Environment

14 February 2013
Flushed pharma fueling fearless fish
Widely prescribed anxiety-moderating drugs such as Serepax are persisting through wastewater treatment plants after being excreted and modifying fish behaviors, making them bolder and avoid other fish...

13 February 2013
Massive depletion of Middle East freshwater reserves
Already strained by water scarcity and political tensions, the arid Middle East along the Tigris and Euphrates rivers is losing critical water reserves at a rapid pace, from Turkey upstream to Syria, Iran and Iraq below...

3 December 2012
Tap water implicated in rise of food allergies
Chemicals known as dichlorophenols, which are used in pesticides and to chlorinate water supplies, could be partially to blame for the rocketing number of food allergies affecting developed nations...

27 November 2012
Ancient microbes found beneath ice of Antarctic lake
Scientists have discovered a viable community of bacteria that survives in a pitch-black, salty, and sub-zero environment beneath nearly 20 meters of ice in one of Antarctica's most isolated lakes...

8 November 2012
Wild Arabica coffee facing extinction
Scientists who have predicted the possible extinction of wild Arabica coffee within 70 years say urgent conservation measures are needed to future-proof Arabica's genetic diversity and ensure the long-term sustainability of Arabica coffee production...

1 October 2012
Smaller fish on the menu as oceans warm
Warmer and less-oxygenated waters could see many fish species reduce in size by up to 20 percent over the next few decades, according to computer modeling carried out by Canadian scientists...

4 September 2012
Biodiversity backflip on warming climate
The notion that the planet's warming climate will result in widespread extinctions has been challenged by a new study that suggests that biodiversity on Earth generally increases as the planet warms...

16 July 2012
Marijuana farms impacting fragile ecosystems
Poisons used on illegal marijuana farms may be sickening and killing the fisher, a rare forest carnivore that makes its home in some of the most remote areas of California...

15 June 2012
Kitchens worse than city centers for pollutants
Examining indoor pollutant levels, UK researchers found that gas kitchens had pollutant concentrations "well above" the levels set by the government as its objective for outdoor air quality...

7 June 2012
Scientists tip 2025 for possible planetary collapse
A very large meta-review by an international group of scientists suggests the Earth is perilously close to a tipping point where resource consumption, climate change, biodiversity loss and population growth will, at best, trigger major shifts in the biosphere, and at worst, cause planetary collapse...

19 May 2012
Bird poo and manta rays: nature's intricate connectivity revealed
One of the longest ecological interaction chains ever documented sheds light on how human disturbance of the natural world may lead to widespread, yet largely invisible, disruption of ecosystems...

14 May 2012
Carbon emission levels from deforestation challenged
When trees are felled to create solid wood products - such as lumber for housing - the wood retains most of its locked-up carbon, say scientists who suggest that previous climate models for carbon emissions from deforestation need revision...

17 January 2012
La Niña cooking up mutated viruses?
The La Niña weather cycle is altering the migratory patterns of birds and scientists speculate that it could possibly be triggering the development of dangerous new strains of influenza...

9 December 2011
Tropical storms may be triggering earthquakes
The heavy rains associated with cyclones and hurricanes could be triggering earthquakes through landslides and soil erosion, both of which can change stress loads on fault lines due to the large quantities of soil they move...

14 November 2011
Air pollution causing more severe storms
Climatologists say that particulate pollution in the atmosphere dramatically affects cloud development in ways that reduce precipitation in dry regions while increasing the severity of storms...

9 November 2011
Narcotic effects of carbon monoxide keep city dwellers happy
Low levels of the gas carbon monoxide have a narcotic effect on city dwellers, say Tel Aviv University researchers, leading them to suggest that the pollutant is, in small doses, a boon to the well-being of urbanites...

26 October 2011
Flood-tolerant crop breakthrough
An international research team has identified the molecular mechanism plants use to sense low oxygen levels, a discovery that could lead to the production of high-yielding, flood-tolerant crops...

19 August 2011
Atmospheric analysis yields dog poop surprise
Microbiologists were surprised to find that the dominant airborne bacterial communities of several American cities most closely resembled the microbial communities found in dog poop...

26 July 2011
Predator-prey dynamics used to model cloud systems
Mathematical formulae that describe the population dynamics of prey animals such as gazelles and their predators have been used to model the relationship between cloud systems and rain...

7 June 2011
Rise of jellyfish "drastically" changing oceanic food webs
The increase in the size and frequency of jellyfish blooms in coastal and estuarine waters around the world is altering marine food webs by shunting food energy away from fish and toward bacteria...

25 May 2011
Bacteria make rain, bioprecipitation researchers say
There is growing evidence that the majority of precipitation events depend on a type of bacterium whose outer membrane binds water molecules in an ordered arrangement, providing a very efficient nucleating template which greatly enhances ice crystal formation...

23 May 2011
Wildlife extinction rates hugely over-reported
Calculating species extinction rates is a tricky business at the best of times, but a new research paper suggests the most widely used methods are "fundamentally flawed" and overestimate extinction rates by as much as 160 percent...

27 April 2011
Deforestation goes into hyperdrive with rising gold price
Deforestation in Peru has increased six-fold in recent years as miners, driven by record gold prices, blast and clear huge tracts of lowland rainforest...

11 April 2011
Naked chicks baffle penguin boffins
Large numbers of young penguins in colonies around the Atlantic are suffering what is known as feather-loss disorder and scientists are baffled as to what might be causing the condition...

25 February 2011
The Pill not to blame for estrogen in drinking water
The American Chemical Society says there is a widespread public misconception about the estrogen-related hormones detected in drinking water supplies...

18 February 2011
Blue-green algae affecting reproductive health
Algal blooms that occur in rivers and waterways have been found to produce a previously unrecognized estrogen-like compound that adversely affects fish, plants and humans by disrupting the normal activity of reproductive hormones...

4 February 2011
Report warns of possible disappearance of wild oysters
A comprehensive new survey that compared the past and present condition of oyster reefs around the globe has found that more than 90 percent of former reefs have been lost in most of the regions where the molluscs were formerly abundant...

5 January 2011
Size of oceanic plastic patch "grossly exaggerated"
There's a significant amount of plastic trash floating in the northern Pacific Ocean, but claims that the "Great Garbage Patch" between California and Japan is twice the size of Texas are grossly exaggerated, according to a new analysis...

2 November 2010
Evergreen agriculture emerges as Africa's key to food security
Crop production occurring under a full canopy of trees sounds counter-intuitive, but a unique acacia known as a "fertilizer tree" is allowing African farmers to triple maize yields...

28 October 2010
Noise doubles heart disease risk
A persistently noisy workplace more than doubles an employee's risk of serious heart disease, suggest new findings in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine...

24 September 2010
Groundwater depletion accelerating worldwide
A new assessment of the planet's subterranean reservoirs shows the highest rates of depletion in the world’s major agricultural centers, including northwest India, northeastern China, Pakistan, California and the Midwestern United States. The researchers also found that extracted groundwater is adding significantly to sea-level rise...

9 August 2010
Last ditch appeal to save irreplaceable seed bank from bulldozers
A frantic appeal has been made directly to the Russian government to save an extraordinarily diverse seed collection located near St. Petersburg from real estate developers. Because the Pavlovsk Fruit and Berry Collection is "priceless," argue the developers, no monetary value can be assigned to it, thus it is essentially worthless...

25 May 2010
Soil bacterium enhances brain's ability to learn
Researchers say that the bacterium Mycobacterium vaccae, already believed to have antidepressant qualities, could also improve the brain's ability to learn new tasks...

6 April 2010
Birth control residual runoff threatens fish fecundity
Fish swimming in treated waste water may become infertile thanks to potent pharma residuals. One such contraceptive leftover, the hormone levonorgestrel, was found in higher concentrations in fish than in women who take the contraceptive pill...

31 March 2010
Toxic insects to blame for carnivorous plant decline?
British scientists say they have evidence that the consumption of insects contaminated with heavy metals may be a factor in the mysterious global decline of carnivorous plants...

25 March 2010
Showers releasing a pharma cocktail into environment
The morning shower or soak in the tub have for the first time been identified as significant sources of the hormones, antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals that pollute the environment...

5 March 2010
Ozone hole could be lesser of two evils
Already classed as super-greenhouse gases, the chemicals that replaced the ozone-destroying CFCs once used in air conditioners and refrigerators also appear to break down in the upper atmosphere to form oxalic acid, one of the main culprits in acid rain...

18 December 2009
Fertilizer run-off disrupting food chain in unexpected ways
While human-induced nutrient enrichment in stream systems is causing a steady increase in numbers of organisms lower on the food chain, numbers of organisms at the top of the food chain are not changing...

4 December 2009
Biodiversity now a public health issue
Bringing epidemiology and ecology together is the only way to mitigate a surge in exotic and resurgent human diseases brought on by species loss and plummeting biodiversity, say researchers who have for the first time linked species and habitat loss with human disease...

5 November 2009
Midwest still shakin' all over - 200 years later
Seismologists now believe that the majority of modern earthquakes in the Midwest United States are merely aftershocks of a big quake that occurred two centuries ago...

12 October 2009
"Catastrophic decline" in freshwater biodiversity
Mismanagement and growing needs for water are causing freshwater ecosystems to collapse, making freshwater species the most threatened on Earth with extinction rates 4 to 6 times higher than their terrestrial and marine cousins...

1 October 2009
San Andreas Fault weakened by Sumatran quake
Seismologists say the 2004 earthquake that triggered tsunamis throughout the Indian Ocean weakened California's San Andreas Fault, suggesting that large earthquakes can weaken fault zones worldwide and may trigger periods of increased global seismic activity...

24 September 2009
New doomsday map shows planet's dire state
"The threats [to the planet] are so enormous that it is too late to be a pessimist," say an international group of scientists who have been mapping the scale of human activities that impact Earth's biophysical thresholds...

27 August 2009
Unique tree could help feed Africa
A type of acacia tree with an unusual growth habit - unlike virtually all other trees - holds particular promise for farmers in Africa as a free source of nitrogen for their soils that could last generations...

20 August 2009
Decomposing plastic refuse releasing BPA into oceans
Plastic waste in the ocean isn't just unsightly and a danger to marine animals. Scientists have now found that certain plastics breakdown rapidly in the ocean, releasing a heady cocktail of toxic chemicals such as bisphenol A which is known to interfere with mammalian reproductive systems...

18 August 2009
Asian food crisis looms
Asia's food demand is expected to double by 2050, requiring increases in land and irrigation that are simply not possible, finds a new report...

30 July 2009
Jellyfish significant contributors to large-scale ocean mixing
Climate change scientists may need to rethink the factors governing the interaction of the world's oceans, thanks to new findings that show the global power input from swimming creatures such as jellyfish is as much as a trillion watts of energy, comparable to that of wind and tidal forces...

6 July 2009
Processed foods linked to Alzheimer's and diabetes
A new study by US researchers has found a substantial link between increased levels of nitrates in our environment and food with increased deaths from diseases; including Alzheimer's, diabetes and Parkinson's...

18 May 2009
Cloud-seeding microorganisms go under the microscope
A new study is the first to yield direct data on how bacteria, fungal spores and plant material influence cloud formation at high altitudes...

14 May 2009
Back to the drawing board for North Atlantic circulation
The conveyor belt paradigm that is used to describe the North Atlantic Ocean's circulation has it that the Gulf Stream-warmed ocean releases heat to the atmosphere in the northern North Atlantic, leaving ocean water colder and denser as it moves north. But this is a vast oversimplification, say oceanographers...

1 April 2009
Disinfectant by-products create toxic cocktail
The disinfection of water stands out as possibly the most significant public health achievement, but a recent study shows that the chemicals used to purify the water we drink and use in swimming pools react with organic material in the water yielding a surprisingly toxic brew...

5 March 2009
Dead Sea dying?
The water levels in the Dead Sea are dropping at an alarming rate with serious environmental consequences, say German researchers...

24 February 2009
Biodiverse regions are hotspots for war
Over 80 percent of the world's major armed conflicts from 1950-2000 occurred in regions identified as the most biologically diverse and threatened places on Earth...

20 January 2009
Paradoxically, pollutants causing Nile fishery to grow dramatically
While many of the world's fisheries are in serious decline, the coastal Mediterranean fishery off the Nile Delta has expanded dramatically since the 1980s, thanks to sewage and fertilizer run-off which has caused an explosion in fish numbers...