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As CO2 builds up in the atmosphere, this warms the planet, acidifies the ocean and melts glaciers. It also promotes plant growth -- after all, that's why it's called the "greenhouse gas effect". A huge collaborative effort spanning 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries found that in the last 33 years the area occupied by vegetation has significantly increased.
It's hard to believe that something so cute can lie at the bottom of the sea, but don't let the appearances fool you.
We now have shark vision.
Sad news comes from African wildlife parks again: three rangers were killed in Democratic Republic of Congo’s Garamba wildlife park. Two others were wounded, including the park manager. Just yesterday we were writing that African park rangers risk their life on a day-to-day basis to protect animals in natural parks, and now this tragedy was reported […]
Polar bears are forced to undertake more marathon, life-threatening swims to find food
Park rangers risk their lives on a daily basis to protect wildlife from poachers. They're also underfunded and understaffed, so allocating resources as efficiently as possible is critical. This is where artificial intelligence, big data, machine learning, and game theory come in. The A.I. can identify and predict poaching patterns, and adapts in time so that park patrols can transition from "reactive" to "proactive" control. Pilot programs launched in Uganda and Malaysia have so far been successful, and a similar system is currently being developed for illegal logging.
At a high-level signing ceremony in New York, more than 170 countries signed up to the landmark COP21 climate changed deal first adopted last December in Paris. Many media outlets praised the signing event, where 60 heads of state were in attendance as well as celebrities, like Leonardo DiCaprio. It is indeed a great achievement in fighting climate change on a global level, but only a small step in many yet to come.
According to the most comprehensive set of data, almost no diesel cars respect pollution limits.
When a species almost one hundred times bigger than you, who has access to nukes and can go to space, discovers your remains a few million years after you die and still decides to call you "monstrosus" you must be doing something very right survival-wise.
Humans are throwing away an insane quantity of food, both in the developed and in developing countries. While in the latter case this can be attributed to economic and technological constrains, the former is primarily consumer-driven. And the sum of individual choices adds up to major impacts on a global scale, a new study finds.
A new study suggests that in the United States, residents might experience three to nine more days of unhealthy ozone levels by 2050.
It's a true "Wow!" moment.
A forest's trees capture carbon not only for themselves, but also engage in an active "trade" of sorts with their neighbors, a new study found. University of Basel botanists found that this process, conducted by symbiotic fungi in the forest's soil, takes place even among trees of different species.
Is size all there is to it? As far as the brain is concerned, a recent study that assessed corvid intelligence suggests the answer seems no. The researchers found crows, ravens and other corvids score the same on an important cognitive test as the big-brained chimps.
Studies show that childhood trauma like abuse, neglect, physical accidents and other hallmarks put people at greater risk of dying prematurely once in adulthood. A rough childhood is associated with heart disease, diabetes, and addiction later in life, even though the stressful events have subsided. Generally, what doesn't kill you makes your life shorter. This is true for baboons as well, according to researchers at Duke University, University of Notre Dame and Princeton University.
We may be reaching a historic moment.
Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin falsely claimed she is “as much a scientist” as Bill Nye. She's not.
Researchers from Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have found a way to reliably produce batteries that are very cheap, but can store a lot of energy.
Hint: it's the urine.
It’s glorious and depressing at the same time: NASA used its official Facebook account to shut down one user who was misrepresenting climate science: It’s climate change denial 101: you take some random fact, gobble it up without even thinking about it, add in some buzzwords to make it look more scientific and spit it […]
One week from now, on April 22, officials representing 130 countries are expected at a high-level signing ceremony in New York. If enough countries sign, the landmark Paris agreement on climate change reached in December in Paris could enter into force two years earlier than expected. This enthusiasm and seemingly genuine spirit of cooperation can only be saluted. But we need action, not words. This is an urgent matter that can't suffer any delay.
Helicoprion is an extinct genus of shark-like, cartilaginous fish that lived from the early Permian (~290 m.y. ago) all through to the massive Permian-Triassic extinction episode (roughly 250 m.y. ago.)
A massive portion of the Greenland ice sheet has started to melt, taking researchers by surprise. The vast region is experiencing a freakishly early spring thaw, with 12% of Greenland’s ice melting on Monday, according to the Danish Meteorological Institute. “We had to check that our models were still working properly,”6 Peter Langen, climate scientist at […]
It’s one of the most common confusions in the English language. In short, silicon is the chemical element Si, while silicone is a synthetic polymer. Although it appears like the words are synonyms and can be used interchangeably, they’re not and they designate completely different things. Let’s detail a bit on what each of them are, […]
On the desk of Seokheun "Sean" Choi sits a 3x3 array that at first glance looks like a lemon squeezer. It is, in fact, a solar panel but not like any you've seen or heard about before. Instead of using semiconductors like silicon crystals to convert sunlight into electricity, the array employs a complex system that nurtures cyanobacteria -- beings whose metabolism create free electrons which can be harnessed.
Exxon, Shell and three trade associations spent US$114 million in 2015 alone to manipulate lawmakers and public discourse on climate change, a report by British NGO Influence Map claims.
It could be water, and not air pollution that’s China’s biggest problem. The Chinese government has published some extremely worrying statistics about the water quality in rural areas, showing that over 80% of it is not drinkable due to contamination from industry and farming. Considering the government’s tendency to underestimate pollution levels, it seems safe to […]
Fresh from the GE Global Research lab is this tiny monster: a turbine small enough you can hold in your hands, but powerful enough to provide energy to a whole town. It's secret lies in a couple of design features, but also the power agent. Instead of steam, the "minirotor" as it's been nicknamed is driven by supercritical carbon dioxide.
The Environmental Defense Fund’s Oil and Gas program has released a new nation-wide report of the most common sites of methane leaks at oil and gas pads. Surprisingly, most of the leaks were traced back to faulty piping, vents or doors on gas tanks in newer, not older, wells.
For the first time in over one hundred years worldwide tiger numbers have increased, but there are still only 3,900 specimens in the wild.
A team of NASA researchers has developed the first ever method for identifying and studying underground forest fungi from outer space, providing information that will help us better understand how forests will develop. Mycorrhizal fungi (underground fungus) are more similar to a city network than to individual organisms. They are complex intertwined networks that can […]
A new solar cell prototype developed by Chinese researchers may change the way we use solar panels.
People frequently overindulge, sometimes to the point of developing sugar addictions. There has been a lot of interest in the pharmaceutical industry in finding treatments that can combat this effect, with little results up to now. But, a world-first study led by QUT might change that.
Scotland has met and overcome its objective for green energy in 2015
Though minute, these are far from insignificant as their pray have learned the hard way. In fact, it's their small body that allowed them to become the fastest snapping spiders in the world!
The Sunny State is going through its worst drought in the last couple thousand years. Unfortunately, these events will happen more frequently in the future.
The first case of white nose syndrome, a disease that has wreaked havoc on bat populations in the eastern U.S. has been identified west of the Rockies. The disease's spread threatens to drastically impact bat populations there, altering ecosystems throughout the country.
The population dropped sharply from over 5,000 individuals fifty years ago to less than 150 cats ten years ago. However, thanks to recent efforts, the population has grown to 400 individuals, and there are good signs for the species.
NASA plans to improve today's planes with a blast from the past -- re-implementing a structure known as a wing truss would reduce fuel consumption and carbon emissions of common commercial aircraft by as much as 50%, according to computational models.
Photosynthesis is maybe the most important chemical process on Earth, turning sunlight and CO2 into the oxygen we breath and the food we eat. This process can be reversed, however.
A federal judge has approved the $20.8 bn settlement for BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. This fine will account for civil claims against the company set forth by the Department of Justice and five Gulf states. US Attorney General Loretta Lynch previously called the settlement “the largest with a single entity in American […]
Enercon's E-126 turbine towers 125 meters high and can generate a staggering 7.58 MW of electricity.
This is an article by Julie Tolman Thompson, Associate Professor, School of STEM at American Military University. April 4 commemorates a significant date in the history of science. On this day in 1796, at the opening of the National Institute of Arts and Sciences in Paris, naturalist Georges Cuvier (1769-1832) read one of his papers comparing living […]
Fake 3-D printed eggs packed with sensors help scientist learn how vultures incubate their eggs. This way, they might be one day able to incubate their own eggs, without having to rely on vultures.
NOAA has released a photograph of this year's golden retriever migration. The animals are returning to shore after their mating run, where a new generation of puppies will be born.
Sunny states like California, Texas and Florida topped the list of states where rooftop solar could generate the most energy.
A refined model based on equations which accurately reproduced sea level rise events from hundreds of thousands of years ago suggests this massive ice sheet is disintegrating faster then previously thought.
The gentlest of all apes takes friendship very seriously. New research suggests bonobos can remember the voices of their friends and become highly excited once they hear them again, even after a long time had past since their last encounter.
A survey of a major oil and natural gas-producing region in Western Canada founds evidence that hydraulic fracturing or "fracking" does indeed cause earthquakes in the region.
A new research modeled thousands of fisheries from around the world and found that a straightforward economic reform will not only help fisheries recover in only ten years, but double production by 2050.
