The ranges of species will have to change dramatically as a result of climate change between now and 2100 because the climate will change more than 100 times faster than the rate at which species can adapt, according to a newly published study focusing on rattlesnakes.
Global carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels have surged to record levels following the 2008-09 global financial crisis, when a stagnant economy resulted in a temporary decline in emissions.
Preliminary research finds man-made risks created by petroleum and ranching industries don't impact the lizard as feared.
Less water used by trees would result in more runoff, which could benefit farmers and water managers statewide; Project will examine impacts on forest health and other ecosystem services.
Scientists in the New York Center for Astrobiology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have used the oldest minerals on Earth to reconstruct the atmospheric conditions present on Earth very soon after its birth. The findings, which appear in the Dec. 1 edition of the journal Nature, are the first direct evidence of what the ancient atmosphere of the planet was like soon after its formation and directly challenge years of research on the type of atmosphere out of which life arose on the planet.
Take a Petri dish containing crude petroleum and it will release a strong odor distinctive of the toxins that make up the fossil fuel. Sprinkle mushroom spores over the Petri dish and let it sit for two weeks in an incubator, and surprise, the petroleum and its smell will disappear.
University of Iowa engineers have published their findings from a study of residential soils in the city of Cedar Rapids, making it one of only a few such U.S. urban soil studies ever conducted.
A University of Adelaide scientist says much more could be done to predict the likelihood and spread of serious disease - such as tuberculosis (TB) or foot-and-mouth disease - in Australian wildlife and commercial stock.
More than 450 world experts from 60 countries will converge on Adelaide, Australia this week to discuss the importance of DNA "barcoding" - a rapidly growing international initiative to develop a genetic identity tool for all plants and animals on Earth.
The newfound scientific power to quickly “fingerprint” species via DNA is being deployed to unmask quack herbal medicines, reveal types of ancient Arctic life frozen in permafrost, expose what eats what in nature, and halt agricultural and forestry pests at borders, among other applications across a wide array of public interests.
Much of our knowledge about past life has come from the fossil record – but how accurately does that reflect the true history and drivers of biodiversity on Earth?
An engineering professor and students at a New Jersey university are designing rain gardens to help the environment.
New white paper offers current information on the biology, impacts and control of invasive plant species.
Carbon savings can be squeezed from trees when wood not suitable for long-term building materials is used for bioenergy: Depending on the process used, ethanol from woody biomass emits less greenhouse gas than an equivalent amount of gasoline, between 70 percent and a little over 100 percent less.
Rangeland managers need reliable data to determine the best course of action to preserve or restore ecosystems. Currently, biodiversity is not one of the parameters included in the evaluation of rangeland health. Two indicators of biodiversity, plant species richness and diversity, could prove useful and appropriate in evaluating the state of our grasslands.
Researchers led by Prof. Sébastien Sauvé of the University of Montreal’s Department of Chemistry have discovered that traces of caffeine are a useful indicator of the contamination of our water by sewers.
Sustainability has not only become a science in the past 25 years, but it is one that continues to be fast-growing with widespread international collaboration, broad disciplinary composition and wide geographic distribution.
It’s that holiday time of year again, and many people shopping for Christmas trees are facing a perennial question: which is the greener choice – real or fake? Climate change expert Clint Springer, Ph.D., assistant professor of biology at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, says that while he prefers real trees because of their environmental benefits, consumers who buy artificial trees can find other ways to "green" their holidays.
Research at Iowa State University has led to discovery of a genetic method that can increase biomass in algae by 50 to 80 percent. The breakthrough comes from turning on certain genes in algae that increase the amount of photosynthesis in the plant, which leads to more biomass.
A technology being developed as a solution to the historic problem of acid mine drainage could also have applications for the newest environmental challenge: hydraulic fracturing of Marcellus Shale.
Faced with declining funding sources, cities must find innovative ways to comply with increasing regulatory requirements to improve performance and meet regulatory standards.
The new electrical storage devices called asymmetric capacitors can be recharged thousands of times. Now, a new design could make them cheaper, greener and lighter--a big advantage for power tools and consumer electronics.
Scientists at South Dakota State University will help subsistence livestock owners in West Africa respond to climate change and emerging land use patterns with USAID and National Science Foundation funding.
Texas Tech alumnus gives new life to recycled phone books and lottery tickets.
Climate and environment experts from Texas Tech University recently spoke at a symposium to about 150 homeowners, students and members of the media about making smart choices.
A new report published by an independent global commission of eminent scientists states that the world’s food system needs an immediate transformation to meet current and future threats to food security and environmental sustainability.
Virginia Tech's Conservation Management Institute has provided technical expertise for the world's first avoided planned deforestation project to receive certification under the requirements of the international Verified Carbon Standard. (This posting is a clarification of the news release posted and withdrawn on Nov. 8, 2011.)
A Boise State University study has shed new light on how a shallow seaway that once extended across the central part of North America circulated during one of earth’s warmest periods, about 82 to 87 million years ago.
A recent study confirms that forests, and the products made from them, has long-term benefits for the environment.
Temperatures in both hemispheres and the tropics dropped through October as a new La Niña Pacific Ocean cooling event strengthened in the ocean west of Ecuador, Peru and Colombia.
Iowa State University researchers have established a national panel to research and develop technologies that take carbon out of the atmosphere and make money while doing it. The 33-member panel recently met for the first time.
Cooking stoves with chimneys can lower exposure to indoor wood smoke and reduce the rate of severe pneumonia by 30 percent in children less than 18 months of age, according to a new air pollution study funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health.
A truck-mounted radar dish often used to chase Midwest tornadoes is getting a workout in Utah this month as University of Utah meteorologists use it to get an unprecedented look inside snow and rain storms over the Salt Lake Valley and surrounding mountains.
A new study by researchers from the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future at the Bloomberg School of Public Health shows that testing of imported seafood by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is inadequate for confirming its safety or identifying risks.
IISD’s Mind the Gap paper provides new modelling to measure the impact of Canadian efforts to reduce GHG emissions, outlines five principles to guide policy development in a regulatory environment and offers three options Canada can consider to help it reach its target.
Virginia's brook trout streams are showing encouraging signs of recovery – in most cases – from the debilitating effects of acid rain, according to the most recent results from a long-term study led by University of Virginia environmental scientists.
In the eastern US, ants are integral to plant biodiversity because they help disperse seeds. But ants' ability to perform this vital function, and others, may be jeopardized by climate change, according to Nate Sanders, Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Sanders and his colleagues are testing the effects of climate change on ants by heating up patches of forest and tracking how the ants respond. Sanders observed that, on average, the ants foraged for about ten hours a day at normal temperatures. When temperatures were raised just a half a degree, the ants stayed in their nests underground and foraged just an hour. The absence of ants' seed dispersal and nutrient cycling could have profound influence on biodiversity.
When jewelers inspect diamonds, they look for cut, clarity, color and carat. When University of Tennessee, Knoxville, geologists Larry Taylor and Yang Liu inspect diamonds, they look for minerals, inclusions jewelers hate, but whose presence could be clues for how parts of earth formed.
Bats in North America are under attack. Since 2006, more than a million have been killed. Little has been done to save them, because there has not been enough evidence to implicate the suspect—until now. A study has discovered that the fungus Geomyces destructans is the causal agent of White-nose Syndrome (WNS), the fungal disease decimating the bat population.
U.S. lawns cover an area almost as large as Florida, making turfgrass our largest ‘crop’ and lawn fertilizer use a legitimate issue.
A project by three Bowling Green State University biologists and a colleague is expected to unleash a virtual tsunami of information that will be usable for years to come not only by them but also by scientists worldwide studying greenhouse gases and lake ecosystems.
Efforts to reduce the flow of fertilizers, animal waste and other pollutants into the Chesapeake Bay appear to be giving a boost to the bay’s health.
The National Science Foundation has awarded a two-year grant of nearly $250,000 to University of Illinois at Chicago researchers in urban planning, computer science, education and biology to devise visualization tools that will help stakeholders manage water resources in the Chicago region.
Payment mechanisms designed without regard for the properties of the services they cover may be environmentally harmful, say seven of the world’s leading environmental scientists, who met to collectively to study the pitfalls of utilizing markets to induce people to take account of the environmental costs of their behavior and solutions.
Over the past decade, the populations of staghorn and elkhorn corals in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary have remained steady after dramatic declines in the last century. Long-term monitoring conducted by researchers from the University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) has revealed that while populations of the iconic branching corals remain far below their historic numbers, the surviving populations of both species have not suffered further declines.
Did climate change or humans cause the extinctions of the large-bodied Ice Age mammals (commonly called megafauna) such as the woolly rhinoceros and woolly mammoth? Scientists have for years debated the reasons behind the Ice Age mass extinctions.
A recent increase in the intensity of tropical cyclones in the Arabian Sea may be a side effect of increasing air pollution over the Indian sub-continent, a new multi-institutional study has found.
The source of arsenic in India's groundwater continues to elude scientists more than a decade after the toxin was discovered in the water supply of the Bengal delta in India. But a recent study with a Kansas State University geologist and graduate student, as well as Tulane University, has added a twist -- and furthered the mystery.
Cutting out short auto trips and replacing them with mass transit and active transport would yield major health benefits, according to a study just published in the scientific journal Environmental Health Perspectives. The biggest health benefit was due to replacing half of the short trips with bicycle trips during the warmest six months of the year, saving about $3.8 billion per year from avoided mortality and reduced health care costs for conditions like obesity and heart disease.
In a study published this month in the journal Society and Natural Resources, Adena Rissman and Nathan Sayre of the University of California compared two large easement projects dominated by grazing land: the Malpai Borderlands Group, straddling the Arizona-New Mexico border, and The Nature Conservancy's Lassen Foothills, in northern California.
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