Green Gold
IEEE Spectrum MagazineAlgae could make the perfect renewable fuel.
Algae could make the perfect renewable fuel.
John D. Graham, dean of the Indiana U. School of Public and Environmental Affairs and an expert on federal fuel policy, discusses proposed fuel efficiency standards for medium- to heavy-duty trucks and buses.
Even "green" fragranced products give off many chemicals that are not listed on the label, including some that are classified as toxic. A study of 25 of the most popular scented products showed they emit 133 different chemicals, of which only two are listed anywhere.
Scientists studying disease and climate change as part of a special multidisciplinary team at Cornell University are heading to the mountains of Puerto Rico – hoping to learn what a struggling frog species can tell us about the danger changing weather patterns present to ecosystems around the globe.
As the ice-capped Arctic Ocean warms, ship traffic will increase at the top of the world. And if the sea ice continues to decline, a new route connecting international trading partners may emerge -- but not without significant repercussions to climate, according to a U.S. and Canadian research team that includes a University of Delaware scientist.
Breeding populations of piping plovers , shorebirds that have been listed as threatened since 1986, exist in three distinct locations — the Atlantic Coast, the American and Canadian Great Plains, and the Great Lakes — but birds from all three populations use the Gulf shore as overwintering habitat.
Researchers at the University of Florida have published a report regarding the trends in water quality feeding into Everglades National Park. The report can be found in the September-October 2010 Journal of Environmental Quality.
While swimmers and boaters along any shore consider the slimy green film that coats everything from rocks to docks as a nuisance, University of New Haven (UNH) chemical engineering student Nicole Reardon and Assistant Professor Shannon Ciston, Ph.D. think otherwise. They view the slime, or biofilm, as a complex community that may hold the key to informing humanity of the true environmental impact of the chemical nanoparticles that find their way from area kitchens, baths and garages into Long Island Sound.
Researchers in Washington State have developed a way to study the effects of supercritical carbon dioxide on minerals commonly found in potential underground storage sites, helping to evaluate one strategy for minimizing the impacts of greenhouse gases on global warming.
In remote, rural areas of southwestern China, villagers cook and dry their clothes by burning pieces of coal they pick up off the ground. This fuel releases a toxin that may be poisoning millions of people, according to an ongoing investigation by researchers in New York and China.
"Possible long-term impacts on sentinel species are ominous.”
Clear-cut logging and related road-building in the 1950s and 1960s in southern Oregon's Siskiyou Mountains disrupted soil stability and led to unprecedented soil erosion made worse during heavy rainstorms, report University of Oregon researchers.
The IL Institute for Rural Affairs (IIRA) at Western IL University has entered into an agreement with Wilmington (IL) CUSD #209 to develop a test site for monitoring wind velocity. The Value-Added Sustainable Development Center, an IIRA unit, works with schools, farmer and rural electric cooperatives, municipalities and in exploring wind potential in their locales.
The United States and many other heavily populated countries face a growing threat of severe and prolonged drought. The analysis concludes that warming temperatures associated with climate change will likely create increasingly dry conditions across much of the globe in the next 30 years, possibly reaching a scale in some regions by the end of the century that has rarely, if ever, been observed in modern times.
Long term exposure to low-level air pollution may increase the risk of severe chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), according to researcher s in Denmark. While acute exposure of several days to high level air pollution was known to be a risk factor for exacerbation in pre-existing COPD, until now there had been no studies linking long-term air pollution exposure to the development or progression of the disease.
A University of Washington conservation biologist is behind the effort to build nests in the barren rocks of the Galápagos Islands in the hope of increasing the population of an endangered penguin species.
Advanced Energy Conference, Nov. 8-9 in NYC, to spotlight cutting-edge technologies for clean energy jobs and a growing economy.
While it’s still hotly debated among scientists whether climate change causes a shift from the traditional form of El Nino to one known as El Nino Modoki, online in the journal Nature Geoscience, scientists now say that El Nino Modoki affects long-term changes in currents in the North Pacific Ocean.
Climate change in the Prairie Pothole Region poses problems for wetland-dependent organisms such as ducks, but farmers could help ease the impact by the way they farm.
Forget all the tacky jokes about cow flatulence causing climate change. A new study reports that the dairy industry is responsible for only about 2.0 percent of all US greenhouse gas emissions.
The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) has launched a video campaign on the world’s biggest stage to highlight the importance of the planet’s largest life-sustaining feature—the ocean.
In the journal Science, some of the world's foremost biodiversity experts from DIVERSITAS, led by Arizona State University scientist Charles Perrings, offer a strategic approach to the 2020 targets being considered at the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan, on Oct. 18-29. An approach that incorporates trade-offs, timing and complexity.
Addressing the Kavli Prize Science Forum: 2010, Norway's foreign minister highlights the impact of global climate change on the Arctic region, and the need for scientific guidance as nations respond to receding Arctic sea ice. Along with the prepared remarks, the address is now available as a slide show and audio presentation at: http://www.kavlifoundation.org/2010-kavli-prize-science-forum-jonas-store-opening-address
The red, metal-laden sludge that escaped a containment pond in Hungary last week could be made less toxic with the help of carbon sequestration, says an Indiana University Bloomington geologist who has a patent pending on the technique.
If all goes well during a demonstration project in China, University of Utah microbubble technology may boost many environmental cleanups, including removing oil byproducts from water, organics and heavy metals from industrial sites and harmful algae from lakes.
Residents of apartment complexes dotting suburbs take to their bikes or walk to go to nearby commercial areas if accessible pathways are available. That's the message University of Oregon researchers are telling the architects, developers and planners of large multifamily complexes across the nation.
Three articles in the November 2010 issue of the Notices of the American Mathematical Society examine ways in which mathematics can contribute to understanding environmental and ecological issues.
Contrary to some previous, highly publicized, reports, ocean acidification is not likely to worsen the hearing of whales and other animals, according to a Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) scientist who studies sound propagation in the ocean.
Researchers looking at corals in the western tropical Pacific Ocean have found records linking a profound shift in the depth of the division between warm surface water and colder, deeper water traceable to recent global warming.
Changes in population growth and composition, including aging and urbanization, could significantly affect global emissions of carbon dioxide over the next 40 years, according to a new study in PNAS out next week.
Hopes that coral reefs might be able to survive, and recover from, bleaching caused by climate change may have grown dimmer for certain coral species, according to new research by University at Buffalo marine biologists published this week in PLoS One.
Bioasphalt® developed by Iowa State University's Christopher Williams and produced by Avello Bioenergy Inc., a company started by three Iowa State graduates, will be tested on a Des Moines bicycle trail. Williams said asphalt mixtures derived from plants and trees could replace petroleum-based mixes. And that could provide markets for Iowa crop residues and business opportunities for Iowans.
Study of ocean migration indicates that local management of the population may be insufficient and supports recently proposed listing for Atlantic sturgeon under U.S. Endangered Species Act
A UNH professor of biochemistry and her colleagues have identified the first reproductive hormone of the hagfish – a gonadatropin -- representing a significant step toward unraveling the mystery of hagfish reproduction. At 500 million years old, hagfish are the oldest living vertebrate, predating the dinosaurs.
New research adds to growing evidence that, even though the temperature increase associated with a warming climate has been smaller in the tropics, the impact of warming on life could be much greater there than in colder climates.
A new study finds that fish located near coal-fired power plants have lower levels of mercury than fish that live much further away. The surprising finding appears to be linked to high levels of another chemical, selenium, found near such facilities, which unfortunately poses problems of its own.
It just got easier to pinpoint biological hot spots in the world’s oceans where some inhabitants are smaller than, well, a pinpoint.
Babies whose mothers had relatively high levels of the chemical DDE in their blood were more likely to both grow rapidly during their first 6 months and to have a high body mass index (BMI) by 14 months, according to a team of scientists based in Barcelona, Spain. DDE, an endocrine disrupter, is a by-product of the pesticide DDT.
Some fisheries in the United States are poised to undergo major changes in the regulations used to protect fish stocks, and Quinn Weninger and Rajesh Singh have estimated that the new system will be an economic boon to the fishing industry. The two estimated harvesting costs under the old system and compared that to the newly proposed fishing regulations that lift many restrictions that cause inefficiency while still limiting amounts to be harvested.
Nathan Pelletier and Peter Tyedmers of the Dalhousie University School for Resource and Environmental Studies have released a paper focusing on the environmental implications of the livestock industry. The paper illustrates a number of worrying statistics that call into question the sustainability of the livestock industry. If we continue to increase our consumption of livestock, we will fatally impact our environment on a local and global scale.
As the century warms, tropical forests will be at risk from many threats, especially conversion to cropland to sustain the population. A new report shows that crop productivity improvements and carbon emission limits together could prevent widespread tropical deforestation over the next 100 years.
Ambitious plans to expand acreage of bioenergy crops could have a major impact on birds in the Upper Midwest, according to a study published today (Oct. 4) in the online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Reefs of deep-sea corals are discovered for the first time in the Mediterranean, offshore of Israel, by the "Nautilus" cruise. "It's like finding a flourishing oasis in the middle of the desert," said Dr. Yizhaq Makovsky.
What does it take to save a species in the 21st century? The specter of climate change, with predicted losses to biodiversity as high as 35 percent, has some scientists and managers considering taking their conservation strategies on the road.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) today released a new study by scientists and conservationists showing that non-federal rangelands in the Western United States are productive, but that non-native grasses and shrubs pose a potential threat to the rangelands’ productivity.
The world’s rivers, the single largest renewable water resource for humans and a crucible of aquatic biodiversity, are in a crisis of ominous proportions, according to a new global analysis.
An article published online September 29 ahead of print in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP) relates how the finding of unexpected biomarker results during a pilot community health study of school-age girls led to a debate about how and when to inform the study families. Ultimately, the transdisciplinary research team, which included community breast cancer advocates, was able to draw on its diverse experience and knowledge of ethical principles to craft a comprehensive plan to communicate the findings to the families.
A Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) study on nesting birds in Argentina finds that increasing temperatures and rainfall—both side effects of climate change in some parts of the world—could be bad for birds of South America, but great for some of their parasites which thrive in warmer and wetter conditions.
The more complex a plant or animal, the more difficulty it should have adapting to changes in the environment. That's been a maxim of evolutionary theory since biologist Ronald Fisher put forth the idea in 1930.
Rising CO2 levels in atmosphere contribute to lower ocean pH levels, which interfere with development of shellfish larvae.