Earth
Access to abundant, clean, water for drinking, recreation and the environment is one of the 21st century's most pressing issues. Directly monitoring threats to the quality of fresh water is critically important, but because current methods are costly and not standardized, comprehensive water quality datasets are rare. In the United States, one of the most data-rich countries in the world, fewer than 1% of all bodies of fresh water have ever been sampled for quality.
PULLMAN, Wash. - Resembling an overgrown house cat with black-tipped ears and a stubby tail, the Canada lynx, a native of North America, teeters on the brink of extinction in the U.S. The few lynx that now roam parts of Washington and the mountainous Northwest survive largely because of a network of protected landscapes that crosses the U.S.-Canada border.
Washington State University environmental researchers believe this transboundary landscape provides not only essential habitat for the wild cats but likely also vital connections with larger lynx populations in Canada.
A computational analysis has surfaced new insights into the wind and water conditions that cause Kemp's ridley sea turtles to become stranded on beaches in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. Xiaojian Liu of Wuhan University, China, and colleagues present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on December 4, 2019.
DURHAM, N.C. -- When most people think of a plant, they picture stems, leaves, flowers, and all the parts that are visible above ground. But Duke biologist Philip Benfey is more interested in the hidden half of the plant that is buried beneath the soil. Roots: they may be out of sight, Benfey says, but they play critical roles, anchoring the plant and taking up water and nutrients.
ITHACA, N.Y. - A Cornell University senior has come up with a way to discern life on exoplanets loitering in other cosmic neighborhoods: a spectral field guide.
Zifan Lin has developed high-resolution spectral models and scenarios for two exoplanets that may harbor life: Proxima b, in the habitable zone of our nearest neighbor Proxima Centauri; and Trappist-1e, one of three possible Earth-like exoplanet candidates in the Trappist-1 system.
Coral reefs support 25 percent of all marine life around the globe. Those in the Gulf of Mexico, along the coasts of Louisiana, Florida, Texas and Mexico, might be less known and less popular among tourists than other reefs; nevertheless, they also serve as important barriers to storm surge, lessening the impact of dangerous hurricanes.
UCalgary research finds short-term radon test kits are not effective in measuring radon gas exposure
As awareness increases about the health danger of radon gas, more people are making the decision to test their homes for the deadly gas. A University of Calgary led study finds the only reliable way to measure exposure to radon gas is with a long-term testing kit, which takes readings within the home for 90 or more days.
Star-quakes recorded by NASA's Kepler space telescope have helped answer a long-standing question about the age of the "thick disc" of the Milky Way.
In a paper published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, a team of 38 scientists led by researchers from Australia's ARC Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in Three Dimensions (ASTRO-3D) use data from the now-defunct probe to calculate that the disc is about 10 billion years old.
Every day in the spring and fall since 1978, scientists and volunteers at Chicago's Field Museum have gotten up as early as 3:30 in the morning to collect fallen birds that have crashed into nearby buildings' windows. One scientist, Dave Willard, has measured every single one of the dead birds and recorded the data by hand into a ledger. That meticulous note-keeping paid off: scientists analyzed the data and learned that over the last forty years, migratory birds have been getting smaller--a change likely linked with climate change.
Scientists at the National Institutes of Health found that women who use permanent hair dye and chemical hair straighteners have a higher risk of developing breast cancer than women who don't use these products. The study published online Dec. 4 in the International Journal of Cancer and suggests that breast cancer risk increased with more frequent use of these chemical hair products.
ANN ARBOR--North American migratory birds have been getting smaller over the past four decades, and their wings have gotten a bit longer. Both changes appear to be responses to a warming climate.
Those are the main findings from a new University of Michigan-led analysis of a dataset of some 70,000 North American migratory birds from 52 species that died when they collided with buildings in Chicago.
New research suggests that social media, particularly platforms with a strong focus on image posting and viewing, is associated with disordered eating in young adolescents.
In a recent study, children exposed to smoking in the first 4 years of life were more likely to exhibit symptoms of hyperactivity and conduct problems.
CORVALLIS, Ore. - Long considered pests by forest managers, deer and elk can help Douglas-fir seedlings thrive under certain vegetation management conditions, a five-year study by Oregon State University shows.
The research, published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology, is important because global demand for forest products continues to rise and because wildlife conservation is often viewed as a hurdle to meeting that demand. The findings quantified the effects of intensive forest management on wildlife and wildlife habitat.
We often find that food becomes rotten when we leave it outside for long and fruits turn brown after they are peeled or cut. Such phenomena can be easily seen in our daily life and they illustrate the oxidation-reduction reaction. The fundamental principle controlling physical properties of two-dimensional materials noted as next generation materials like graphene is found to be redox reactions.