news from the lab

Environmental Sciences - 21.02
Russian heat wave 'had both manmade and natural causes'
The heat wave that struck western Russia in summer 2010, causing 55,000 deaths, was caused by a combination of manmade and natural factors. However, the frequency of occurrence of such heat waves has increased by a factor of three over recent decades, new research suggests.

Life Sciences - Environmental Sciences - 20.02
Wildlife and cows can be partners, not enemies, in search for food
  Princeton University researchers conducted two large-scale experiments in Kenya that offer the first experimental evidence that allowing cattle to graze on the same land as wild animals can result in healthier, meatier bovines by enhancing the cows' diet.

Environmental Sciences - Life Sciences - 15.02
The crystal ball of conservation
An innovative horizon-scanning exercise, which has just delivered its latest report, highlights emerging topics of relevance to the world's natural environment and the diversity of its species. We can't hope to spot all potential issues.

Environmental Sciences - Life Sciences - 13.02
Fish of Antarctica threatened by climate change
A Yale-led study of the evolutionary history of Antarctic fish and their "anti-freeze" proteins illustrates how tens of millions of years ago a lineage of fish adapted to newly formed polar conditions - and how today they are endangered by a rapid rise in ocean temperatures.

Environmental Sciences - Life Sciences - 10.02
A lost world? How zooarchaeology can inform biodiversity conservation
A new study of tropical forests will provide a 50,000-year perspective on how animal biodiversity has changed, explored through an archaeological investigation of animal bones. The study of ancient animal bones can provide a remarkably long-range perspective.

Environmental Sciences - Earth Sciences - 6.02
Researchers Uncover a Mechanism to Explain Dune Field Patterns
In a study of the harsh but beautiful White Sands National Monument in New Mexico, University of Pennsylvania researchers have uncovered a unifying mechanism to explain dune patterns. The new work represents a contribution to basic science, but the findings may also hold implications for identifying when dune landscapes like those in Nebraska's Sand Hills may reach a "tipping point" under climate change, going from valuable grazing land to barren desert.

Environmental Sciences - 2.02
Heat and Cold Damage Corals in Their Own Ways, Scripps Study Shows
Around the world coral reefs are facing threats brought by climate change and dramatic shifts in sea temperatures. While ocean warming has been the primary focus for scientists and ocean policy managers, cold events can also cause large-scale coral bleaching events.

Agronomy/Food Science - Environmental Sciences - 30.01
Kids under chronic stress more likely to become obese
The more ongoing stress children are exposed to, the greater the odds they will become obese by adolescence, reports Cornell environmental psychologist Gary Evans in the journal Pediatrics (129:1). Nine-year-old children who were chronically exposed to such stressors as poverty, crowded housing and family turmoil gain more weight and were significantly heavier by age 13 than they would have been otherwise, the study found.

Life Sciences - Environmental Sciences - 24.01
Improving crops from the roots up
Research has taken us a step closer to breeding hardier crops that can better adapt to different environmental conditions and fight off attack from parasites. In a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), the researchers have shown that they can alter root growth in the plant Arabidopsis thaliana, or thale cress, by controlling an important regulatory protein.

Business/Economics - Environmental Sciences - 23.01
Low carbon, moderate income and long life
A new study shows that countries with high incomes and high carbon emissions do not achieve higher life expectancies than those with moderate incomes and lower carbon emissions. This finding challenges the assumption that human wellbeing requires growth in both economic activity and carbon emissions.

Chemistry - Environmental Sciences - 13.01
Particle which could ’cool the planet’
Scientists have shown that a new molecule in the earth's atmosphere has the potential to play a significant role in off-setting global warming by cooling the planet. In a breakthrough paper published in Science, researchers from the University of Manchester , the University of Bristol and Sandia National Laboratories report the potentially revolutionary effects of Criegee biradicals.

Chemistry - Environmental Sciences - 13.01
Particle which could ‘cool the planet’
Scientists have shown that a new molecule in the earth's atmosphere has the potential to play a significant role in off-setting global warming by cooling the planet. In a breakthrough paper published in Science , researchers from The University of Manchester , The University of Bristol and Sandia National Laboratories report the potentially revolutionary effects of Criegee biradicals.

Life Sciences - Environmental Sciences - 11.01
Evolution is written all over your face
UCLA biologists working as "evolutionary detectives" studied the faces of 129 adult male primates from Central and South America, and they offer some answers in research published today, Jan. 11, in the early online edition of the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The faces they studied evolved over at least 24 million years, they report.

Environmental Sciences - 9.01
Ice age, interrupted
Research shows that a new ice age could well have been upon us in the next millennium were it not for increases in CO2 due to humans, despite the advantageous trend in solar radiation of our current age.

Environmental Sciences - Chemistry - 19.12.2011
Upper atmosphere facilitates changes that let mercury enter food chain
Humans pump thousands of tons of vapor from the metallic element mercury into the atmosphere each year, and it can remain suspended for long periods before being changed into a form that is easily removed from the atmosphere.