Earth

Native Americans used smoke signals to indicate danger, and a white plume is sent up by the Vatican when a new Pope is chosen. Now, a new research project by Tel Aviv University researchers and their colleagues shows that where there's "smoke" there may be significant consequences for local weather patterns, rainfall and thunderstorms.

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The changing chemistry of the world's oceans is a growing global problem, says the summary of a congressionally requested study by the National Research Council, which further adds that unless man-made carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are substantially curbed, or atmospheric CO2 is controlled by some other means, the ocean will continue to become more acidic. The long-term consequences of ocean acidification on marine life are unknown

A report released today by a federal working group highlights 11 key categories of diseases and other health consequences that are occurring or will occur due to climate change. The report, A Human Health Perspective on Climate Change, provides a starting point for coordination of federal research to better understand climate's impact on human health. The recommendations of the working group include research to identify who will be most vulnerable, and what efforts will be most beneficial.

Supercooling, a state where liquids do not solidify even below their normal freezing point, still puzzles scientists today. A good example of this phenomenon is found everyday in meteorology: clouds in high altitude are an accumulation of supercooled droplets of water below their freezing point. Scientists from the Commissariat à l'Energie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives (CEA), the Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the ESRF have found an experimental explanation of the phenomenon of supercooling. Their research is published today in Nature.

A new study identifies cattle feed as a possible culprit in the long-standing mystery of why California's San Joaquin Valley, only a moderately-populated agricultural region, has higher levels of ozone (one of the main ingredients in smog) than many densely-populated cities. The report explains how fermented cattle feed works in forming ozone and is published in Environmental Science & Technology.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study concludes that the future effects of global warming could be significantly changed over very small distances by local air movements in complex or mountainous terrain - perhaps doubling or even tripling the temperature increases in some situations.

In an article to be published in the International Journal of Climatology, researchers from Oregon State University used the unique historical data provided by Oregon's H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest to study potential variations in temperature caused by steep hills and valleys.

The results of a genetic study on migratory birds supports the hypothesis that in the case of a continued global warming, and within only a few generations, migratory birds will (subject to strong selection and microevolution, they claim) at first begin to fly shorter distances and at a later stage, stop migrating, and will thus become so-called "residents".

Some orchids mimic the scent of a female insect in order to attract males for pollination. Researchers writing in BMC Evolutionary Biology found that breeding two of these orchid species to generate a novel hybrid resulted in a new scent. This new odor had no effect on normal solitary bees from the area but was highly attractive to another species of wild bee that never visited any of the parent orchid species.

A Virginia Tech biologist proposes to use a physics strategy called resonant activation to nudge dormant bacteria cells into a stage where they will be sensitive to antibiotics.

In medicine, resonance means the sound the doctor hears when he or she thumps your chest. In physics, resonance is a periodic force or an oscillation whose frequency is close to that of a natural system's frequency. Sound waves are an example of a natural system that can be altered with resonant activation.

An international team of scientists led by the paleontologist Steffen Kiel at the University of Kiel, Germany, found the first fossil boreholes of the worm Osedax that consumes whale bones on the deep-sea floor. They conclude that "boneworms" are at least 30 Million years old. This result was published in the current issue of the scientific journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA (PNAS, April 19, 2010).

The world is no longer our oyster.

As we prepare to celebrate Earth Day on April 22, we can add another species, one of widespread ecological and economic importance, to the list of the beleaguered.

From East Coast to West and around the world, global warming and its effects have descended upon shellfish reefs, particularly those formed by the Olympia oyster.

The U.S. Geological Survey has awarded $2.7 million in cooperative agreements under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to the University of California, Berkeley; Central Washington University; University of California, San Diego; and UNAVCO, Inc., to improve networks that detect minute changes in the earth's crust caused by faulting in earthquake-prone regions.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A University at Buffalo volcanologist, an expert in volcanic ash cloud transport, published a paper recently showing how the jet stream, the area in the atmosphere that pilots prefer to fly in, also seems to be the area most likely to be impacted by plumes from volcanic ash, like in the recent Eyjafjallajökull eruption.

In this image taken just under two hours ago (14:45 CET) by ESA's Envisat satellite, a heavy plume of ash from the Eyjafjallajoekull Volcano is seen travelling in a roughly southeasterly direction.