Earth

In today's media-driven climate environment, where storms are SuperStorms and Snowpocalypses, the hype cycle had issued high expectations for the El Niño - and then little happened. On March 5, 2015, the National Weather Service finally declared a "weak" event arriving several months later than expected, formally dashing predictions that we would see a major event on par with the monster El Niño of 1997/98 that would bring much-needed rain to California and other western states.

Heavy snoring and sleep apnea may be linked to memory and thinking decline at an earlier age, according to a new study published in Neurology. The research also suggests that treating the disorders with a breathing machine may delay the decline.

"Abnormal breathing patterns during sleep such as heavy snoring and sleep apnea are common in the elderly, affecting about 52 percent of men and 26 percent of women," said study author Ricardo Osorio, MD, with the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York.

Since a few months after the March 11, 2011, earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear release at Japan's Fukushima-Daiichi nuclear power plant, Mousseau and several co-workers have undertaken a series of bird censuses in contaminated areas.

Many populations were found to have diminished in number as a result of the accident, with several species suffering dramatic declines. One hard-hit species was the barn swallow, Hirundo rustica, which suffered large population losses in a dose-dependent manner according to individually measured levels of radiation exposure.

Faster increases in life expectancy do not necessarily produce faster population aging, according to new research. This counterintuitive finding was the result of applying new measures of aging developed at International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) to future population projections for Europe up to the year 2050.

Previous studies have suggested that pulses of icebergs may have caused cycles of abrupt climate change during the last glacial period by introducing fresh water to the surface of the ocean and changing ocean currents, which are known to play a dominant role in the climate of many of Earth's regions.

However, new findings by scientists at Cardiff University present a contradictory narrative and suggest that icebergs generally arrived too late to trigger marked cooling across the North Atlantic.

Citrus fruits -- delectable oranges, lemons, limes, kumquats and grapefruits -- are among the most important commercially cultivated fruit trees in the world, yet little is known of the origin of the citrus species and the history of its domestication.

Now, Joaquin Dopazo et al, in a new publication in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution, have performed the largest and most detailed genomic analysis on 30 species of Citrus, representing 34 citrus genotypes, and used chloroplast genomic data to reconstruct its evolutionary history.

E-cigarettes are not without health risks for people who vape or for bystanders. This is one of the conclusions from a new risk assessment report from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health (NIPH).

The report has only considered e-cigarettes with nicotine since there has been very little research about e-cigarettes without nicotine.

In summary

Looking after yourself, and trying not to infect others, is a good strategy to prevent disease from spreading - not only if you are a considerate co-worker, but also if you are an ant, meerkat or other social animal, as revealed by an epidemiological model developed by the groups of Professor Fabian Theis from the Helmholtz Center Munich and Professor Sylvia Cremer from the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria.

In 2013, Typhoon Haiyan devastated the Philippines, killing more than 6,000 people and destroying nearly $3 billion worth of property. While the country is still recovering from the storm, researchers with The University of Texas at Austin have found that an aquifer on the island of Samar inundated with salt water by the storm surge could remain undrinkable for up to 10 years. But a second aquifer on the island that was also inundated has recovered much more quickly.

A team of international scientists has shown that assigning a dollar value to the benefits nature provides agriculture improves the bottom line for farmers while protecting the environment. The study confirms that organic farming systems do a better job of capitalizing on nature's services.

Scientists at the University of Sheffield calculate that all of the UK's high level nuclear waste from spent fuel reprocessing could be disposed of in just six boreholes 5km deep, fitting within a site no larger than a football pitch.

Soil organic matter, long thought to be a semi-permanent storehouse for ancient carbon, may be much more vulnerable to climate change than previously thought.

Plants direct between 40 percent and 60 percent of photosynthetically fixed carbon to their roots and much of this carbon is secreted and then taken up by root-associated soil microorganisms. Elevated carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations in the atmosphere are projected to increase the quantity and alter the composition of root secretions released into the soil.

Most of today's anticancer drugs target the DNA or proteins in tumor cells, but a new discovery by University of California, Berkeley, scientists unveils a whole new set of potential targets: the RNA intermediaries between DNA and proteins.

When a meteor strikes the earth, the havoc above ground is obvious, but the details of what happens below ground are harder to see. Duke University physicists have developed techniques that enable them to simulate high-speed impacts in artificial soil and sand in the lab, and then watch what happens underground close-up, in super slow motion.

They report that materials like soil and sand actually get stronger when they are struck harder.

Indoor radon levels in Pennsylvania have been slowly rising since 2004, around the time that unconventional natural gas development using hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) began in the state. In our new study published in Environmental Health Perspectives, we found three pieces of evidence that there may be a link between unconventional natural gas development and indoor radon levels across the state.