Earth

Globally, commercial ships emit almost half as much particulate pollution into the air as the total amount released by cars, according to a new study. Ship pollutants affect both the Earth's climate and the health of people living along coastlines.

MOTUEKA, NEW ZEALAND—A horticultural research team from New Zealand and Canada has introduced a new red raspberry cultivar. 'Moutere' is a new floricane fruiting red raspberry (Rubus idaeus L.) created in a planned breeding program at The Horticulture and Food Research Institute of New Zealand Limited (recently renamed The New Zealand Institute of Plant and Food Research Limited (Plant and Food Research).

Commercial ships emit almost half as much particulate pollutants into the air globally as the total amount released by the world's cars, according to a new study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The study is the first to provide a global estimate of maritime shipping's total contribution to air particle pollution based on direct emission measurements. The authors estimate ships emit about 1,100 tons of particle pollution globally each year.

Otto, NC – New research by U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) scientists and partners suggests the hemlock woolly adelgid is killing hemlock trees faster than expected in the southern Appalachians and rapidly altering the carbon cycle of these forests. SRS researchers and cooperators from the University of Georgia published the findings in the most recent issue of the journal Ecosystems.

Berkeley -- Even as debate rages over the safety of Australia's "Prepare, stay and defend, or leave early" policy of wildfire defense, fire researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, and in Australia say that the strategy is worth consideration in California and other regions in the United States.

Very large and abrupt changes in temperature recorded over Greenland and across the North Atlantic during the last Ice Age were actually global in extent, according to an international team of researchers led by Cardiff University.

New research, published in the journal Nature today, supports the idea that changes in ocean circulation within the Atlantic played a central role in abrupt climate change on a global scale.

The rate of ad clicks from sponsored and non-sponsored links was reported in a recent study conducted by researchers from Penn State and the Queensland University of Technology

Jim Jansen, assistant professor of information science and technology, Penn State, along with Amanda Spink, professor of information technology, Queensland University of Technology, studied the rate of ad clicks through on Dogpile.com, a meta-search engine that combines the search results from larger search engines such as Yahoo!, Google, Ask and MSN.

MADISON, WI, February 23, 2009--The practice of no-till has increased considerably during the past 20 yr. Soils under no-till usually host a more abundant and diverse biota and are less prone to erosion, water loss, and structural breakdown than tilled soils. Their organic matter content is also often increased and consequently, no-till is proposed as a measure to mitigate the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.

Using data from the satellite-based MIPAS and GOME-2 instruments, scientists have for the first time detected important bromine species in the atmosphere. These new measurements will help scientists to better understand sources of ozone-depleting species and to improve simulations of stratospheric ozone chemistry.

DURHAM, N.C. -- Ancient groundwater being tapped by Jordan, one of the 10 most water-deprived nations in the world, has been found to contain twenty times the radiation considered safe for drinking water in a new study by an international team of researchers.

"The combined activities of 228 radium and 226 radium – the two long-lived isotopes of radium – in the groundwater we tested are up to 2000 percent higher than international drinking standards," said Avner Vengosh, associate professor of earth and ocean sciences in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.

WASHINGTON—Researchers are exploring extreme conditions for life in a place not known for extremes.

Flying twin-engine light aircraft the equivalent of several trips around the globe and establishing a network of seismic instruments across an area the size of Texas, a U.S.-led, international team of scientists has not only verified the existence of a mountain range that is suspected to have caused the massive East Antarctic Ice Sheet to form, but also has created a detailed picture of the rugged landscape buried under more than four kilometers (2.5 miles) of ice.

Alexandria, VA – The American Geological Institute (AGI) Workforce Program has released the third chapter, entitled Geoscience Employment Sectors, of the Status of the Geoscience Workforce report. Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of this report are now available through the AGI website at http://www.agiweb.org/workforce/.

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - A Purdue University researcher has found a way to get more bang for fewer bucks when it comes to processing cellulosic material to make ethanol.

By shredding corn stover instead of chopping, as is commonly done, about 40 percent less energy is needed to gain access to more of the material stored in the plant. Dennis Buckmaster, an associate professor of agricultural and biological engineering, said that by shredding corn stover there is better access to cellulose, which is the main part of plant cell walls necessary to make ethanol.

MOSS LANDING, CA — Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute recently solved the half-century-old mystery of a fish with tubular eyes and a transparent head. Ever since the "barreleye" fish Macropinna microstoma was first described in 1939, marine biologists have known that it's tubular eyes are very good at collecting light. However, the eyes were believed to be fixed in place and seemed to provide only a "tunnel-vision" view of whatever was directly above the fish's head.