A new study by an international team including professor Mark Luckenbach of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science shows that the decline of oyster reefs is a global problem. The team's analysis shows that oyster reefs are at less than 10% of their prior abundance in 70% of the 144 bays studied around the world.
Wolverine habitat in the northwestern United States is likely to warm dramatically if society continues to emit large amounts of greenhouse gases, according to new computer model simulations carried out at NCAR. The study found that climate change is likely to imperil the wolverine in two ways: reducing or eliminating the springtime snow cover that wolverines rely on to protect and shelter newborn kits, and increasing August temperatures well beyond what the species may be able to tolerate.
A researcher at Missouri University of Science and Technology is leading a study to increase the amount of fly ash used in concrete. If successful, the effort could divert millions of tons of the waste product away from ponds and landfills and reduce CO2 emissions.
Oil spill expert Nancy Kinner is available to comment on a new study looking at the fate of dispersants used in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, and on the science of dispersants in general.
Villanova’s College of Engineering has launched a new center of research that brings concepts of sustainability within the study and practice of engineering to life. The new Villanova Center for the Advancement of Sustainability in Engineering (VCASE) houses multi-disciplinary research and teaching in a number of emerging areas and seeks to protect and restore the environment through the systems-based integration of sustainability principles into engineering solutions.
Even minute amounts of lead may take a toll on pregnant women, according to a study published by Lynn Goldman, M.D., M.S., M.P.H., Dean of George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services in D.C., and colleagues, in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives. Although the levels of lead in the women’s blood remained far below thresholds set by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, women carrying more lead had significantly higher blood pressure.
Beginning March 1, 2011, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will no longer provide calibration services for mercury thermometers.
For two months, researchers launched weather balloons, drove instrument-laden cars and flew a glider to study winter inversions that often trap dirty air in Salt Lake City and other urban basins worldwide. The field campaign – part of a study led by the University of Utah – ends Feb. 7.
A new, independent non-profit organization tasked with developing and administering a sustainability rating system for North American infrastructure—the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure (ISI)—will hold its first board meeting later this week on February 8 and 9. The organization was founded by the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC), the American Public Works Association (APWA) and the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE).
Professor Anton Ovchinnikov, who teaches Decision Analysis courses at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, has designed a new model to help companies determine which consumers would choose a refurbished product over a new one.
Scientists from Stony Brook University are reporting new evidence that cultivating coca bushes, the source of cocaine, is speeding up destruction of rainforests in Colombia and threatening the region’s “hotspots” of plant and animal diversity.
To combat last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill, nearly 800,000 gallons of chemical dispersant were injected directly into the oil and gas flow coming out of the wellhead nearly one mile deep in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, as scientists begin to assess how well the strategy worked at breaking up oil droplets, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) chemist Elizabeth B. Kujawinski and her colleagues report that a major component of the dispersant itself was contained within an oil-gas-laden plume in the deep ocean and had still not degraded some three months after it was applied.
Intelligent GenerationTM (IG) will celebrate the launch of its new test site at Illinois Institute of Technology's University Technology Park on January 27, 2011.
The U.S. Green Building Council has granted LEED Platinum certification — the highest possible standard — to the Peggy Ryan Williams Center at Ithaca College.
Mercury contamination, a worldwide environmental problem, has been called "public enemy No. 1" in California's San Francisco Bay.
Natural resource policy is an emerging academic field that focuses on the people part of science. It straddles the social and environmental sciences. "People cause social problems; people are affected by them; people care about them; and it's people who have to fix them," says Michigan Tech Professor Kathy Halvorsen.
In a study funded by the U.S. EPA and administered by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, biologists at Virginia Commonwealth University measured the nutrient removal capacity of the Eastern oyster.
In a collaborative study the USDA-ARS Water Management Research Unit and Colorado State University, soil samples were analyzed to determine the extent of atrzine degradation in northeastern Colorado.
An international research team working with NIST scientists has suggested for the first time that mercury cycling in the flora and fauna of the Arctic may be linked to the amount of ice cover present.
Encroaching woody plants such as the eastern redcedar are affecting many privately owned grasslands in the Midwestern United States. The attitudes and behaviors of private landowners to redcedar expansion are essential to preserving the remaining tallgrass prairie. Landowners must join forces to identify management strategies that will minimize this threat to grassland ecosystems. However, the owners’ attitudes toward taking steps to manage the restoration of the grasslands may affect efforts to preserve the prairie.
A new Australian company has been established to produce commercial quantities of clean, "green" fuels from algae.
The year 2010 finished in a photo finish with 1998 for the warmest year in the 32-year satellite temperature record. 2010 was only 0.013 C cooler than 1998, an amount that is not statistically significant.
An international team of lung experts has new evidence from a study in shantytowns near Lima, Peru, that teens living immediately next to a busy roadway have increased risk of allergies and asthma. The odds can go up by 30 percent for developing allergies to dust mites, pet hairs and mold, and can double for having actual asthma symptoms, such as wheezing and using medications to help them breathe.
Canada's national parks have seen many changes in the 100 years they have been around. Our national parks and Canadians' connections to them have helped shaped Canada's national identity.
The magnitude of climate change during Earth’s deep past suggests that future temperatures may eventually rise far more than projected if society continues its pace of emitting greenhouse gases, a new analysis concludes. Building on recent research, the study examines the relationship between global temperatures and high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere tens of millions of years ago.
Nature has a bit of a Jekyll and Hyde relationship with mercury, but researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have made a discovery that ultimately could help explain the split personality.
New results from a Baylor University study show that different behaviors and strategies lead some families to cope better and emerge stronger after a weather-related event.
A straightforward new way to calculate, compile, and graphically present solar radiation measurements in a format that is accessible to decision makers and the general public has been developed by researchers at the University of Texas at Austin and is described in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy.
In the vast ocean where an essential nutrient—iron—is scarce, a marine bacterium that launches the ocean food web survives by using a remarkable biochemical trick: It recycles iron.
They share a first name and a passion for oceanography, but beginning in late January, professors Deborah Bronk and Deborah Steinberg of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science will be polar opposites—literally. Bronk is scheduled to arrive in Barrow Alaska on January 25th to lead a team studying the Arctic coastal ecosystem. Steinberg will be leading her own team into their fourth week of shipboard research in the waters off the Antarctic Peninsula.
A new mobile application provides users with simplified access to vast libraries of images and information that up until now were tapped mainly by earth and environmental scientists. The EarthObserver App, for the iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch, displays natural features and forces on land, undersea and in the air. Created at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, it works on an intuitive level with touches of the fingers, drawing on dozens of frequently updated databases from institutions throughout the world.
Inexpensive igloo-shaped, pollution-eating devices nicknamed “Poo-Gloos” can clean up sewage just as effectively as multimillion-dollar treatment facilities for towns outgrowing their waste-treatment lagoons, according to a new study.
Alexander Graham Bell once said that when one door closes another one opens, and the open doors of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) Data Library and Archives are making it possible to help preserve the voluminous archives of GLOBEC, a study of Global Ocean Ecosystem Dynamics, which closed at the end of 2009.
Maryland’s smart growth program made barely discernible progress in the past decade concludes a new report from the University of Maryland's National Center for Smart Growth. "The state made a significant effort to encourage development in designated areas, but the smart growth tools in place are apparently inadequate,” says researcher Gerrit Knaap.
The amount of dust in the Earth’s atmosphere doubled since the beginning of the 20th century and the dramatic increase is influencing climate and ecology around the world, according to a new study led by Natalie Mahowald, Cornell associate professor of earth and atmospheric sciences.
An international team of scientists has released data indicating that greenhouse gas uptake by continents is less than previously thought because of methane emissions from freshwater areas.
The National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling will release its complete, final report on January 11. American University faculty experts are available to provide commentary on the spill and related topics.
NSF International, an independent public health organization that tests and certifies a wide range of plumbing and drinking water treatment products, strongly supports the passage of the Reduction of Lead in Drinking Water Act on January 4th, which significantly reduces the amount of lead allowed in plumbing products that contact drinking water.
An interdisciplinary team of scientists and engineers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison is turning a comprehensive lens on Madison’s water in all its forms — in the lakes, streets, faucets, ground and atmosphere — thanks to the National Science Foundation.
For every four to five reported cases of mesothelioma worldwide, at least one case goes unreported, according to estimates published online January 6 ahead of print in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP). This study is the first to provide a global estimate of unreported mesothelioma cases based on the collective experience of countries with available data on asbestos use and the disease.
Encouraging new evidence suggests that the bulk of the world’s fisheries – including small-scale, often non-industrialized fisheries on which millions of people depend for food – could be sustained using community-based co-management.
A study funded by the USDA – Agriculture Research Service has tested cattle grazing on degraded soil to determine if the activity would have any effect on restoring depleted nutrients.
For Boston, 2010 was the hottest year since at least 1872, according to the Northeast Regional Climate Center at Cornell University. Four other cities in New England also had their all-time hottest year. In all, 23 of the 35 cities monitored saw the average temperature for 2010 rank among the 10 hottest years on record.
University of Utah researchers developed a new concept in water treatment: an electrobiochemical reactor in which a low electrical voltage is applied to microbes to help them quickly and efficiently remove pollutants from mining, industrial and agricultural wastewater.
Research supports what Cape Cod cranberry growers already suspected: The traditional “flow-through” bogs have a negative impact on stream quality compared with modern bogs.
When engineers restore rivers, one Kansas State University professor hopes they'll keep a smaller engineer in mind: the North American beaver.
With “green” on the mind from holiday trees, wreaths, and garlands, here’s a package of ideas for keeping “green” — as in sustainable, eco-friendly — in your life throughout 2011 and beyond. They are gems on sustainability hand-picked from almost 38,000 scientific reports published in 2010 in the American Chemical Society’s 38 peer-reviewed scientific journals and its weekly newsmagazine, Chemical & Engineering News.
A new study finds that microscopic particles of dust, emitted into the atmosphere when dirt breaks apart, follow similar fragment patterns as broken glass and other brittle objects. The research suggests there are several times more dust particles in the atmosphere than previously believed, since shattered dirt appears to produce an unexpectedly high number of large dust fragments. The finding has implications for understanding future climate change because dust plays a significant role in controlling the amount of solar energy in the atmosphere.
A new study of sea-level trends by researchers at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science brings both good and bad news to localities concerned with coastal inundation and flooding along the shores of Chesapeake Bay.
November 2010 came in as the third warmest November in the 32-year satellite temperature record, but still warmer than November 1998. From January through November, that leaves 2010 only 0.012 C (0.022° F) cooler than 1998, which was the warmest year in the satellite record.
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