and last that sterilizing insects in a low-oxygen environment helps create suitors who more closely resemble the suave Clooney than do sterilized those in a normal-oxygen environment.
The reseachers found using a low-oxygen environment during sterilization boosted the sterile males'longevity as well as their ability to attract and successfully mate.
#Scientists blend synthetic air to measure climate changescientists at the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) have produced a synthetic air reference standard
This will greatly help scientists contribute to our understanding of climate change. A paper published in Analytical Chemistry describes how researchers at NPL have created a synthetic gas standard for the first time
The data collected from these is important to our understanding of climate change. To reliably compare the concentration of carbon dioxide and methane in air at different locations and over time a primary standard to
They are a hardy fish that grows well in a controlled environment. They were also the key ingredient in his aquaponics project where fish waste fertilized the plants
and quantity of freshwater resources is one of the most serious environmental challenges of the 21st century.
They added that wireless sensor systems can have environmental benefits as well as the economic benefits shown in the study.
The design and conduct of the experiments used in our analysis prevented us from estimating potential environmental benefits
but this technology clearly has promise as a win-win combination of economic and environmental improvements they said.
#Cyclones and frost: Two climate change myths debunkedwits University scientists have debunked two big myths around climate change by proving firstly that
despite predictions tropical storms are not increasing in number. However they are shifting and South africa could be increased at risk of being impacted directly by tropical cyclones within the next 40 years.
Secondly while global warming is causing frost to be less severe late season frost is not receding as quickly as flowering is advancing resulting in increased frost risk
which will likely begin to threaten food security. According to Jennifer Fitchett a Phd student in the Wits School of Geography Archaeology and Environmental Studies (GAES) there has been an assumption that increasing sea surface temperatures caused by global warming is causing an increase in the number
of tropical cyclones. But looking at data for the southwest Indian ocean over the past 161 years Fitchett
and co-author Professor Stefan Grab also from GAES confirmed the results of previous studies which have found that there has been no increase in the number of tropical cyclones
and that much of the perceived change in numbers is a result of improved storm detection methods. â#oefrom 1940 there was a huge increase in observations because of aerial reconnaissance
and satellite imageryâ#she says. The big surprise came when Fitchett and Grab looked at where storms have been happening.
As the oceans have warmed and the minimum sea surface temperature necessary for a cyclone to occur (26.5 degrees Celsius) has been moving further south storms in the southwest Indian ocean have been moving further south too.
Most cyclones hit Madagascar and do not continue to Mozambique and those which hit Mozambique develop to the north of Madagascar
but in the past 66 years there have been seven storms which have developed south of Madagascar and hit Mozambique head-on.
More notable is that four of them occurred in the past 20 years. â#oethis definitely looks like the start of a trendâ#says Fitchett.
The cyclones that hit southern Mozambique cause heavy rain and flooding in Limpopo. But according to Fitchett the trend becomes even more concerning
what we expected from climate change. We thought tropical cyclones might increase in number but we never expected them to move. â#Â Â In a separate study Fitchett
and co-authors looked at different types of citrus â#oranges lemons and tangerines â#in two cities in Iran where the existence of heritage gardens meant data were easily available.
#and the country has been experiencing similar climate warming to Iran. South african farmers are not yet recording the flowering dates of their crops
A 66-year tropical cyclone record for southeast Africa: temporal trends in a global context was published in the International Journal of Climatology in February 2014
Her second paper co-authored with Grab Dave Thompson (South african Environmental Observation Network) and Reza Rowshan (University of Golestan Iran) titled:
and the media on climate change. â#oewe are on a quest to test and challenge such reporting based on the analysis of quality data available to us.
and bodes well to a future generation of South african climate and environmental change scientists. â#Story Source:
#Drone shows new view of energy coal ash spillaerial images captured by a drone aircraft provide a new look at the extent of contaminants leaked into a North carolina river from a Duke energy coal ash dump as concerns about water pollution grow
A drone aircraft operated by researchers at Wake Forest University's Center for Energy Environment
The researchers have released all of their observations and data to Duke energy the U s. Environmental protection agency the North carolina Department of Environmental Resources the Southern Environmental law Center The North carolina River Keepers and the Dan River basin Association.
and its consequences and show the technology as a cheap and cost-effective way to monitor the environment.
It could be an effective means to monitor the extent of environmental contamination in the case of similar incidents.
Funding for this project was provided by Wake Forest University's Center for Energy Environment and Sustainability.
Silman Messinger and Marcus Wright a chemistry lab manger and key developer of Wake Forest's environmental drone program are also applying their drone technology to explore climate change in the Peruvian Amazon.
#Better livestock diets to combat climate change, improve food securitylivestock production is responsible for 12%of human-related greenhouse gas emissions primarily coming from land use change
and deforestation caused by expansion of agriculture as well as methane released by the animals themselves with a lesser amount coming from manure management and feed production.
This development would lead to a 23%reduction of emissions from land use change in the next two decades without any explicit climate mitigation policy.
The new study also introduces a new metric for measuring the costs of climate measures for agricultural systems the Total Abatement Calorie Cost (TACC)
In addition they note that safeguards are needed to insure that the intensified agricultural production does not lead to environmental damage
In a recent review in Ecology Letters with colleagues at Yale and the University of Texas at Austin Mcart and Adler survey the literature
Persistent landslides and erosion exacerbated the devastation. Typically such natural damage is assessed with remote sensing
Their work which is relevant to disaster areas worldwide is reported in this week's Forest Ecology and Management.
Jindong Zhang a postdoctoral research associate in CSIS spent several months over a period of four years in Wolong dodging landslides mudslides and rubble strewn roads to survey
but also take into account the animals inhabiting the ecosystem and human livelihoods. They also noted that such efforts could benefit from more targeting of areas most favored by pandas.
The emphasis on genetic diversity is a relatively new concern in ecosystem restoration projects where there has been an understandable urgency to move plants and animals back into an area as quickly as possible.
and distinctiveness of their source beds in their new mesocosm environments at the RTC-SFSU lab said Cohen.
Sea grass meadows are a key marine environment under siege. In their healthy state they stabilize coastal sediment
If you were out kayaking at low tide you might see these grasses in places like Richardson Bay which is full of a big meadow she said.
During low tides beachcombers could walk to eelgrass beds at places like Crown Beach in Alameda or Keller Beach in Richmond.
and ecology for projects that build better strategies to preserve the surprisingly distinct eelgrass meadows of San francisco bay.
Cohen said that differences in water salinity wind sunlight a sandy or silty bottom and the kinds of organisms that live with the eelgrass all might play a role in creating such genetically different meadows.
The model described online in the journal Ecology Letters could help generate similar predictions for other forests too.
Some ecologists could use that information to learn how much one species is displacing another over a wide area
James Kellner assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Brown University the paper's lead and corresponding author noticed what seemed like implausibly large canopy growth in LIDAR images collected by the Carnegie Airborne
when a given height change is judged to be vertical rather than lateral and that is based on the unique neighborhood around that position and
Accounting for several neighborhoods including some with more variance can delineate trends such as how close trees have to be before one could overtop another.
Instead they saw proximity to taller neighbors was a tree's biggest threat. When a position in the canopy was lost to a neighbor it was almost exclusively due to competition among the immediate neighbors (the 3-by-3 pixel neighborhood)
which represented locations that were less than 1. 77 meters away Kellner and Asner wrote. Neighbors at greater distances accounted for just two of the 3906 episodes of lateral capture inferred to have occurred in our data.
But in a forest with trees capable of more dramatic lateral growth that distance might end up being bigger.
There's definitely basic ecological interest in understanding what might be called the rules of the game Kellner said.
the most serious are poverty the growing demand for resources and the deterioration of the environment.
The impact of climate change on the technical accessibility of forests and harvestable volumes of industrial and energy wood was analyzed also.
The study showed that climate change affects technical accessibility of forests in the study area and consequently economic sustainability of the logging companies.
Also although they are small enough to grow in many environments unlike biofuel-producing microbes duckweed plants are large enough to harvest easily.
and revive in warmer weather. Moreover despite the reduced number of total genes S. polyrhiza has more copies of genes for enzymes involved in nitrogen absorption and metabolism than in other plants.
and decrease risks to environmental and human health. Nitrogen is primarily taken up from the soil by the roots
and could lead to developments that improve agriculture and the environment. It will be published by elife on March 11
According to a recent University of Illinois study the regionâ##s agricultural lands dodged a bullet due to the timing of the great flood of April 2011
According to Olson who has studied the effects of that particular flood extensively these cultivated soils drained by the middle of June 2011
and levees loss of wetlands and flood-holding capacity internal channelization of the Cache River and tributaries and an ever-changing climate have altered the hydrology of the valley redistributed soil from fields
and their social economic and environmental impacts have become more apparent. â#oethe Great Flood of 2011 lends urgency to the reevaluation
erosion open dumping private property rights water quality continuation of government farm conservation programs Post Creek Cutoff stream bank erosion open flow on the Cache River dissemination of accurate and timely information
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
and administered by Rice's Ken Kennedy Institute for Information technology and the NSF-supported Extreme Science and Engineering Discovery Environment (XSEDE) supercomputer.
Evidence of the environment inhabited by Proconsula University of Rhode island anthropologist along with colleagues from an international team of scientists has discovered definitive evidence of the environment inhabited by the early ape Proconsul on Rusinga Island Kenya.
The findings provide new insights into understanding and interpreting the connection between habitat preferences and the early diversification of the ape-human lineage.
The discovery underscores the importance of forested environments in the evolution of early apes. To have the vegetation of a habitat preserved right along with the fossil primates themselves isn't a regular occurrence in primate paleontology she said.
This environmental evidence jibes with our behavioral interpretations of Proconsul anatomy--as being adapted for a life of climbing in the trees--and with present-day monkey and ape ecology.
During the dry season there was probably relatively little rainfall he said. Additionally by studying fossil leaves at the site we were able to estimate that there was about 55 to 100 inches of rainfall a year
and the average annual temperature was between 73 and 94 degrees Fahrenheit. Research on Rusinga Island has been ongoing for more than 80 years
The Department for Environment Food and Rural affairs together with several commercial organisations funded the research as part of a Hort-LINK project (HL01105:
Warning against abrupt stop to geoengineering method (if started) As a range of climate change mitigation scenarios are discussed University of Washington researchers have found that the injection of sulfate particles into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight
The new study published today 18 february in IOP Publishing's journal Environmental Research Letters has highlighted the risks of large
The researchers used a global climate model to show that if an extreme emissions pathway--RCP8. 5--is followed up until 2035 allowing temperatures to rise 1â°C above the 1970-1999 mean
but compared to historical fluctuations temperature changes would be largest in the tropics in summertime where there is usually very little variation.
Furthermore the researchers used a simple climate model to study a variety of plausible greenhouse gas scenarios and SRM termination years over the 21st century.
They showed that climate sensitivity--a measure of how much the climate will warm in response to the greenhouse effect--had a lesser impact on the rate of temperature changes.
--and once you have that it changes the picture of how this virus evolved said Michael Worobey a professor of ecology
--either intentionally or unintentionally as a side effect of global farming and industry--is having a destabilizing effect on global grassland ecosystems.
Led by Yann Hautier a Marie Curie Fellow associated with both the Department of Ecology Evolution
and Behavior at the University of Minnesota and the Institute of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies at the University of Zurich the research team included U of M associate professors Eric Seabloom and Elizabeth Borer
The researchers found that plant diversity in natural ecosystems creates more stable ecosystems over time because of less synchronized growth of plants.
They used this information to quantify species diversity and ecosystem stability. Says Hautier: It was really striking to see the relationship between diversity
The results of our study emphasize that we need to consider not just how productive ecosystems are
and how biodiversity is related to both aspects of ecosystem functioning says Andy Hector. The researchers also found that grassland diversity
Rainfall brings nitrogen out of the atmosphere and on to grasslands changing the growth and types of plant species. This study placed measured amounts of fertilizer on a portion of their research sites
and we have less stable ecosystems when we have more nutrients coming into that system says Borer.
Borer and Seabloom led a small group of scientists who created Nutnet to standardize the way that ecology research is conducted.
The group ultimately wants to continue experiments for at least ten years to gather information about long-term trends in plant species diversity and ecosystem stability extinctions species invasions and many other important changes in the world
This is true in genetic ecological and nutritional terms. Small farmers by contrast in many places continue to grow a range of species and multiple varieties that form the basis of their diet and nutrition.
and medicines as well as wild animal-sourced foods increase the likelihood that subsistence farmers with access to natural ecosystems meet their nutrition and health needs.
Socially guided food-policy decisions should value the environmental health social and cultural benefits offered by agrobiodiversity Prof.
and we want them to hang due to nutritional ecological and other conservation advantages. Scaling up even more Zimmerer looked at potato fields on the landscape level--typically groups of 5 to 15 communities
and keep track of the potatoes growing in their and their neighbor's fields. Zimmerer's approach may eventually be used for visualizations that help enable the local crowdsourcing of this agrobiodiversity.
when producers establish the permanent flood about three to six weeks after planting Gore said.
or semiaquatic environments we needed to find out how different water management practices might impact the seed treatments'performance he said.
To determine the impact of a delayed flood we looked at flood timings of six and eight weeks after planting
Where we delayed the permanent flood until eight weeks after planting the seed treatment was compromised not
Flushing a field is a form of irrigation where the field is brought to a shallow flood and then drained.
while they were suspended in the open air in a vacuum and in nitrogen or argon environments.
#Environmental impact of Ontario corn production assessedresearchers at the University of Guelph examined the energy use
Given the environmental and economic benefits of renewable fuels and the proliferation of their use in Canada it is important to more fully understand the environmental impacts of their associated agricultural production added Serge Buy CEO of AIC.
and arsenic in these dense electron cloud interactions said Brookhaven Lab physicist and study coauthor Weiguo Yin.
The Brookhaven researchers used a technique called quantitative convergent beam electron diffraction (CBED) to reveal the orbital clouds with subatomic precision.
Shape-Shifting Atomsthe researchers first examined the electron clouds of non-superconducting samples of barium iron arsenic.
and particles at the edge of our solar system that appears to be a directional roadmap in the sky of the local interstellar magnetic field.
That it's revealing a consistent picture of our neighborhood in the galaxy with what IBEX has revealed gives us vastly more confidence that
and direct galactic cosmic rays is a crucial component to understanding the environment of our galaxy which in turn influences the environment of our entire solar system
and our own environment here On earth including how that played into the evolution of life on our planet.
study showsepidemiological data integrated with climate data taken from tree-ring estimates of soil moisture levels demonstrate that drought contributed to the spread of typhus in Mexico from 1655 to 1918 according to a new study by researchers
and examined the chronology of their rings to help explain the societal impact of drought and other climate changes.
and most accurate of its kind for Mesoamerica was the first to reconstruct the climate of pre-colonial Mexico on an annual basis over a period of more than a thousand years.
The researchers published their findings in the current issue of the Journal of Chemical Ecology.
and human-modified forests that have lost many of their original ecological characteristics. Modified Orangutan behaviour which sees them increasingly spending time on the ground
The 11 food values they chose to examine included freshness health hormone-free/antibiotic-free animal welfare taste price safety convenience nutrition origin and environmental impact.
In contrast the values of environmental impact animal welfare origin and convenience were less important for the livestock products
The social values including animal welfare environmental impact and origin for example aren't irrelevant Schroeder said.
The carbon credit sales will support the Government of Madagascar's REDD+Project (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation plus conservation) in the Makira Natural Park and mark the first sale
Through carbon credit sales from avoided deforestation the Makira REDD+Project will finance the long-term conservation of one of Madagascar's most pristine remaining rainforest ecosystems harboring rare and threatened plants and animals
and Zoo Zurich and join us in this effort to conserve Madagascar's unique biodiversity through the sale of future carbon credits said Pierre Manganirina Randrianarisoa the Secretary general of the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
and a first for Madagascar in advancing the use of carbon credits to fight climate change while protecting biodiversity and human livelihoods.
Said Rob Bernard Chief Environmental Strategist at Microsoft: Supporting forest conservation and community building projects like Makira is an important part of Microsoft's strategy to reduce its environmental impact support sustainable economic growth improve health and education and address societal challenges.
The project's important role in protecting a crucial area of biodiversity value also aligns with Microsoft's own focus on using technology information
Increasingly our clients are looking for opportunities to manage the entire environmental impact of their organisation driven by the need to build resilience in their supply chains.
REDD+is an international framework that assigns a financial value to the carbon stored in forests offering compensation to developing countries for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation while investing in low-carbon paths
and has received a'Gold'level validation by the Climate Community and Biodiversity Alliance. Avoided deforestation has been identified as a key mechanism for reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
In Madagascar burning for agricultural land and extraction of wood for household energy leads to around 36000 hectares (139 square miles) of natural forest being lost each year.
and can grow in some of the world's harshest environments. The project will build a biorefinery called the'D-Factory
It can cope with extreme conditions from salt caves in the Antarctic to salt pans in the tropics.
and companies to develop manufacturing processes that can remove the high water content and preserve seaweed for year-round use.
various environmental factors as well as differences in the TB bacteria may also affect susceptibility. If we can choose animals with better genotypes for TB resistance then we can apply this information in new breeding programs alongside other control strategies.
and retained high levels of chemopreventive bioactives said Vodovotz who is also with Ohio State's College of Food Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.
and self-perception of smokers in today's social environment will require further studies and understanding.
#Urban bees using plastic to build hivesonce the snow melts Canada's bee population will be back in business--pollinating making honey
and the ecosystem few scientists have observed insects adapting to a plastic-rich environment he said.
The nests containing plastic were among more than 200 artificial nest boxes monitored by Macivor as part of a large-scale investigation of the ecology of urban bees
They are used by a variety of bee species. The novel use of plastics in the nests of bees could reflect the ecologically adaptive traits necessary for survival in an increasingly human-dominated environment Macivor said.
They reveal a trend towards wider growth rings implying moister growing conditions--with the last 50 years seeing increasing amounts of rainfall.
but they are useful for understanding how climate has changed. The widths of the tree rings show a close correspondence with observations from rain gauges over the last 55 years such that tree rings in wetter years tend to be wider than tree rings in drier years.
This suggests that any further large-scale warming might be associated with even greater rainfall in this region
and store carbon from the atmosphere and thereby counteract climate change caused by human carbon emissions.
In the study researchers of biological and environmental science collaborated with researchers of multi-objective decision making from the field of information technology.
and the way we experience our environment. Researchers at Leiden University and the University of Amsterdam have carried out the first-ever study to test
whether the intake of tyrosine enhances our ability to stop an activity at lightning speed.
%The researchers used an innovative intervention promoting positive dietary behaviors to capture the attention of youth living in a multimedia environment;
The above story is provided based on materials by University of Illinois College of Agricultural Consumer and Environmental sciences (ACES.
and negative--when they sprayed the herbicide dicamba on old fields--ones that are used no longer for cultivation--and on field edges according to J. Franklin Egan research ecologist USDA-Agricultural research service.
The researchers who report their findings in the current issue of Agriculture Ecosystems and Environment did not see a drop in the number of pollinators such as bees in the fields.
However the relatively small size of the research fields limited the researchers'ability to measure the effect on pollinators according to Egan.
and use a nozzle design on the sprayer that produces larger droplets that do not easily drift in the wind.
and communities to create smoke-free environments increase the cost of tobacco products and restrict access to tobacco products.
whether there are shared genes relating to similar forms of behavior across a very wide range of animals said Amy Toth assistant professor of ecology evolution and organismal biology Iowa State.
In addition to learning that aggression genes are shared among organisms the team also found that these genes are extremely sensitive to the external environment.
and physiology--and nurture--including diet environment and social interactions--contribute to the likelihood that an individual will behave in a certain way
But our results show that the external environment plays a much greater role in regulating expression of genes in the brain
Overtext Web Module V3.0 Alpha
Copyright Semantic-Knowledge, 1994-2011