Earth

America's commercial and recreational fisheries show continued stability and make a large contribution to the nation's economy thanks to sustainable fisheries management policies, according to a new report from NOAA Fisheries.

U.S. fishermen landed 9.5 billion pounds of fish and shellfish, valued at $5.4 billion, in 2014, according to the new edition of NOAA Fisheries' annual report, Fisheries of the United States 2014, released today. These figures are similar to those from 2013; both the volume and value continue to remain higher than the average for the past five years.

For centuries, cod were the backbone of New England's fisheries and a key species in the Gulf of Maine ecosystem.

Today, cod stocks are on the verge of collapse, hovering at 3-4% of sustainable levels. Even painful cuts to the fishery have failed to slow this rapid decline, surprising both fishers and fisheries managers.

Now a report published this week in the journal Science links the cod collapse directly to rapid warming of ocean waters.

The 2015 Antarctic ozone hole area was larger and formed later than in recent years, said scientists from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Just below Earth's surface, beneath the roots and soil, is a hard, dense layer of bedrock that is the foundation for all life on land. Cracks and fissures within bedrock provide pathways for air and water, which chemically react to break up rock, ultimately creating soil -- an essential ingredient for all terrestrial organisms. This weathering of bedrock is fundamental to life on Earth.

Photographs from Google Street View before and after a major natural disaster could help researchers and civil engineers to assess the damage to buildings and improve resistance against future events, according to new research from the University of Southampton.

The research, published in the Institution of Civil Engineers' (ICE) journal Civil Engineering, studied images taken before and after the 2011 Japan earthquake to assess the impacts on buildings from the devastating T?hoku tsunami, which hit the east coast of Honshu, Japan.

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., Oct. 29, 2015 - Catalysts that power chemical reactions to produce the nylon used in clothing, cookware, machinery and electronics could get a lift with a new formulation that saves time, energy and natural resources.

Parts of Greenland's ice sheet have been found to be less vulnerable to climate warming than was thought - a discovery that could have a small but beneficial impact on sea level forecasts.

Satellite images have revealed that despite dramatic increases in ice melt across Greenland in recent years, the speed of ice movement in some areas has slowed down rather than accelerated.

ORLANDO, Fla. Oct. 29, 2015 -- A long-acting enzyme that rapidly and safely metabolizes cocaine in the blood stream is currently being investigated in animal models as a possible treatment for cocaine overdose. This research is being presented Oct. 29 at the 2015 American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) Annual Meeting and Exposition, the world's largest pharmaceutical sciences meeting in Orlando, Fla. Oct. 25-29.

Collaborations on climate change research are divided into separate regions of the world with little knowledge exchange between them shows a new Danish-Brazilian study led by the University of Copenhagen. The most vulnerable countries of the world are largely disconnected from the production and flow of scientific knowledge on climate change, leaving their climate policymaking with little contextually relevant advice. The study calls for initiatives across private, governmental and non-governmental organisations, and from researchers themselves to diminish the knowledge gap.

Physicists, in fact all of us, love extremes. We're captivated by the search for the longest, highest, quickest, smallest or brightest. There's something intrinsically appealing about pushing boundaries to break records and establish new limits for what's physically possible.

Alexandria, VA - In a Utah cave, paleontologists are exploring the fossil record preserved in owl pellets since the Pleistocene glaciation. The fossils in the pellets are giving the scientists a glimpse of how the ecosystems have changed over time both from natural variation and more recent changes brought on by human settlement.

The Eurasian beaver was brought back from near extinction and now thrives across Europe. But this conservation success story may have had at least one unintended and potentially harmful consequence. Scientists report in ACS' journal Environmental Science & Technology that when beavers build new dams where no previous beaver colonies existed, downstream levels of toxic methylmercury rise, at least temporarily.

An undergraduate University of Alberta paleontology student has discovered an Ornithomimus dinosaur with preserved tail feathers and soft tissue. The discovery is shedding light on the convergent evolution of these dinosaurs with ostriches and emus relating to thermoregulation and is also tightening the linkages between dinosaurs and modern birds.

Unlike humans, birds require multiple sperm to penetrate an egg to enable their chicks to develop normally.

A new study by scientists at the University of Sheffield revealed there is a functional role for 'extra' sperm in the early stages of embryo development.

This is very different to humans and other mammals where the entry of more than one sperm into an egg is lethal.

New research led by Florida Institute of Technology shows that the impacts of indigenous people prior to European contact impacted riverside forests, but that such impacts were largely limited to an area within a day's walk from a river.

The findings by the international team of archaeobotanists, paleoecologists and ecologists will be published online in the paper "Anthropogenic influence on Amazonian forests in prehistory: An ecological perspective" on Oct. 28 in the Journal of Biogeography.