Feature Channels: Environmental Science

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Stamp sand, an unsightly leftover from the Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan's copper mining days, may prove a godsend for the roofing industry and the local economy.

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Public school grounds will become environmental education laboratories when a 20-foot green and blue mobile technology trailer pulls into the parking lots at Creekside Middle School in Carmel, Ind. and dozens of other elementary and middle schools in nine Indiana counties this fall and spring.

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Energy-based economic development has received little academic attention, but researchers have a rare opportunity to evaluate the potential impacts of EBED for society, says Indiana University faculty member Sanya Carley.

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Even though students today are more concerned than ever about the environment, during the transition to college, those ideals often go by the wayside. Dedee DeLongpré Johnston, director of sustainability at Wake Forest University, offers these simple suggestions to achieve a “greener” move-in by doing more with less.

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Exposure to organophosphate (OP) pesticides before birth can increase susceptibility to attention disorders such as attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), according to new research published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives (EHP). The new study is part of a growing body of research indicating that exposure to OP pesticides can adversely affect brain development.

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Scientists can now study climate change in far more detail with powerful new computer software released by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The Community Earth System Model (CESM) will be one of the primary climate models used for the next assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

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Environmental Engineers are doing research to determine if the shape of a crude oil remnant – be it a flat syrupy sheet or a tar ball – can affect deterioration rates. The researchers also will study how a lack of oxygen can hinder microbe growth, and how carbon leaching from dissipating oil can further fuel these oil-eating microbes.

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Sierra magazine has named the University of California, San Diego among the nation’s top 20 “coolest” schools for its efforts to stop global warming and operate sustainably. From the university’s new Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) gold and silver certified buildings to sustainable engineering classes, the magazine highlights how UC San Diego is making a true difference for the planet in the fourth annual listing of America’s greenest universities and colleges.

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Reducing the runoff from plant nutrients that can eventually wash into the Chesapeake Bay could someday be as easy as checking the weather forecast, thanks in part to work by U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists.

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With solar panels on the roof to heat water and touch screens in the hallways for monitoring energy usage, Wake Forest University’s new residence hall has the latest in green technology.

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A scientist at the Indian Institute of Technology in Roorkee, India has developed a method, described in the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, to assess the installation and operating costs of small hydroelectric power projects, which represent a potentially large but largely untapped source of energy for developing countries.

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While Arctic sea ice has been diminishing in recent decades, the Antarctic sea ice extent has been increasing slightly. Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology provide an explanation for the seeming paradox of increasing Antarctic sea ice in a warming climate.

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More science needed say researchers after testing for oil in seafood from Bastian Bay, La.

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This September a select group of professionals will begin training at the University of Chicago to fill an emerging position in the U.S. workforce: sustainability director. The professionals have enrolled in the Leadership in Sustainability Management Certificate Program.

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Today Earth Day Network announces partners in 15 countries who will join in planting one million trees in 2010 through the Avatar Home Tree Initiative.

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Arsenic in food supplements passes through chickens, then passes through the field.

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Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology are using funding from the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy – also known as ARPA-E – to pursue two different, but related, approaches for removing carbon dioxide from the flue gases of coal-burning power plants.

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When Dr. Mehdi Ferdowsi and Ph.D. student Andrew Meintz offered the inaugural class on electric and hybrid vehicles last January at Missouri University of Science and Technology (Missouri S&T), they made an instant connection with students from a variety of engineering disciplines.

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"Heat waves are a growing concern and current climate models indicate they will increase in duration and intensity especially in the mid-latitudes of which Indiana and the Midwest is a part," says climate researcher and IUPUI Professor Daniel Johnson. "Heat waves are known to kill hundreds of people in the United States every year and are the leading cause of weather-related fatalities; usually outstripping the combined effects of hurricanes, tornadoes, lightning and flash floods. "

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Land development in the N.C. mountains increased 568% from 1976 to 2006, researchers at the Renaissance Computing Institute (RENCI) at UNC Charlotte released in a study today. Forecasting extended to 19 N.C. mountain counties and will aid policy makers in guiding further development in the region.

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As much as 12 percent of the world’s human-caused greenhouse gas emissions could be sustainably offset by producing the charcoal-like substance biochar, concludes a study published in the journal Nature Communications

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Glaciologists who drilled through an ice cap perched precariously on the edge of a 16,000-foot-high Indonesian mountain ridge say that the ice field could vanish within in the next few years, another victim of global climate change.

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Kent D. Syverud JD, dean of the Washington University in St. Louis School of Law and the Ethan A.H. Shepley University Professor, has been named a trustee of the $20 billion BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill Trust.

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As part of its ongoing focus to enhance diversity system wide, the University of California has asked that each of its ten campuses establish advisory councils on climate, culture and inclusion. The first meeting of the UC San Diego Council on Climate, Equity and Inclusion, chaired by Chancellor Marye Anne Fox, took place on campus Thursday, July 22. In keeping with the guidance provided by the University of California Office of the President, the Council will be advisory to the Chancellor and will comprise individuals with substantive expertise in diversity from represented constituencies including faculty, students, alumni, staff and administrators and community members. A membership roster is posted at http://campusclimate.ucsd.edu/actions.php.

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Advances being made to explore outer space using solar sails were discussed by the more than 60 scientists from 12 nations who attended the Second International Symposium on Solar Sailing (ISSS 2010) held recently at New York City College of Technology (City Tech) in Downtown Brooklyn.

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Technological advances developed by University of Maryland researchers promise significant reductions in urban runoff polluting the Chesapeake Bay. The researchers say their work, which dramatically improves the removal of phosphorous and nitrogen, represents the next generation of “low impact development” technologies.

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Nitrogen-altering bacteria thrive under charcoal deposition.

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A University of Delaware researcher reports that an “ice island” four times the size of Manhattan has calved from Greenland's Petermann Glacier. The last time the Arctic lost such a large chunk of ice was in 1962.

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A 15-year experiment in an outdoor “laboratory” on Ohio State University’s campus shows that naturally colonizing wetlands can offer just as many, if not more, ecological services as will wetlands planted by humans.

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Scientists at the University of Arkansas and their colleagues have found populations of wild plants with genes from genetically modified canola in the United States.

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For the first time, scientists have been able to measure the amount of water that rises and falls annually in the Amazon River floodplain.

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It has been widely reported that the build up of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the air, which is caused by human behavior, will likely lead to climate change and have major implications for life on earth. But less focus has been given to global warming’s evil twin, ocean acidification, which occurs when CO2 lowers the pH of water bodies, thus making them more acidic. This lesser known phenomenon may have catastrophic effects on all sea life.

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Average temperatures for the globe, as well as the northern and southern hemispheres, went up in July despite the continued cooling of the El Nino Pacific Ocean warming event and the apparent transition to a La Nina Pacific Ocean cooling event.

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New book helps readers understand urban ecosystem ecology and how to manage their impacts through green infrastructure planning.

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Researchers at Saint Joseph's University in Philadelphia, Pa., are working to isolate the bacterial pathogen Xylella fastidiosa, a bacterial pathogen causing the early demise of some campus oak trees. They will then study how climate change affects the progression of the disease it causes, which is known as leaf scorch.

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Small boat acoustic sampling augments larger vessel surveys and could impact krill fishery management.

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Rapidly growing sector of tourism capitalizes on destinations’ natural and cultural resources.

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A new study published by a Washington and Lee University economist examines how much tourists would be willing to pay to protect the beach that they visit.

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Today, as state and local governments seek to integrate environmental and energy policies with job creation, a first-of-its kind national study has found that only a few states and cities have policies in place to create green jobs.

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The Wildlife Conservation Society applauded today’s Senate passage of H.R. 1454, the Multinational Species Conservation Funds Semipostal Stamp Act. Its passage has been a major legislative objective of WCS and represents a victory for supporters of wildlife and fiscally responsible governance.

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In an unprecedented effort that will be published online on the 28th of July by the international journal Nature, a team of scientists mapped and analyzed global biodiversity patterns for over 11,000 marine species ranging from tiny zooplankton to sharks and whales. The researchers found striking similarities among the distribution patterns, with temperature strongly linked to biodiversity for all thirteen groups studied.

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A University of Arkansas researcher and her colleagues examined streams in urban, agricultural and forested settings and determined that the differences they found may affect how cities try to restore urban streams.

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Though its population has increased only slightly, urban development in New Jersey continued—and even gained momentum—over a 21-year span ending in 2007, according to a new study by researchers at Rowan and Rutgers universities.

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Procedure will improve research in plant nutrient uptake, organic matter decomposition, and production of greenhouse gases.

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More accurate precipitation data leads to improved water quality modeling in the Chesapeake Bay

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A climate-change study at Sandia National Laboratories that models the near-term effects of declining rainfall in each of the 48 U.S. continental states makes clear the economic toll that could occur unless an appropriate amount of initial investment — a kind of upfront insurance payment — is made to forestall much larger economic problems down the road.

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U.S. military operations to protect oil imports coming from the Middle East are creating larger amounts of greenhouse gas emissions than once thought, new research from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln shows.

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The first expedition to search for deep-sea hydrothermal vents along the Mid-Cayman Rise has turned up three distinct types of hydrothermal venting, reports an interdisciplinary team led by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in this week’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The work was conducted as part of a NASA-funded effort to search extreme environments for geologic, biologic, and chemical clues to the origins and evolution of life.

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Rowan University faculty and students have teamed with Pfizer Global Engineering and Manufacturing personnel to investigate green approaches to drug manufacture. This is the second time Rowan has partnered with Pfizer to investigate methods to reduce the carbon footprint of pharmaceutical plant operations.

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Fisheries researchers at Tennessee Tech University in Cookeville, Tenn., found one piece of a scientific puzzle that just may help save the endangered pallid sturgeon from extinction.