Global Warming >>

Dumping spoil from Australian port expansion projects into the Coral Sea will do serious damage to the Great Barrier Reef, says ecologist Jon Brodie ...

Protein rich and environmentally friendly, insects could transform the Western diet. Hal Hodson meets those trying convince people to try new grub ...

Several billion barrels of oil are trapped in rocks under south-east England – but it may not be worth extracting and there is no gas ...

Studying stream bubbles isn’t exactly a walk in the park. What, with the mud and ticks, the long days hiking and swimming through mucky streams, the sun exposure and scratching brush. But in the end, it may prove to be insightful. The bubbles coming from freshwater sources, new research suggests, may be a key and currently unaccounted for source of methane, the second-largest greenhouse gas contributor...

The draining of the Aral Sea is a classic case of humanity destroying an ecosystem, but it seems the sea has recovered from similar collapses at least twice ...

When honeybees perform their famous waggle dance, they are not just telling each other about food: they are commenting on nature reserves ...

Scientists have recreated the extreme conditions 600 to 2900 km below the Earth's surface to investigate the melting of basalt in the oceanic tectonic plates. They exposed microscopic pieces of rock to these extreme pressures and temperatures while simultaneously studying their structure. The results show basalt produced on the ocean floor has a melting temperature lower than the peridotite which forms...

In its 2014 Atlantic hurricane season outlook issued today NOAA's Climate Prediction Center is forecasting a near-normal or below-normal season. The main driver of this year's outlook is the anticipated development of El Niño this summer. El Niño causes stronger wind shear, which reduces the number and intensity of tropical storms and hurricanes. El Niño can also strengthen the trade winds and increase...

Symbiotic relationships between trees and the mycorrhyzae that grow in their roots may not be as mutually beneficial as previously thought. Recent experiments had brought into a question a long-held theory of biology: that the fungi or mycorrhizae that grow on tree roots work with trees in a symbiotic relationship that is beneficial for both the fungi and the trees, providing needed nutrients to both...

Farmers in Europe will see crop yields affected as global temperatures rise, but that adaptation can help slow the decline for some crops. Research reveals that farmers in Europe will see crop yields affected as global temperatures rise, but that adaptation can help slow the decline for some crops. For corn, the anticipated loss is roughly 10 percent, the research shows. Farmers of these crops have...

There is still hope for the climate, even if a world-wide climate accord proves to be unattainable. A new report shows that regional measures can hold the global rise in temperature within the two-degree limit. ...

The human impact on the Amazon rainforest has been grossly underestimated according to an international team of researchers. They found that selective logging and surface wildfires can result in an annual loss of 54 billion tons of carbon from the Brazilian Amazon, increasing greenhouse gas emissions. This is equivalent to 40% of the yearly carbon loss from deforestation -- when entire forests are...

A newly-discovered source of oceanic bioavailable iron could have a major impact our understanding of marine food chains and global warming. Scientists have discovered that summer meltwaters from ice sheets are rich in iron, which will have important implications on phytoplankton growth. ...

Whether an insect will have a male or female offspring depends on the weather, according to a new study. As in bees, wasps, and ants, the gender determination of Trichogramma parasitoids is called "haplodiploid," that is, fertilized eggs produce female offspring, while unfertilized eggs produce male offspring. The study found that when it was hot, females deliberately produced more males than at medium...

Dryland ecosystems, which include deserts to dry-shrublands, play a more important role in the global carbon cycle than previously thought. In fact, they have emerged as one of its drivers. Surprised by the discovery, researchers urged global ecologists to include the emerging role of dryland ecosystems in their research. ...

Each year, terrestrial ecosystems take up a significant fraction of anthropogenic CO2 emissions, thereby slowing the increase in greenhouse gases and global warming. In periods of higher precipitation, however, carbon uptake can increase. An international research team determined this was related to La Niña driven rainfall in 2010 and 2011 that were superimposed on a 30-year dryland greening trend....

A Chinese drilling rig in the South China Sea, which has triggered protests in Vietnam, is the latest attempt to claim the area's oil and gas reserves ...

From the humble potato to gourmet lobster, convincing people to eat unusual foods requires style as well as substance ...

Analysing palaeontological data helps characterize irregular paleoenvironmental cycles, lasting between less than 1 day and more than millions of years. Scientists have shown that the cyclical phenomena that affect the environment, like climate change, in the atmosphere-ocean dynamic and, even, disturbances to planetary orbits, have existed since hundreds of millions of year ago and can be studied...

Air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from two coal-fired power plants in the Four Corners area of northwest New Mexico, the largest point source of pollution in America, were measured remotely. The study is the first to show that space-based techniques can successfully verify international regulations on fossil energy emissions. ...