Earth

CORVALLIS, Ore. – Researchers at Oregon State University have definitively linked an increase in ocean acidification to the collapse of oyster seed production at a commercial oyster hatchery in Oregon, where larval growth had declined to a level considered by the owners to be "non-economically viable."

Boulder, Colo., USA – Highlights from the April 10th Geology include studies of mafic volcanics from the SW Japan arc; Holocene stromatolites from Walker Lake, Nevada, USA; ammonite habitats in the U.S. Western Interior Seaway; differences in ocean wave size versus geographic variability; deep-water formation in Earth's oceans; a question of mass methane release and the end-Triassic mass extinction; and "foreign" magma in early eruption deposits of the world's youngest super-eruption at Taupo volcano, New Zealand.

CHICAGO --- Pregnant women who are overweight with moderately elevated blood sugar never set off any alarms for their physicians. The big concern was for women who were obese or who had gestational diabetes because those conditions are known to cause a host of health risks to the mom and baby.

Duck-billed dinosaurs that lived within Arctic latitudes approximately 70 million years ago likely endured long, dark polar winters instead of migrating to more southern latitudes, a recent study by researchers from the University of Cape Town, Museum of Nature and Science in Dallas and Temple University has found.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Copper — the stuff of pennies and tea kettles — is also one of the few metals that can turn carbon dioxide into hydrocarbon fuels with relatively little energy. When fashioned into an electrode and stimulated with voltage, copper acts as a strong catalyst, setting off an electrochemical reaction with carbon dioxide that reduces the greenhouse gas to methane or methanol.

Global warming may initially make the grass greener, but not for long, according to new research results.

The findings, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, show that plants may thrive in the early stages of a warming environment but then begin to deteriorate quickly.

"We were really surprised by the pattern, where the initial boost in growth just went away," said scientist Zhuoting Wu of Northern Arizona University (NAU), a lead author of the study. "As ecosystems adjusted, the responses changed."

Dunlins are long-lived shorebirds that often mate with the same partner over several seasons. In 126 recorded breeding attempts by dunlins, biologists Lars-Åke Flodin and Donald Blomqvist found that 23% of the pairs divorced. They compared the breeding success of males and females before and after divorce to explore some causes and consequences of divorce. Divorcing couples did not differ from non-divorcing couples in nest success in the season preceding divorce, both in terms of total nest failure or the number of eggs in the nest.

New research suggests that allowing more Pacific salmon to spawn in coastal streams will not only benefit the natural environment, including grizzly bears, but could also lead to more salmon in the ocean and thus larger salmon harvests in the long term—a win-win for ecosystems and humans.

The coupled normal mode method is a powerful approach for solving range-dependent propagation problems in underwater acoustics. An important area of study is to improve stability and efficiency so as to be able to deal with complex scenarios in a realistic environment. Professor LUO Wenyu and his group from the State Key Laboratory of Acoustics, Institute of Acoustics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, set out to tackle this problem.

Rapidly dropping water levels of the Dead Sea, the lowest point on the earth's surface heralded for its medicinal properties, has been a source of ecological concern for years. Now a drilling project led by researchers from Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University reveals that water levels have risen and fallen by hundreds of meters over the last 200,000 years.

ALBANY, Calif.—Climate change is projected to have far-reaching environmental impacts both domestically and abroad. A recently published report by the USDA Forest Service's Pacific Southwest Research Station (PSW) examines the impact of climate change on forest diseases and how these pathogens will ultimately affect forest ecosystems in the Western United States and Canada.

The coupled normal mode method is a powerful approach for solving range-dependent propagation problems in underwater acoustics. An important area of study is to improve stability and efficiency so as to be able to deal with complex scenarios in a realistic environment. Professor LUO Wenyu and his group from the State Key Laboratory of Acoustics, Institute of Acoustics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, set out to tackle this problem.

AMES, Iowa – Christopher Karstens was on the ground studying the damage caused by the deadly April 27, 2011, tornado that hit Tuscaloosa and Birmingham, Ala.

It was just a week after the tornado. He was between the two cities, in the rough country of the southern Appalachians about 20 miles northeast of Tuscaloosa. He said it's terrain that's "beyond hilly." It's covered by dense forest and clogged by high brush that's tough to walk through. A hike of about 100 yards sometimes took as long as 45 minutes.

Boston, MA – New research from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) suggests that seemingly small changes in summer temperature swings—as little as 1°C more than usual—may shorten life expectancy for elderly people with chronic medical conditions, and could result in thousands of additional deaths each year. While previous studies have focused on the short-term effects of heat waves, this is the first study to examine the longer-term effects of climate change on life expectancy.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A survey done on the loss in the Northern Hemisphere of large predators, particularly wolves, concludes that current populations of moose, deer, and other large herbivores far exceed their historic levels and are contributing to disrupted ecosystems.

The research, published today by scientists from Oregon State University, examined 42 studies done over the past 50 years.