Environment

A research team has provided ground-truth for a method of measuring plant photosynthesis on a global scale: from low-Earth orbit. They have found that chlorophyll fluorescence, a faint glow produced…

Metformin, a medication commonly taken for Type II diabetes, is being found in freshwater systems worldwide, and a new study says that it causes physical changes in male fish exposed to doses similar…

Spring is here and that means fewer airplanes need to be de-iced. That may be good, according to a new study which finds that de-icing agents accumulated during the winter, which end up on unpaved…

Agriculture is a breathtaking achievement of modern science. We are on the path to being able to feed the world for the first time in history and the upward trend in obesity is due to the fact that…

Climate change may have been be responsible for the abrupt collapse of civilization on the fringes of the Tibetan Plateau around 2,000 B.C. - but it wasn't the modern political connotation of climate…

Many scientists assume that the growing level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will accelerate plant growth but a new study suggests much of this growth will be curtailed by limited soil nutrients…

Since the Cambrian Explosion, ecosystems have suffered repeated mass extinctions, 5 of which wiped out half of all species: The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction, the Triassic–Jurassic extinction, the…

Soil is considered e a semi-permanent storehouse for ancient carbon but it may instead be releasing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere faster than thought, which means that the carbon bomb not…

Clearing grasslands to make way for biofuels may seem counterproductive, but University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers show in a study today (April 2, 2015) that crops, including the corn and soy…

It is raining in California as I write this but most of it will do little good. The rain is going to go to a gutter and the gutter will go to a stream and that will go to an ocean. Yes, much of the…