Environment
Climate poll: Science doubters say world is warming
December 16, 2012 11:28 pm | by Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer | News | CommentsResults from a new Associated Press-GfK poll is showing that a growing majority of Americans think global warming is occurring. The poll found 4 out of every 5 Americans said climate change will be a serious problem for the United States if nothing is done about it. That's up from 73% when the same question was asked in 2009.
Top officials meet at ONR in response to Arctic changes
December 14, 2012 10:28 am | by David Smalley, Office of Naval Research | News | CommentsThe rapid retreat of sea ice in the Arctic has attracted the attention of top naval officials who have recently held an Arctic Summit at the Office of Naval Research to discuss their reponse to what will likely be a increased volume of human activity in the region. Although the meeting did not discuss policy, it did highlight the many potential areas of impact, from oil drilling to tourism.
Cloud forest trees drink water through their leaves
December 13, 2012 9:59 am | by Robert Sanders, UC Berkeley | News | CommentsUsing an electronic “leaf” that is able to detect when leaves receive moisture, a team of researchers working in Costa Rica’s cloud forests have discovered that tropical montane cloud forest can augment their water intake by drinking directly from the clouds. In dry but otherwise foggy areas, this ability to drink water through leaves is an essential survival strategy.
Detecting tunnels using seismic waves not as simple as it sounds
December 10, 2012 1:09 pm | News | CommentsTunnels are often used to smuggle people and illicit goods between the border of the U.S. and Mexico. Researchers have attempted to use seismic waves to find these shallow tunnels, but current methods often miss them because of what is called the “halo effect”, in which fracturing and other geological anomalies create diffuse boundaries that hide open areas. A two-year study has shed light on this phenomenon and may lead to better results.
U.N. climate talks go into overtime in Qatar
December 7, 2012 11:18 am | by KARL RITTER - Associated Press - Associated Press | News | CommentsNearly 200 countries haggling over how to stop climate change—and how to pay for it—failed to reach a deal on schedule Friday, setting the stage for the wrangling to continue late into the night. The two-week U.N. conference in Doha was never meant to yield a global climate pact to curb emissions of greenhouse gases—that has been put off until 2015.
Researchers turn harmful greenhouse gas into tool for making pharmaceuticals
December 7, 2012 8:22 am | News | CommentsA team of chemists at the University of Southern California has developed a way to transform a hitherto useless ozone-destroying greenhouse gas that is the byproduct of Teflon and manufacture and transform it into reagents for producing pharmaceuticals. The method is now being patented.
California's nitrous oxide emissions nearly triple current estimates
December 5, 2012 12:09 pm | News | CommentsUsing a new method for estimating greenhouse gases that combines atmospheric measurements with model predictions, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory researchers have found that the level of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, in California may be 2.5 to 3 times greater than the current inventory. At that level, total nitrous oxide emissions would account for about 8% of California's total greenhouse gas emissions.
Ancient microbes survive beneath icy surface of Antarctic lake
December 3, 2012 10:48 am | News | CommentsResearchers funded by the National Science Foundation describe in a new publication a viable community of bacteria that ekes out a living in a dark, salty, and subfreezing environment beneath nearly 20 m of ice in one of Antarctica's most isolated lakes. The finding could have implications for the discovery of life in other extreme environments, including elsewhere in the solar system.
Electrically spun fabric offers dual defense against pregnancy, HIV
November 30, 2012 1:52 pm | News | CommentsA new form of contraception could take an unexpected shape: electrically spun cloth with nanometer-sized fibers. These fibers, designed by a University of Washington team, can dissolve and release drugs, providing a cheap and discreet platform for protecting against unintended pregnancy, as well as HIV infection.
A human-caused climate change signal emerges from the noise
November 30, 2012 7:40 am | News | CommentsBy comparing simulations from 20 different computer models to satellite observations, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory climate scientists and colleagues from 16 other organizations have found that tropospheric and stratospheric temperature changes are clearly related to human activities.
Scientists develop new approach to support future climate projections
November 29, 2012 2:03 pm | News | CommentsScientists have developed a new approach for evaluating past climate sensitivity data to help improve comparison with estimates of long-term climate projections developed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The sensitivity of global temperature to changes in the Earth’s radiation balance (climate sensitivity) is a key factor for understanding past natural climate changes as well as potential future climate change.
Study: Kerosene lamps spew black carbon, should be replaced
November 29, 2012 9:12 am | by Sarah Yang, UC Berkeley | News | CommentsResults from field and lab tests have found that 7 to 9% of the kerosene in wick lamps—used for light in 250-300 million households without electricity—is converted to black carbon when burned. In comparison, only half of 1% of the emissions from burning wood is converted to black carbon. Kerosene is the primary source of light for more than a billion people in developing nations.
Many home couches contain potentially toxic flame retardants
November 28, 2012 12:28 pm | News | CommentsScientists are reporting an increasing use of flame retardants in the main gathering spot for adults, children and family pets in the home—the couch. In recent study, Heather Stapleton and colleagues describe the first efforts to detect and identify the flame retardants applied to the foam inside couches found in millions of family rooms and living rooms across the U.S.
Smartphones, labs to reveal health effects of environmental pollutants
November 20, 2012 10:27 am | News | CommentsA major new initiative in the European Union is being launched to build a complete picture of how environmental pollutants influence health. Researchers are being asked to use smartphones equipped with GPS and environmental sensors to monitor study participants and their exposure to potential hazards. This information will be combined with blood and urine analysis to investigate whether exposure to risk factors leaves chemical fingerprints that can be detected in bodily fluids.
Scientists unravel the mystery of marine methane oxidation
November 13, 2012 10:39 am | News | CommentsVast amounts of methane are stored under the ocean floor, and anaerobic oxidation of methane coupled to sulfate respiration prevents the release of this gas. Though discovered decades ago, the mechanism for how microorganisms performed this reaction has remained a mystery. According to recent findings, a single microorganism can do this on its own, and does not need to be carried out in collaboration with a bacterium as previously thought.
Capturing carbon with clever trapdoors
November 8, 2012 11:22 am | News | CommentsOne method of capturing carbon dioxide is through molecular sieve that is an ultra-fine filter system that captures a variety of molecules that need further filtering. Engineers in Australia have developed new sieve that allows only carbon dioxide molecules to be trapped and stored, helping to eliminate the cost and energy typically required for filtering.
A strange diet for methane-consuming microorganisms
November 6, 2012 12:36 pm | News | CommentsTo keep cellular systems running all cells need fuel. For certain ocean-dwelling microorganisms, methane can be such a fuel. But researchers studying these creatures had previously assumed that the methane they consumed was used as a carbon source. However, recent studies have surprisingly shown that is not the case and will force scientists to reevaluate the microorganisms’ role in inactivating environmental methane.
After long-ago mass extinction, global warming hindered species' recovery
November 5, 2012 9:53 am | News | CommentsResearchers have discovered why plants and animals had a hard time recovering from the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history 250 million years ago. The reason: global warming. Because of environmental consequences of rising temperatures, those species that survived the extinction didn’t fully recover for 5 million years.
Scientists look at climate change, the superstorm
October 31, 2012 9:43 pm | by Seth Borenstein, AP Science Writer | News | CommentsFor more than a dozen years, climate scientists have been warning about the risk for big storms and serious flooding in New York. A 2000 federal report about global warming's effect on the United States warned specifically of that possibility. Still, they say it's unfair to blame climate change for Sandy and the destruction it left behind. We cannot yet conclusively link a single storm to global warming, and any connection is not as clear and simple as environmental activists might contend.
Small marine organisms' big changes could affect world climate
October 30, 2012 1:08 pm | News | CommentsIn the future, warmer waters could significantly change ocean distribution of populations of phytoplankton, tiny organisms that could have a major effect on climate change. Researchers have recently shown that by the end of the 21st century, warmer oceans will cause populations of these marine microorganisms to thrive near the poles and shrink in equatorial waters.
Satellite data reveals power of solar wind
October 25, 2012 12:28 pm | by Karen C. Fox, NASA | News | CommentsA new study based on data from European Space Agency’s Cluster mission shows that it is easier for the solar wind to penetrate Earth’s magnetic environment, the magnetosphere, than had previously been thought. Scientists have, for the first time, directly observed the presence of certain waves that show Earth’s atmosphere behaving more like a sieve than a barrier.
Opposite behaviors? Arctic sea ice shrinks while Antarctic ice grows
October 24, 2012 8:15 am | by Maria-José Viñas, NASA | News | CommentsA new NASA study shows that from 1978 to 2010 the total extent of sea ice surrounding Antarctica in the Southern Ocean grew by roughly 6,600 square miles every year, an area larger than the state of Connecticut. However, this growth rate is not nearly as large as the decrease in the Arctic, which has scientists questioning the reasons for the growth. Atmospheric circulation may be one cause.
Google cameras map popular Grand Canyon trails
October 24, 2012 6:40 am | by FELICIA FONSECA - Associated Press | News | CommentsGRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK, Ariz. (AP) — Google and its street-view cameras already have taken users to narrow cobblestone alleys in Spain using a tricycle, inside the Smithsonian with a push cart and to British Columbia's snow-covered slopes by snowmobile. The search giant now has brought its...
Satellites track rapid changes in the Earth’s core
October 23, 2012 10:05 am | News | CommentsChanges in the earth's magnetic field in a region that stretches from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean have a close relationship with variations of gravity in this area. Because geophysicists can follow these changes using highly accurate measurements from certain satellites, they can make conclusions about what is happening in the Earth’s outer core.
Air pollution study clears the air on diesel versus gas emissions
October 23, 2012 9:49 am | by Sarah Yang, UC Berkeley | News | CommentsSecondary organic aerosol (SOA) is a major component of smog, and people have long argued whether large diesel trucks are a bigger source of this pollution than gasoline-fueled cars. Recent University of California Berkeley research shows that diesel exhaust contributes 15 times more than gas emissions per liter of fuel burned, and can be responsible for a majority of a region’s SOA.
