Earth

MADISON, Wis. - When it comes to using our natural resources, human beings want to know what we're going to get. We expect clean water every time we turn on the tap; beaches free of algae and bacteria; and robust harvests of crops, fish and fuel year after year. As a result, we try to manage the use of our resources in a way that minimizes their variability.

We seek a predictable "status quo."

WASHINGTON, D.C., October 6, 2015 - If you've ever waited on an airport runway for your plane to be de-iced, had to remove all your food so the freezer could defrost, or arrived late to work because you had to scrape the sheet of ice off your car windshield, you know that ice can cause major headaches.

UPTON, NY-New research by chemists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory and their collaborators offers clues that could help scientists design more effective catalysts for transforming carbon dioxide (CO2) to useful products. The study, published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, reveals how a simple rearrangement of molecular attachments on an iridium hydride catalyst can greatly improve its ability to coax notoriously stable CO2 molecules to react.

Rose gardeners have a lot to say about aphids. Some may advise insecticides as a way to manage an infestation, but others will swear by live ladybugs (natural predators of aphids). The latter is more environmental friendly, and once the ladybugs run out of food to eat, they move on.

Hurricane Joaquin continued to intensify in the Bahamas on October 1 and NASA and NOAA satellites have been providing valuable data on the storm. NASA's GPM and Terra satellites and NOAA's GOES-East satellite provided rainfall, cloud extent, cloud height and other data to forecasters. Joaquin became a major hurricane today, October 1, reaching Category 3 status on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale.

Months of warning signs from Mauna Loa, on Hawaii's Big Island, prompted the U.S. Geological Society to recently start releasing weekly updates on activity at the world's largest active volcano.

Goldenrod, Himalayan balsam, Chinese windmill palm: three plants, one problem. All are native to continents other than Europe, but were introduced to Switzerland as garden or ornamental plants. At some point they "escaped" into the wild, where they now threaten the native flora.

Local habitat variability in northwest streams can help shield coastal cutthroat trout from the effects of forest harvest and climate change, a new U.S. Forest Service-led study has found.

The study--one of few to explore fish population response to both harvest activities and a changing climate-- revealed that trout in four neighboring Oregon streams respond differently to these disturbances based on the features of the streams where trout live. The study is published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Fishermen can’t win. The harder they work, the more successful they are, the more they are apparently despised. Take Scotland, for instance, where the EU (heavily influenced by well-financed NGO lobby groups) is attempting to exclude fishermen from large areas of the sea off the west coast that they may have fished for generations.

A new review claims that drinking too many sugar-sweetened beverages, which contain added sugars in the form of high fructose corn syrup or table sugar (sucrose), can lead to excess weight gain and a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

The review was engineered to implicate fructose in the development of these conditions.

An analysis of medical costs associated with atherosclerotic lower extremity peripheral artery disease, a dangerous condition in which a buildup of plaque in the arteries restricts blood flow to the legs and feet, found that health care costs in one year were $18,000 higher in smokers with the condition than non-smokers with the condition.

Within one year, 49 percent of the tobacco users with PAD in the study were hospitalized, a hospitalization rate 35 percent higher than nonusers.

To better understand global weather patterns and increase scientific collaboration between the U.S. and India, researchers supported by the Office of Naval Research (ONR) have completed a month-long cruise studying summer monsoon conditions in the Bay of Bengal.

About 20 million years ago a single flea became entombed in amber with tiny bacteria attached to it, providing what researchers believe may be the oldest evidence on Earth of a dreaded and historic killer - an ancient strain of the bubonic plague.

If indeed the fossil bacteria are related to plague bacteria, Yersinia pestis, the discovery would show that this scourge, which killed more than half the population of Europe in the 14th century, actually had been around for millions of years before that, traveled around much of the world, and predates the human race.

Researchers from the University of Exeter believe they have solved one of the biggest puzzles in climate science. The new study, published in Nature Geoscience, explains the synchrony observed during glacial periods when low temperatures in the Southern Ocean correspond with low levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2).

The interdisciplinary study, carried out in collaboration with the University of Tasmania, demonstrates how a reconfiguration of ocean circulation can result in more carbon being stored in the deep ocean that previously thought.

A proof-of-concept study finds that it is possible to identify an individual's ancestral background based on his or her fingerprint characteristics - a discovery with significant applications for law enforcement and anthropological research.