Earth

There is a shared recognition that conventional indicators such as gross domestic product (GDP) are failing to capture the scope countries' wealth. Even in the global recession, many economies appear to be getting wealthier. However, economic development is often happening at the expense of natural capital – what people want or need from nature. Despite significant advances in environmental protection over the past 25 years, humanity has failed to conserve resources, safeguard natural ecosystems or otherwise ensure its own long-term viability.

Ancient Antarctica was warmer and wetter than previously suspected, enough to support vegetation along its edges, according to a new study.

Finding new particles usually requires high energies – that is why huge accelerators have been built, which can accelerate particles to almost the speed of light. But there are other creative ways of finding new particles: At the Vienna University of Technology, scientists presented a method to prove the existence of hypothetical "axions". These axions could accumulate around a black hole and extract energy from it. This process could emit gravity waves, which could then be measured.

Carbon stored in Arctic tundra could be released into the atmosphere by new trees growing in the warmer region, exacerbating climate change, scientists have revealed.

The Arctic is getting greener as plant growth increases in response to a warmer climate. This greater plant growth means more carbon is stored in the increasing biomass, so it was previously thought the greening would result in more carbon dioxide being taken up from the atmosphere, thus helping to reduce the rate of global warming.

RICHLAND, Wash. -- The design of a nature-inspired material that can make energy-storing hydrogen gas has gone holistic. Usually, tweaking the design of this particular catalyst -- a work in progress for cheaper, better fuel cells -- results in either faster or more energy efficient production but not both. Now, researchers have found a condition that creates hydrogen faster without a loss in efficiency.

A grasshopper's change in diet to high-energy carbohydrates while being hunted by spiders may affect the way soil releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to research results published this week in the journal Science.

Grasshoppers like to munch on nitrogen-rich grass because it stimulates their growth and reproduction.

But when spiders enter the picture, grasshoppers cope with the stress from fear of predation by shifting to carbohydrate-rich plants, setting in motion dynamic changes to the ecosystem they inhabit, scientists have found.

Researchers at the Instituto Andaluz de Ciencias de la Tierra and other CSIC institutes are co-authors of this article, which was recently published in the prestigious journal Reviews of Modern Physics.

A group composed of 17 scientists from 11 different countries has published the most comprehensive study ever done on ice in the world. The study addresses the most important contemporary issues in a field of research that is "red hot", in authors' words.

In a paper recently published in EPJ C¹, researchers hypothesised the existence of mirror particles to explain the anomalous loss of neutrons observed experimentally. The existence of such mirror matter had been suggested in various scientific contexts some time ago, including the search for suitable dark matter candidates.

When it comes to understanding climate change, it's all about the dirt.

A new study by researchers at BYU, Duke and the USDA finds that soil plays an important role in controlling the planet's atmospheric future.

The researchers set out to find how intact ecosystems are responding to increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The earth's current atmospheric carbon dioxide is 390 parts per million, up from 260 parts per million at the start of the industrial revolution, and will likely rise to more than 500 parts per million in the coming decades.

A group of Japanese scientists have surprised themselves by being able to predict the success or failure of blockbuster movies at the box office using a set of mathematical models.

The researchers, publishing their study today, 15 June, in the Institute of Physics and German Physical Society's New Journal of Physics, used the effects of advertising and word-of-mouth communication to create a model that turned out to be successful in predicting how each movie fared once it hit the silver screen.

BALTIMORE, Md., June 14, 2012 – Within two decades, 60 percent of the world's population will live in cities, and coping with the resulting urban drinking water and sanitation issues will be one of the greatest challenges of this century. A U.S. Forest Service study recently published in Urban Ecosystems proposes an expanded view of the complex world of urban water.

The study presents a new conceptual framework that addresses characteristics of watersheds that are affected by urban land uses, including:

RIO: World leaders have made pitiful progress on their guarantee to protect global oceans from overfishing and other threats.

In a paper published today (Friday 15th June) in Science, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and world renowned researchers have reviewed commitments made by governments to protect the world's oceans and shown that there has been little success over the past 20 years.

Population estimates for the Amazon basin just before Europeans arrived range from 2 to 10 million people. The newly reported reconstruction of Amazonian prehistory by Smithsonian scientist Dolores R. Piperno and colleagues suggests that large areas of western Amazonia were sparsely inhabited. This clashes with the belief that most of Amazonia, including forests far removed from major rivers, was heavily occupied and modified. The team's research is published in the June 15 issue of Science.

A grasshopper's change in diet to high-energy carbohydrates while being hunted by spiders may affect the way soil releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to Yale and Hebrew University researchers in Science.

Grasshoppers like to munch on nitrogen-rich grass because it stimulates their growth and reproduction. But when spiders enter the picture, grasshoppers cope with the stress from fear of predation by shifting to carbohydrate-rich plants, setting in motion dynamic changes to the ecosystem they inhabit.

'Green grabbing' - the rapidly-growing appropriation of land and resources in the name of 'green ' biofuels, carbon offsetting schemes, conservation efforts and eco-tourism initiatives – is forcing people from their homelands and increasing poverty, new research has found.

Ecosystems being 'asset-stripped' for profit is likely to cause dispossession and further poverty amongst already-poor land and resource users, according to a set of 17 new research case studies from Africa, Asia and Latin America, published in a special issue of the Journal of Peasant Studies.