Earth

U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientists in Fort Pierce, Fla. are helping citrus growers and juice processors address the threat posed by Huanglongbing (HLB), a disease that is costing the citrus industry millions of dollars each year.

Citrus trees infected with HLB, also called citrus greening, usually die within five to 10 years. Fruit on infected trees often falls to the ground before harvest, and fruit that remains on trees may become misshapen and sometimes only partially ripen.

A study conducted at the University of Granada has demonstrated that men like female thinness more than women and they find female overweight more unpleasant than women. In addition, the study revealed that women who are not comfortable with their body perceive women with a "normal" body –i.e. women with a healthy weight– as a threat. Specifically, when these women see a "normal" body they experience feelings of displeasure and lack of control, since they feel they have not any control on their own body and cannot make it be as they want.

Tropical Cyclone Garry is in a good environment to intensify and satellite imagery from NOAA's GOES-15 satellite helped confirm that the storm has become more organized.

Northwestern University graduate student Jonathan Barnes had a hunch for creating an exotic new chemical compound, and his idea that the force of love is stronger than hate proved correct. He and his colleagues are the first to permanently interlock two identical tetracationic rings that normally are repelled by each other. Many experts had said it couldn't be done.

Is it possible to put a price tag on the natural world? A researcher at The University of Nottingham has been examining the rise of a new concept — ecosystem services — to describe the multitude of resources supplied to us by Mother Nature.

Academic Dr Marion Potschin, of the University's Centre for Environmental Management, is among an international team of researchers who have been investigating the ethical considerations of this new concept, which some have argued turns nature into a 'commodity'.

Like flocks of birds, cells coordinate their motions as they race to cover and ultimately heal wounds to the skin. How that happens is a little less of a mystery today.

Throughout the 20th century and into the first decade of the 21st, America had not been impacted by global warming. This was an 'anomaly' according to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and climate scientists. Finally, in summer of 2012, the American midwest had a drought and that was proof of global warming.

It seems independent voters believed - in both cases. Their acceptance changes with the weather.

Magma forms far deeper than geologists previously thought, according to new research results.

A team led by geologist Rajdeep Dasgupta of Rice University put very small samples of peridotite, rock derived from Earth's mantle, under high pressures in a laboratory.

The scientists found that the rock can and does liquify, at least in small amounts, at pressures equivalent to those found as deep as 250 kilometers down in the mantle beneath the ocean floor.

Dasgupta said that this answers several questions about Earth's inner workings.

A new study by an international team of scientists analyzing ice cores from the Greenland ice sheet going back in time more than 100,000 years indicates the last interglacial period may be a good analog for where the planet is headed in terms of increasing greenhouse gases and rising temperatures.

In a demonstration of the power of green chemistry, scientists are reporting development of a new and more efficient process for making one of the most costly and widely used medications for severe mental illness. Described in a report in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering, it produces larger amounts of the medication than the existing commercial process while reducing the use of solvents and other potentially toxic substances.

Plastics have transformed modern society, providing attractive benefits but also befouling waterways and aquifers, depleting petroleum supplies and disrupting human health.

With climate change sparking concern about an increased risk of wildfires, scientists are reporting development of a way to detect grapes exposed to smoke from those fires, which otherwise could be vented into bad-tasting wine. Their report on the method for detecting smoke taint in both grapes and wine appears in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

CORVALLIS, Ore. – The massive Tohoku, Japan, earthquake in 2011 and Sumatra-Andaman superquake in 2004 stunned scientists because neither region was thought to be capable of producing a megathrust earthquake with a magnitude exceeding 8.4.

Now earthquake scientists are going back to the proverbial drawing board and admitting that existing predictive models looking at maximum earthquake size are no longer valid.

An increase in temperatures due to climate change could mean that the Andorran ski resorts have a shorter season in the future, especially in lower areas. A study undertaken by the Polytechnic University of Catalonia and the Andorran Sustainability Observatory has analysed the specific case of the Pyrenean country and predicted that financial losses could come close to 50 million euros.

SINC. 22 de enero de 2013

Treated wastewater solids called biosolids are sometimes used by farmers to boost soil nutrient levels. Now research by a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) scientist provides new information about how long those plant nutrients remain after biosolids have been applied to the soil.

This work was conducted by Agricultural Research Service (ARS) agronomist Eton Codling, and supports the USDA priority of promoting international food security. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency.