study sought to understand why shark teeth are shaped differently and what biological advantages various shapes have by testing their performance under realistic conditions. The results appeared in August in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology show catastrophic declines in wilderness areas around the world over the last 20 years.

• share
• favorite_border

The U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) and the Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory (EMSL) have accepted 10 projects for their joint “Facilities Integrating Collaborations for User Science” (FICUS) initiative. The accepted proposals will begin on October 1, 2016.

• share
• favorite_border

Getting clean water to communities in parched areas of the planet remains an ongoing challenge. Recent developments that harvest water from air have been proposed as a solution. However, the technology to do so consumes a lot of energy. But based on new modeling results, scientists now report in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology that a new system design would require less energy and produce high-quality water.

• share
• favorite_border

A world renowned oceanographer and leading phytoplankton researcher will lead Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute (HBOI) as its new executive director.

• share
• favorite_border

The treatment increases the efficiency of bactericide by ensuring that light and rainfall don't degrade the treatments before they target the HLB-causing bacteria.

• share
• favorite_border

As global temperatures rise, how will lake ecosystems respond? As they warm, will lakes—which make up only 3 percent of the landscape, but bury more carbon than the world’s oceans combined—release more of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane?

• share
• favorite_border

Global fisheries stand to lose approximately $10 billion of their annual revenue by 2050 if climate change continues unchecked, and countries that are most dependent on fisheries for food will be the hardest hit, finds new UBC research.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at The Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation are working to harness the power of endophytes. The initiative, Forage365, aims to help farmers provide livestock with year-round grazing.

• share
• favorite_border