Feature Channels: Environmental Science

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Released: 8-Aug-2012 8:00 AM EDT
Teachers May Unwittingly Be Contributing to Invasive Species Problem
Oregon State University

A new study found that 25 percent of teachers surveyed in the United States and Canada release classroom animals back into the wild, but few use planned release programs.

Released: 7-Aug-2012 5:00 PM EDT
Can Nature Parks Save Biodiversity?
Virginia Tech

Summary of 14 years of wildlife studies in and around Madagascar’s Ranomafana National Park.

Released: 7-Aug-2012 11:00 AM EDT
'Kansas -- in the Heart of Tornado Alley'
Wichita State University

In 1915, Snowden D. Flora of the U.S. Weather Bureau wrote, "Kansas has been so commonly considered the tornado state of the country that the term 'Kansas cyclone' has almost become a part of the English language."

Released: 7-Aug-2012 10:00 AM EDT
University of Tennessee's Vehicle Arrives for EcoCAR 2 Competition
University of Tennessee

A group of University of Tennessee, Knoxville, engineering students feel like sixteen-year olds when they received the keys to a 2013 Chevrolet Malibu they are going to remodel to make more eco-friendly.

Released: 6-Aug-2012 11:00 PM EDT
Birds Do Better in 'Agroforests' Than on Farms
University of Utah

Compared with open farmland, wooded “shade” plantations that produce coffee and chocolate promote greater bird diversity, although a new University of Utah study says forests remain the best habitat for tropical birds.

Released: 6-Aug-2012 9:00 PM EDT
Forged for Infamy: 2012 the Hottest Year on Record for Northeast
Cornell University

New data released by the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University shows the Northeast’s seven-month average (January through July) of 49.9 degrees was the warmest such period since 1895, the year such record keeping began.

Released: 6-Aug-2012 10:00 AM EDT
Researchers Find Substantial Water Pollution Risks From “Fracking” to Recover Natural Gas
Stony Brook University

Study recommends consideration of additional regulations to protect drinking water and encourages future research efforts into disposal of wastewater from hydraulic fracturing.

Released: 6-Aug-2012 8:55 AM EDT
Hydraulic Fracturing Poses Substantial Water Pollution Risks, Analysts Say
Society for Risk Analysis (SRA)

Researchers find multiple potential threats to water sources posed by hydraulic fracturing as the jobs-producing practice expands.

Released: 3-Aug-2012 4:30 PM EDT
New Book Weighs Pros, Cons of Shale Gas Production
RTI International

A new book, Shale Gas: The Promise and the Peril, offers a balanced look at the intense debate surrounding shale gas production and the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.

Released: 3-Aug-2012 8:30 AM EDT
Bears, Scavengers Count on All-You-Can-Eat Salmon Buffet Lasting for Months
University of Washington

Watersheds need both steep, cold-running streams and meandering streams of warmer water to keep options open for salmon. Preserving that sort of varied landscape serves not just salmon, it provides an all-summer buffet that animals need to sustain themselves the rest of the year.

Released: 2-Aug-2012 1:30 PM EDT
Climate Warming Refuted as Reason for Plant Shifts in High-Profile 2008 Study
Texas Tech University

The simple model of how plants handle climate change doesn't always explain what's going on.

Released: 2-Aug-2012 1:30 PM EDT
Research Could Lead to Improved Oil Recovery, Better Environmental Cleanup
Oregon State University

Researchers have taken a new look at an old, but seldom-used technique developed by the petroleum industry to recover oil, and learned more about why it works, how it could be improved, and how it might be able to make a comeback not only in oil recovery but also environmental cleanup.

Released: 1-Aug-2012 1:25 PM EDT
Forget Blizzards and Hurricanes, Heat Waves Are to Die for
University of Wisconsin–Madison

When it comes to gnarly weather, tornadoes, blizzards and hurricanes seem to get most of our attention, perhaps because their destructive power makes for imagery the media can't ignore. But for sheer killing power, heat waves do in far more people than even the most devastating hurricane. Ask medical historian Richard Keller.

Released: 31-Jul-2012 11:40 AM EDT
Critically Endangered Whales Sing Like Birds; New Recordings Hint at Rebound
University of Washington

A University of Washington researcher and colleagues discovered the critically endangered bowhead whales singing like birds in the Fram Strait, indicating that the whales might be more populous than previously thought or that they sing a wide repertoire of songs, unlike other whales.

Released: 30-Jul-2012 8:00 AM EDT
Space Technologies Tackle Human and Environmental Security Problems
Secure World Foundation

Secure World Foundation is pleased to announce the release of the Summer 2012 issue of Imaging Notes magazine dedicated to highlighting the urgent, interrelated issues of Earth remote sensing for security, energy and the environment.

Released: 29-Jul-2012 11:00 PM EDT
Cooling, Not Population Loss, Led to Fewer Fires after 1500
University of Utah

After Columbus’ voyage, burning of New World forests and fields diminished significantly – a phenomenon some have attributed to decimation of native populations. But a University of Utah-led study suggests global cooling resulted in fewer fires because both preceded Columbus in many regions worldwide.

27-Jul-2012 11:00 AM EDT
Chronic 2000-04 Drought, Worst in 800 Years, May Be the “New Normal”
Oregon State University

The chronic drought that hit western North America from 2000 to 2004 left dying forests and depleted river basins in its wake and was the strongest in 800 years, but those conditions will become the “new normal” for most of the coming century. Such climatic extremes have increased as a result of global warming.

Released: 27-Jul-2012 10:00 AM EDT
Greenland Ice Melt Highlights Record-Breaking 2012 for Arctic
Cornell University

Charles H. Greene, a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Cornell University, a fellow at Cornell’s Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future and an expert on oceans, climate and Arctic ice, comments on this week’s news of a stunningly rapid thawing of the Greenland Ice Sheet.

Released: 26-Jul-2012 12:00 PM EDT
Scripps Graduate Students Discover Methane Seep Ecosystem
University of California San Diego

During a recent oceanographic expedition off San Diego, graduate student researchers from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego discovered convincing evidence of a deep-sea site where methane is likely seeping out of the seafloor, the first such finding off San Diego County.

Released: 25-Jul-2012 8:00 AM EDT
Local Weather Patterns Affect Beliefs about Global Warming, NYU and Temple Researchers Find
New York University

Local weather patterns temporarily influence people’s beliefs about evidence for global warming, according to research by political scientists at New York University and Temple University. Their study found that those living in places experiencing warmer-than-normal temperatures at the time they were surveyed were significantly more likely than others to say there is evidence for global warming.

   
Released: 24-Jul-2012 1:00 PM EDT
Active Forest Management to Reduce Fire Could Help Protect Northern Spotted Owl
Oregon State University

The northern spotted owl, a threatened species in the Pacific Northwest, would actually benefit in the long run from active management of the forest lands that form its primary habitat and are increasingly vulnerable to stand-replacing fire.

Released: 24-Jul-2012 10:00 AM EDT
Reducing Traffic at 2008 Olympics Yielded Large Cut in CO2
National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)

China's efforts to reduce pollution for the Beijing Olympics has enabled scientists to quantify traffic impacts on carbon dioxide emissions. New research led by NCAR shows Beijing's lighter traffic achieved a percentage of the emissions cut that would be needed worldwide to prevent warming from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius.

Released: 24-Jul-2012 9:00 AM EDT
GPS Can Now Measure Ice Melt, Change in Greenland Over Months Rather Than Years
Ohio State University

Researchers have found a way to use GPS to measure short-term changes in the rate of ice loss on Greenland – and reveal a surprising link between the ice and the atmosphere above it.

Released: 23-Jul-2012 8:00 PM EDT
Study Shows Feasibility of Capturing CO2 Directly from Air
Georgia Institute of Technology, Research Communications

With a series of papers published in chemistry and chemical engineering journals, Georgia Tech researchers have advanced the case for extracting carbon dioxide directly from the air using newly-developed adsorbent materials.

18-Jul-2012 9:05 AM EDT
Polar Bear Evolution Tracked Climate Change, Study Suggests
University at Buffalo

A whole-genome analysis suggests that polar bear numbers waxed and waned with climate change, and that the animals may have interbred with brown bears since becoming a distinct species millions of years ago.

Released: 20-Jul-2012 8:00 AM EDT
Key to Life in the Desert: What New Research Reveals About the Importance of Soil Crusts
Soil Science Society of America (SSSA)

Biological soil crust organisms found to play an active role in the development of soil structures and the allocation of water and nutrients.

Released: 19-Jul-2012 12:40 PM EDT
First Half of 2012 Dry and Drought Conditions to Persist in Parts of the Northeast
Cornell University

Jessica Rennells, a climatologist with the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University, comments on data released today confirming that the first six months of 2012 are drier than normal – and that those conditions are expected to persist in a band stretching from Lake Erie to Albany as well as western Pennsylvania. NOTE: An online drought monitor and seasonal drought outlooks are available at: www.droughtmonitor.unl.edu/forecast.html

Released: 18-Jul-2012 1:30 PM EDT
Environmental Concerns Increasing Infectious Disease in Amphibians, Other Animals
Oregon State University

Climate change, habitat destruction, pollution and invasive species are all involved in the global crisis of amphibian declines and extinctions, researchers suggest in a new analysis, but increasingly these forces are causing actual mortality in the form of infectious disease.

Released: 17-Jul-2012 1:00 PM EDT
Why Is Earth So Dry?
Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI)

A new analysis of the common accretion-disk model explaining how planets form in a debris disk around our Sun uncovered a possible reason for Earth's comparative dryness. The study found that our planet formed from rocky debris in a dry, hotter region, inside of the so-called "snow line." The snow line in our solar system currently lies in the middle of the asteroid belt, a reservoir of rubble between Mars and Jupiter; beyond this point, the Sun's light is too weak to melt the icy debris left over from the protoplanetary disk. Previous accretion-disk models suggested that the snow line was much closer to the Sun 4.5 billion years ago, when Earth formed.

Released: 17-Jul-2012 9:00 AM EDT
Glacier Break Creates Ice Island 2x Size of Manhattan
University of Delaware

An ice island twice the size of Manhattan has broken off from Greenland’s Petermann Glacier, according to researchers at the University of Delaware and the Canadian Ice Service. This marks the second massive break in two years.

Released: 16-Jul-2012 11:45 AM EDT
Pot–Grower’s Poison Taking Toll on Rare Fishers
Wildlife Conservation Society

A new study by the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the Integral Ecology Research Center, the University of California Davis and other partners shows that imperiled fisher populations are being poisoned by the use of anticoagulant rodenticides (AR) on public and community forest lands in California–likely those used illegally by marijuana growers.

Released: 16-Jul-2012 9:00 AM EDT
Fracking's Footprint on Pennsylvania Forests
American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA), Soil Science Society of America (SSSA)

As the natural gas extraction process known as fracking surges across Pennsylvania, scientists are trying to understand what the short- and long-term consequences could be for the state's forests and watersheds.

Released: 16-Jul-2012 9:00 AM EDT
CSB Announces Two Day Public Hearing to Release Preliminary Findings into the Macondo Blowout and Explosion in Gulf of Mexico
U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB)

The U.S. Chemical Safety Board today has announced a public hearing to support its continued analysis of effective safety performance indicators and to release preliminary findings into the agency’s investigation of the Macondo well blowout, explosion and fire in the Gulf of Mexico. The CSB’s two day hearing on July 23-24, 2012, in Houston, Texas, will feature presentations and discussions on measuring process safety performance in high hazard industries, including the development and implementation of leading and lagging indicators, for effective safety management.

Released: 12-Jul-2012 3:00 PM EDT
Antarctica At Risk, Says Researcher
Texas A&M University

The continent of Antarctica is at risk from human activities and other forces, and environmental management is needed to protect the planet’s last great wilderness area, says an international team of researchers, including a Texas A&M University oceanographer.

Released: 12-Jul-2012 12:45 PM EDT
Viruses Linked to Algae That Control Coral Health
Oregon State University

Scientists have discovered two viruses that appear to infect the single-celled microalgae that reside in corals and are important for coral growth and health, and they say the viruses could play a role in the serious decline of coral ecosystems around the world.

Released: 11-Jul-2012 11:00 AM EDT
Professors Chart Tropical Cyclones’ Role in Ending Drought in the Southeast
Appalachian State University

Professors from Appalachian State University, UNC Greensboro, University of West Florida and Indiana University have studied a 58-year history of tropical cyclones and their role in ending drought in the Southeast.

Released: 11-Jul-2012 10:55 AM EDT
Down on the Cacao Farm: Sloths Thrive at Chocolate's Source
University of Wisconsin–Madison

Like many Neotropical fauna, sloths are running out of room to maneuver. As forests in South and Central America are cleared for agriculture and other human uses, populations of these arboreal leaf eaters, which depend on large trees for both food and refuge, can become isolated and at risk. But one type of sustainable agriculture, shade grown cacao plantations, a source of chocolate, could become critical refuges and bridges between intact forests for the iconic animals.

Released: 10-Jul-2012 6:00 PM EDT
Researchers Develop Technique to Help Pollution Forecasters See Past Clouds
University of Iowa

University of Iowa scientists have created a technique to help satellites "see" through the clouds and better estimate the concentration of pollutants, such as soot.

Released: 10-Jul-2012 1:50 PM EDT
July Heat Wave Set Longevity Records Across Northeast
Cornell University

Jessica Rennells, a climatologist and extension support specialist at the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University, comments on data released today by the center that shows the region’s July heat wave broke records for longevity, and came close to all-time temperature records.

Released: 10-Jul-2012 10:55 AM EDT
Natural Gas Is a Much-Needed Tool in the Battle to Slow Global Warming
Cornell University

No matter how you drill it, using natural gas as an energy source is a smart move in the battle against global climate change and a good transition step on the road toward low-carbon energy, according to a new study by Cornell Professor Lawrence M. Cathles published in the most recent edition of the peer-reviewed journal Geochemistry, Geophysics and Geosystems.

Released: 10-Jul-2012 10:40 AM EDT
Rising Carbon Dioxide in Atmosphere Also Speeds Carbon Loss From Forest Soils
Indiana University

Elevated levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide accelerate carbon cycling and soil carbon loss in forests, new research led by an Indiana University biologist has found. The new evidence supports an emerging view that although forests remove a substantial amount of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, much of the carbon is being stored in living woody biomass rather than as dead organic matter in soils.

Released: 10-Jul-2012 10:00 AM EDT
The Best Approaches to Educating Rangeland Professionals Apply to All Students
Allen Press Publishing

New ideas and approaches for better teaching are common to all who are interested in learning. The Society for Range Management seeks to address gaps between what students are learning and what employers and other stakeholders need and value. While nurturing modern rangeland professionals is the society’s focus, its objective is a dialogue about innovative teaching methods.

Released: 9-Jul-2012 10:45 AM EDT
Geologists Testing Aquifer Rocks as Containers to Permanently Trap Carbon Dioxide
Kansas State University

Kansas geologists are doing a comprehensive statewide study on using rocks for long-term storage of carbon dioxide.

Released: 6-Jul-2012 8:00 AM EDT
Satellite Research Reveals Smaller Volcanoes Could Cool Climate
University of Saskatchewan

A University of Saskchewan-led international research team has discovered that aerosols from relatively small volcanic eruptions can be boosted into the high atmosphere by weather systems such as monsoons, where they can affect global temperatures.

Released: 5-Jul-2012 4:05 PM EDT
Extreme Heat Raises Climate Change Questions, Concerns
University of Wisconsin–Madison

The recent heat wave baking much of the country has prompted many people to ask: Is this due to climate change?

5-Jul-2012 8:00 AM EDT
Eddies, Not Sunlight, Spur Annual Bloom of Tiny Plants in North Atlantic
University of Washington

Researchers have long believed that the longer days and calmer seas of spring set off an annual bloom of plants in the North Atlantic, but University of Washington scientists and collaborators discovered that warm eddies fuel the growth three weeks before the sun does.

3-Jul-2012 9:00 AM EDT
Shrinking Leaves Point to Climate Change
University of Adelaide

University of Adelaide researchers have discovered that recent climate change is causing leaves of some Australian plants to narrow in size.



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