Feature Channels: Environmental Science

• share
• favorite_border

Although Americans are becoming increasingly aware of toxic chemical exposure from everyday household products like bisphenol A in some baby bottles and lead in some toys, women do not readily connect typical household products with personal chemical exposure and related adverse health effects, according to research from the December issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

• share
• favorite_border

The management of stormwater in urban areas is often focused on restoring the hydrologic cycle disrupted by extensive pavement and compacted urban soils, but now a group of researchers have been investigating innovative ways to maximize the potential of trees to address stormwater. The development of structural soil reservoirs may provide new opportunities for meeting engineering, environmental, and greenspace management needs in urban areas.

• share
• favorite_border

A detailed analysis of black carbon - the residue of burned organic matter - in computer climate models suggests that those models may be overestimating global warming predictions.

• share
• favorite_border

Scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville use data gathered by microwave sounding units on NOAA and NASA satellites to get accurate temperature readings for almost all regions of the Earth.

• share
• favorite_border

Indiana University students and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service professionals are learning together this semester in an IU course on conservation and global climate change -- without contributing to further climate change. The class meets on the IU campus, and Fish and Wildlife Service personnel from eight states participate from their homes or offices, linked to the classroom by phone and computer.

• share
• favorite_border

Among steps the University of Mississippi is taking to become more eco-friendly is a new 18-hour academic minor in environmental studies. Responding to the incredible growth of environmental studies programs across the country, the university this fall began offering the new course ENVS 101, or Classics of Modern Environmental Literature.

• share
• favorite_border

The GW School of Business' Institute for Corporate Responsibility and Sport Management program has launched a "Green Sports Score Card" research initiative that will help sports organizations globally assess their environmental friendliness.

• share
• favorite_border

While Earth has experienced numerous changes in climate over the past 65 million years, recent decades have experienced the most significant climate change since the beginning of human civilized societies about 5,000 years ago, says a new Cornell University study.

• share
• favorite_border

In February of last year, University of Wisconsin- Madison senior Ted Durkee teamed up with University of Wisconsin-Madison alumnus Brandon Gador, who graduated last spring, to found Powered Green, a startup company promoting the use of renewable energy. They officially launched the company at the end of September.

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute have discovered and demonstrated a new method for overcoming two major hurdles facing solar energy. By developing a new antireflective coating that boosts the amount of sunlight captured by solar panels and allows those panels to absorb the entire solar spectrum from nearly any angle, the research team has moved academia and industry closer to realizing high-efficiency, cost-effective solar power.

• share
• favorite_border

An alarming new study to be published in November in the Annual Review of Environment and Resources finds that one-third of the world's marine fish catches are ground up and fed to farm-raised fish, pigs, and poultry, squandering a precious food resource for humans and disregarding the serious overfishing crisis in our oceans.

• share
• favorite_border

Clark Atlanta University and Spelman College announced today the completion of a $12 million renovation of the John B. Shepherd Central Utility Plant located on the campus of CAU. The Central Utility Plant services 23 buildings at Spelman, 14 at CAU, and 14 at Morehouse.

• share
• favorite_border

From the ants in your back yard to apes in Africa's forests, UC San Diego biologists are looking at genetics, behavior and how organisms interact with their environments. They will share their insights of how modern ecology provides a scientific basis for conservation in a series of public talks presented by UCSD's Division of Biological Sciences called Nature Matters.

• share
• favorite_border

Compound used in manufacture of flat panel televisions, computer displays, microcircuits, solar panels is 17,000 times more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

• share
• favorite_border

Maryland officials can reduce electricity use in the state significantly by investing revenues from the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative cap-and-trade auctions in energy efficiency programs, says a new study from a University of Maryland-led research team. It adds that neighboring states might benefit as well.

• share
• favorite_border

Climate change in the Northwest is the focus of two federal grants totaling $3.2 million awarded to two University of Oregon researchers. They will work together on a pair of multi-site projects designed to help enhance biodiversity while protecting people and property from wildfires in the face of a changing climate.

• share
• favorite_border

Contrary to popular belief, moderate increases in temperature and increased nitrogen from acid rain actually improves forest productivity, providing there is sufficient moisture.

• share
• favorite_border

Michigan's forest industry produces thousands of jobs and hundreds of thousands of tons of unused residues each year. Why not use that woody material to help generate clean electric power?

• share
• favorite_border

New York City College of Technology intends to make inroads in the prediction of natural disasters with support from a three-year, $459K grant from the National Science Foundation. The funds are targeted for faculty-supervised student research in state-of-the-art satellite and ground-based remote sensing.

• share
• favorite_border

In a new model of atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, sea level variation, Northern Hemisphere ice sheets and Antarctic ice over the past 34 million years reported in Nature, University of Massachusetts Amherst climatologist Robert DeConto and colleagues at four other institutions cast new light on estimates of polar ice volume and the relationship to sea level. Their model has implications for understanding future effects of global warming.

• share
• favorite_border

Thousands of trees and shrubs are pulling contaminants out of the ground, eliminating the need for an $8 million treatment facility at the Fort Drum military installation.

• share
• favorite_border

Reflecting the heterogeneous nature of rural America, rural Americans are divided "“ primarily along religious lines "“ on their perspectives of environmental conservation and climate change, a new brief from the Carsey Institute finds. This religious and environmental divide presents a challenge to political candidates.

• share
• favorite_border

Moderate global warming and acid rain actually could be a good thing for northern hardwood forests, because it makes the trees grow faster and store more carbon.

• share
• favorite_border

Grinnell College experts available to discuss climate change, sustainability and green campus efforts, and effects of chronic disease on couples.

• share
• favorite_border

With electrical consumption in the U.S. up 54% in the past twenty years, rising fuel costs, and growing concerns about the environment, who wouldn't want to make better use of one's energy while saving money and reducing one's CO2 emissions?

• share
• favorite_border

Researchers have created a new material that overcomes two of the major obstacles to solar power: it absorbs all the energy contained in sunlight, and generates electrons in a way that makes them easier to capture.

• share
• favorite_border

Dalhousie University in Halifax Nova Scotia has been twice recognized for its efforts to create a greener, more sustainable campus.

• share
• favorite_border

Software that will save data centers millions of dollars in energy costs has won the Southeastern Universities Research Association Intellectual Property to Market (IP2M) competition. The patent-pending invention, dubbed EcoDaemon by the researchers at Virginia Tech who created it, ranked number one among submissions from more than 60 research institutes in the southeast.

• share
• favorite_border

University of Michigan researchers have developed a new tool that uses natural "fingerprints" in coal to track down sources of mercury polluting the environment.

• share
• favorite_border

A report scheduled to be published online this week in early edition the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that maintaining the proper balance of herbivorous fishes may be critical to restoring coral reefs, which are declining dramatically worldwide.

• share
• favorite_border

Health experts from the Wildlife Conservation Society today released a report that lists 12 pathogens that could spread into new regions as a result of climate change, with potential impacts to both human and wildlife health and global economies.

• share
• favorite_border

Climatologist Robert DeConto and colleagues are reporting in the Oct. 2 issue of the journal Nature that their latest climate model of the Northern Hemisphere suggests conditions would have allowed ice sheets to form there for the last 25 million years, or about 22 million years earlier than generally assumed.

• share
• favorite_border

Frank Wolak, professor of commodity price studies at Stanford University, will address the UC San Diego Economics Roundtable on October 14, placing these demands into perspective with claims of the environment.

• share
• favorite_border

Chalk up another environmental benefit for shade-grown Latin American coffee: University of Michigan researchers say the technique will provide a buffer against the ravages of climate change in the coming decades.

• share
• favorite_border

A study in Shanghai, China on various modifiers, and their effects on outdoor air pollution and daily mortality rates indicates that air pollutant levels are higher in the cool season than in the warm season (except for ozone, which is higher in the warm season), and that females, the elderly, and the disadvantaged are more vulnerable to the effects of outdoor air pollution overall.

• share
• favorite_border

Despite widespread concern about climate change, annual carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels and manufacturing cement have grown 38 percent since 1992, from 6.1 billion tons of carbon to 8.5 billion tons in 2007.

• share
• favorite_border

By killing large swaths of forests in the Rocky Mountains, mountain pine beetles may be altering local weather patterns and air quality. NCAR is leading an international field project exploring how the loss of trees and other vegetation influences rainfall, temperatures, smog, and other aspects of the atmosphere.

• share
• favorite_border

Leading Florida-based scientific researchers released two new studies today, including a Florida State University report finding that climate change will cause significant impacts on Florida's coastlines and economy due to increased sea level rise. A second study by researchers at Florida Atlantic University recommends that the state of Florida adopt a series of policy programs aimed at adapting to these large coastal and other impacts as a result of climate change.

• share
• favorite_border

Two species of giraffe, several rhinos and five elephant relatives, along with multitudes of rodents, bush pigs, horses, antelope and apes, once inhabited what is now northern Pakistan.

• share
• favorite_border

Environmental scientists studying the world's shrinking polar ice sheets will soon get a substantial boost in computing power thanks to IU's Polar Grid Project. Project partners are poised this week to deploy a collection of customized computational resources to Antarctica that will allow scientists -- both on site and remotely -- to more securely and efficiently process data during polar field expeditions.

• share
• favorite_border

New ways of teaching today's agriculture is the topic of a new article written by Nicholas Jordan and colleagues, featured in the 2008 Journal of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Education. With the increasing importance of agriculture in developing biofuels, bioproducts and other goods and services, new methods are needed to teach the resulting intellectual, moral, and practical challenges.

• share
• favorite_border

Climate has been implicated by a new study as a major driver of wildfires in the last 2,000 years. But human activities, such as land clearance and fire suppression during the industrial era (since 1750) have created large swings in burning, first increasing fires until the late 1800s, and then dramatically reducing burning in the 20th century.

• share
• favorite_border

In a new book, the director of the University of Oregon's Climate Leadership Initiative says that addressing human contributions to global warming requires a mindset tuned to "The Power of Sustainable Thinking." The book targets decision makers in the public and private sectorbut is accessible to "anyone interested in changing thinking and behavior about the climate and sustainability."

• share
• favorite_border

Manufacturers' efforts to cut costs and reduce waste through so-called "lean" manufacturing techniques haven't always taken the environment into account. But two researchers at Missouri University of Science and Technology hope to show that manufacturers can be both lean and green by incorporating processes designed to conserve energy and minimize environmental impact with a lean manufacturing philosophy.

• share
• favorite_border

Last month, immense ice shelves collapsed into the Arctic Ocean. Polar bears are losing vital hunting grounds and countries are now staking claims to potential oil reserves under the pole. To better gauge the climate changes, Ohio researchers will "reanalyze" a decade of atmospheric, sea, ice and land surface data merged into a single computer model.

• share
• favorite_border

Biochar, the product of a slow-burning charcoal-creation process using sticks and wood scraps, can vastly improve soils for growing food and other plants. Because it sequesters carbon, it could also help mitigate global warming.

• share
• favorite_border

The American Chemical Society is now offering Global Challenges/Chemistry Solutions, a series of podcasts focusing on daunting global problems and how new discoveries from the labs of chemists and other scientists offer solutions.

• share
• favorite_border

The home of the Ithaca College School of Business is the first facility for a college or university business school in the world to attain platinum LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) status. The college is also constructing a new administration building to platinum LEED standards.

• share
• favorite_border

From global warming today to how it will impact the climate at the end of the century, Katharine Hayhoe can discuss what to expect and how fewer emissions can create less climate impact.

• share
• favorite_border

The biggest energy bang for the buck comes from sunlight, says Binghamton University researcher Seshu Desu. And together with his research team, he's hoping to tap into that immense supply of renewable energy and make it easily accessible as a flexible, large-area and low-cost, power source.