Feature Channels: Environmental Science

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New research suggests that direct transmission of cancer among marine animals may be much more common than once thought.

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New researcher shows how a special tool called a noise logger can detect water leaks accurately and efficiently, before major roadwork is required.

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Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI) presents a mid-point progress report of the largest Common Loon conservation study ever conducted. Funded in 2013 by the Ricketts Conservation Foundation, Restore the Call is a five-year science-based initiative to strengthen and restore loon populations within their existing and former range. Research efforts are focusing in three key U.S. breeding population centers from the western mountains to the Atlantic seaboard.

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“The goal is to put together a model that can predict the release of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide from soils under a climate that is expected to be warmer and experience more extreme dry and wet periods across the Southeast,” said Stefan Gerber, a UF/IFAS assistant professor in soil and water sciences and one of the investigators on the new study.

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A new way of recycling millions of tons of plastic garbage into liquid fuel has been devised by researchers from the University of California, Irvine and the Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC) in China.

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NMSU has made upgrades to its nematode containment facility, which provides producers with the certification of sites being free of nematodes. The facility is now able to successfully accommodate and inspect a large amount of plant samples at one time. Funding was also used for new equipment to improve the molecular characterization of nematodes.

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Even with this winter's strong El Niño, the Sierra Nevada snowpack will likely take until 2019 to return to pre-drought levels, according to a new analysis led by UCLA hydrology researchers.

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Israel Science Foundation, Human Frontier Science Program, Jacob Blaustein Center for Scientific Cooperation, and the Society of Experimental Biology

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JCU's Dr Tasmin Rymer led a study that produced a template measuring several crucial factors, including an animal's physiology and environment, to determine how it would handle a severe drought.

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A study of the Caribbean Sea by University of Liverpool ocean scientists has revealed that, in the midst of all the noise of the ocean, this region behaves like a whistle, which blows so loudly that it can be 'heard' from space in the form of oscillations of the Earth's gravity field.

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A Kobe University research group including Associate Professor Maki Hideshi (Center for Environmental Management), PhD candidate Sakata Genki (Graduate School of Engineering, Department of Chemical Science and Engineering, currently employed at Central Glass Co., Ltd.) and Professor Mizuhata Minoru (Graduate School of Engineering) have developed a new analysis method that uses magnetic fields to quickly and accurately measure the concentration of aluminum used to purify tap water. These findings can potentially be used in developing efficient and environmentally-conscious coagulants for water treatment. The findings were presented on May 29, 2016 at the 76th Japan Society for Analytical Chemistry Symposium.

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The New York State Center for Clean Water Technology at Stony Brook University today issued a white paper introducing a potential replacement for Long Island cesspools that has shown an ability to remove high amounts of nitrogen from household wastewater, a contaminant identified as the primary cause of local water quality degradation on Long Island. The system incorporates simple design with locally-sourced, natural materials in order to position it as an economically viable alternative for high performance onsite wastewater treatment, a crucial infrastructure need for restoring Long Island water quality. Pilot installations of the system are underway at a test center, and scheduled to begin locally by early fall as part of the Suffolk County Department of Health Services demonstration program for innovate/alternative septic treatment systems.

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A new test could save time and money diagnosing plant viruses, some of which can destroy millions of dollars in crops each year in Florida, says a University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researcher.

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An experimental tool to give farmers and other stakeholders an improved estimate of how much water is available in a specific watershed is scheduled to go on line this summer.

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Future food security depends on a variety of factors – but better soil data could substantially help improve projections of future crop yields, shows new research from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)

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Crop yields will fall within the next decade due to climate change unless immediate action is taken to speed up the introduction of new and improved varieties, experts have warned.

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An array of GPS instruments near the San Andreas Fault System in Southern California detects constant motion of Earth's crust--sometimes large, sudden motion during an earthquake and often subtle, creeping motion. By carefully analyzing the data recorded by the EarthScope Plate Boundary Observatory's GPS array researchers from the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa (UHM), University of Washington and Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO) discovered nearly 125 mile-wide "lobes" of uplift and subsidence--a few millimeters of motion each year--straddling the fault system. This large scale motion was previously predicted in models but until now had not been documented.

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A previously mysterious family of enzymes removes abnormal versions of some very common chemicals found in all life forms, opening many possibilities for health and agricultural applications, a University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences researcher says.

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The mystery of why most of the most powerful lightning on Earth happens over the oceans isn't solved, but a few of the usual suspects are no longer in custody. It's possible the increased presence of salt in the atmosphere plays a role.

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Scientists at Washington University in St. Louis have discovered a previously unknown strategy photosynthetic organisms use to protect themselves from the dangers of excessive light, providing further insight into photosynthesis and opening up new avenues for engineering this process, which underlies the global food chain.

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The collective estimated amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere from 140 coal mines across Pennsylvania is the equivalent to that of a small power plant, a new West Virginia University study finds.

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Giant Ice Age species including elephant-sized sloths and powerful sabre-toothed cats ¬that once roamed the windswept plains of Patagonia, southern South America, were finally felled by a perfect storm of a rapidly warming climate and humans, a new study has shown.

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Animals can adapt to their environment through changes to their DNA, but more recently, research has shown that non-genetic components may be important, too.

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Consumers know some of the benefits blueberries provide, but they’re less aware of the advantages of reverting aging, improving vision and memory, a new University of Florida study shows. Researchers surveyed more than 2,000 people in 31 states – mostly on the East Coast and in the Midwest – to see what they know about the health benefits of blueberries.

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North Dakota farmers are growing industrial hemp for the first time in more than 70 years, and the New Crops research program in the NDSU Department of Plant Sciences is conducting research to assist them.

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More than a dozen institutions signed the historic Joint Statement for the Amazon Waters today at the Amazon Waters International Conference in Lima, marking an unprecedented commitment to collaboration in efforts to promote the integrity of the Amazon Basin, home to the largest continuous rainforest and most extensive freshwater ecosystem in the world.

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University of Iowa researchers are working with a California-based startup company to make clean energy from sunlight and any source of water. The university recently renewed a one-year research agreement to further develop the technology with HyperSolar, a company that aims to commercialize low-cost renewable hydrogen.

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When it comes to the most beneficial cover crops farmers can use to suppress weeds and increase production values, University of New Hampshire scientists have found that forage radish is at the top of the list, according to new research from the NH Agricultural Experiment Station.

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A few snippets of protein extracted from the fossil of an extinct species of giant beaver are opening a new door in paleoproteomics, the study of ancient proteins.

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Antibiotics and manure. You probably don’t think of them at the same time. But across North America, manure and antibiotics often share the same pile. Researchers find out how quickly antibiotics delivered in animal feed break down in manure applied as fertilizer to fields.

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Halfway between Hawaii and American Samoa lies a group of small islands and inlets. Among them is Palmyra Atoll, an almost 5-square-mile ring of coral.

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Environmental scientists from the University of Stirling have found beech forests across western Europe are increasingly at risk from drought - with areas of southern England worst affected.

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By tweaking just one or two genes, Cornell University researchers have altered the patterns on a butterfly’s wings. It’s not just a new art form, but a major clue to understanding how the butterflies have evolved, and perhaps to how color patterns – and other patterns and shapes – have evolved in other species.

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Cities face challenges with stormwater, because the asphalt and concrete don’t absorb the water like the soils found in rural areas. But, the Soil Science Society of America (SSSA) June 15 Soils Matter blog post explains that there are many things urban homeowners can do to help keep water out of stormwater systems. Homeowners can enhance soils’ natural ability to clean and capture water.

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Researchers from the University of Southampton are helping citizens across Europe to address the environmental impacts of light pollution.

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Shells of California mussels collected from the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Washington in the 1970s are on average 32 percent thicker than modern specimens, according to a new study published by University of Chicago biologists.

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An ancient basin hidden beneath the Greenland ice sheet, discovered by researchers at the University of Bristol, may help explain the location, size and velocity of Jakobshavn Isbræ, Greenland's fastest flowing outlet glacier.

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A University of Arkansas chemistry professor has received a $400,000 award from the National Science Foundation to investigate a roadblock in the harvesting of biomass from perennial plants for the purpose of creating a source of renewable energy.

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Because the Q-biotype whitefly feeds for longer periods on some plants, it has a greater chance of acquiring a plant virus, said Jane Polston, a UF/IFAS plant pathology professor. The more time a whitefly spends feeding on a plant, the more likely it is to acquire a virus from an infected plant.

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Six mating positions (amplexus modes) are known among the almost 7,000 species of frogs and toads found worldwide. However, the Bombay night frog mates differently. In a new study, scientists have described a new (seventh) mode of amplexus—now named as dorsal straddle.

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To protect human health, Endocrine Society members called on the European Commission to adopt science-based policies for regulating endocrine-disrupting chemicals in an opinion piece published today in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.

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Basalt from a common type of volcano shows a surprising contribution from the descending oceanic plate. Analyses show that magnesium atoms are somehow drawn out of the crust, deep below the surface.

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A new study published in Nature Climate Change indicates soil moisture levels will determine how much carbon is released to the atmosphere as rising temperatures thaw Arctic lands.

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Common belief states that the dominant factor determining water scarcity in the next few decades will be population growth. However, according to a new study by Stony Brook University, it's climate change -- not population growth – that plays the main role in predicting future exposure to extreme droughts.

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Tyler D'Angelo and his fellow ambassadors will spread the word about the importance of agricultural education and learning more about how to teach the subject.

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An oft-quoted proverb says it takes a village to raise a child, and new research from ecologists at LSU and Rice University suggests that a similar concept may be at work in natural ecosystems. The research, which appears in this week’s Early Edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that the early life experiences of individual animals can have wide-reaching impacts on entire species.

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For plants and animals fleeing rising temperatures, varying precipitation patterns and other effects of climate change, the eastern United States will need improved “climate connectivity” for these species to have a better shot at survival.

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Carbon dioxide emissions from dry and oxygen-rich environments will likely strengthen the climate forcing impact of thawing permafrost on top of methane release from oxygen-poor wetlands in the Arctic, according to a study in Nature Climate Change.

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The human-caused rise in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide is being given an extra boost this year by the natural climate phenomena of El Niño, say climate scientists in a paper published in today's edition of the journal Nature Climate Change. As a result, 2016 will be the first year with concentrations above 400 parts per million all year round in the iconic Mauna Loa carbon dioxide record.