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Public Release: 15-Jan-2009
Journal of Environmental Quality
Prairie soil organic matter shown to be resilient under intensive agriculture
A recent study has confirmed that although there was a large reduction of organic carbon and total nitrogen pools when prairies were first cultivated and drained, there has been no consistent pattern in these organic matter pools during the period of synthetic fertilizer use, that is, from 1957-2002.
State of Illinois, Water Quality Strategic Research Initiative
Contact: Debra Levey Larson
dlarson@illinois.edu
217-244-2880
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Public Release: 15-Jan-2009
Environmental Science & Technology
Biofuel carbon footprint not as big as feared, Michigan State University research says
Some researchers have blasted biofuels' potential to increase greenhouse gas emissions, calling into question the environmental benefits of making fuel from plant material. But a new analysis by Michigan State University scientists says these dire predictions are based on a set of assumptions that may not be correct.
Contact: Bruce Dale
bdale@egr.msu.edu
517-353-6777
Michigan State University
Public Release: 15-Jan-2009
Discovery of methane reveals Mars is not a dead planet
A team of NASA and university scientists has achieved the first definitive detection of methane in the atmosphere of Mars. This discovery indicates the planet is either biologically or geologically active.
NASA
Contact: Dwayne Brown
dwayne.c.brown@nasa.gov
202-358-1726
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Public Release: 15-Jan-2009
Current Biology
Cooling the planet with crops
By carefully selecting which varieties of food crops to cultivate, much of Europe and North America could be cooled by up to 1 degree Celsius during the summer growing season, say researchers from the University of Bristol, UK. This is equivalent to an annual global cooling of over 0.1 degrees Celsius, almost 20 percent of the total global temperature increase since the Industrial Revolution. Unlike growing biofuels, such a plan could be achieved without disrupting food production.
The Royal Society
Contact: Cherry Lewis
Cherry.lewis@bristol.ac.uk
44-117-928-8086
University of Bristol
Public Release: 14-Jan-2009
Yale survey: Americans eager to reduce their energy use
Many Americans have already taken action to reduce their energy use and many others would do the same if they could afford to, according to a national survey conducted by Yale and George Mason universities.
Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy, Surdna Foundation, 11th Hour Project, Pacific Foundation
Contact: David DeFusco
david.defusco@yale.edu
203-436-4842
Yale University
Public Release: 14-Jan-2009
Environmental Science & Technology
Energy-efficient water purification made possible by Yale engineers
Water and energy are two resources on which modern society depends. As demands for these increase, researchers look to alternative technologies that promise both sustainability and reduced environmental impact. Engineered osmosis holds a key to addressing both the global need for affordable clean water and inexpensive sustainable energy according to Yale researchers.
National Science Foundation, US Office of Naval Research
Contact: Janet Rettig Emanuel
janet.emanuel@yale.edu
203-432-2157
Yale University
Public Release: 13-Jan-2009
Chasing thundersnow could lead to more accurate forecasts
The job of one University of Missouri researcher could chill to the bone, but his research could make weather predicting more accurate. Patrick Market, associate professor of atmospheric science in the College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, is chasing storms in the dead of winter in order to release weather balloons that will produce data about the little-known phenomenon of thundersnow.
Contact: Jennifer Faddis
FaddisJ@missouri.edu
573-882-6217
University of Missouri-Columbia
Public Release: 13-Jan-2009
Nature Geoscience
Study links swings in North Atlantic oscillation variability to climate warming
Using a 218-year-long temperature record from a Bermuda brain coral, researchers at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution have created the first marine-based reconstruction showing the long-term behavior of one of the most important drivers of climate fluctuations in the North Atlantic.
Contact: Media Relations
media@whoi.edu
508-289-3340
Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution
Public Release: 13-Jan-2009
Voracious sponges save reef
Tropical oceans are known as the deserts of the sea. And yet this unlikely environment is the very place where the rich and fertile coral reef grows. Dutch researcher Jasper de Goeij investigated how caves in the coral reef ensure the reef's continued existence. Although sponges in these coral caves take up a lot of dissolved organic material, they scarcely grow. However, they do discard a lot of cells that in turn provide food for the organisms on the reef.
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
Contact: Jasper de Goeij
jmdegoeij@gmail.com
31-065-247-1433
Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research
Public Release: 13-Jan-2009
Eos
Great Lakes water level sensitive to climate change
The water level in the Great Lakes has varied by only about two meters during the last century,
but new evidence indicates that the water level in the lake system is highly sensitive to climate changes.
Contact: Todd McLeish
tmcleish@uri.edu
401-874-7892
University of Rhode Island
Public Release: 12-Jan-2009
'Refinery dust' reveals clues about local polluters, UH-led research team says
Cloaked in the clouds of emissions and exhaust that hang over the city are clues that lead back to the polluting culprits, and a research team led by the University of Houston is hot on their trails.
Texas Air Research Center, US Environmental Protection Agency
Contact: Angela Hopp
ahopp@uh.edu
713-743-8153
University of Houston
Public Release: 12-Jan-2009
Soil Science Society of America Journal
Organic soils continue to acidify despite reduction in acidic deposition
Scientist's understanding of how soils have responded to decreases in acidic deposition at the regional scale is limited, but a recent study confirms that the acidification of soils in watersheds slows the recovery of aquatic ecosystems, an effect that is threatening the health of forests in the northeastern United States.
Contact: Sara Uttech
suttech@soils.org
608-268-4948
Soil Science Society of America
Public Release: 12-Jan-2009
Geological Society of America Bulletin
January-February GSA Bulletin media highlights
Bulletin papers examine carbon-14 dating of marine mud fossils in Ireland that suggests high ice-sheet sensitivity to small climate changes, formation of Valles Marineris, Mars, a buried fossil forest in the Gold Hill Loess, Alaska, a 20-meter-high salt pillar near the Dead Sea, how shrimp affect groundwater flow in the Biscayne aquifer, a possible emerging natural gas play in the Appalachian Basin and banded iron formations exposed by the Agouron South African Drilling Project.
Contact: Christa Stratton
cstratton@geosociety.org
303-357-1093
Geological Society of America
Public Release: 12-Jan-2009
Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres
Dirty snow causes early runoff in Cascades, Rockies
Soot from pollution causes winter snowpacks to warm, shrink and warm some more. This continuous cycle sends snowmelt streaming down mountains as much as a month early, a new study finds, which could exacerbate winter flooding and summer droughts. How pollution affects a mountain range's natural water reservoirs is important for water resource managers in the western United States and Canada who plan for hydroelectricity generation, fisheries and farming.
Department of Energy
Contact: Mary Beckman
mary.beckman@pnl.gov
509-375-3688
DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
Public Release: 12-Jan-2009
Archives of Internal Medicine
Elderly may have higher blood pressure in cold weather
Outdoor temperature and blood pressure appear to be correlated in the elderly, with higher rates of hypertension in cooler months, according to a report in the Jan. 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.
Contact: Christophe Tzourio, M.D.
christophe.tzourio@inserm.fr
JAMA and Archives Journals
Public Release: 9-Jan-2009
Geophysical Research Letters
GKSS scientists refute argument of climate skeptics
Scientists at the GKSS Research Centre of Geesthacht/Germany and the University of Bern/Suisse have investigated the frequency of warmer than average years between 1880 and 2006 for the first time. The result: the observed increase of warm years after 1990 is not a statistical accident. The results will now be published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Contact: Dr. Eduardo Zorita
eduardo.zorita@gkss.de
49-041-528-71856
Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres
Public Release: 8-Jan-2009
Geology
How Martian winds make rocks walk
Rocks on Mars are on the move, rolling into the wind and forming organized patterns, according to new research. Small rocks seen in images from the Spirit Rover end up evenly spaced across the landscape because of wind-caused erosion and deposition. This counters the previous idea that extremely high winds carried or pushed the rocks.
Contact: Mari N. Jensen
mnjensen@email.arizona.edu
520-626-9635
University of Arizona
Public Release: 8-Jan-2009
Geology
January Geology media highlights
Geology topics include "the best submarine record of displacement"; geophysical data from the Black Sea; hazardous volcanic ice-slurry flows; the controversy over riverbank erosion rates; surface cracks in the Atacama Desert; CO2 sequestration; ultradeep Australian diamonds; Earth's magnetic field and the cosmic-ray-climate theory; fresh-water megafloods into the Pacific; early marine fossils preserved in French amber; tiny fossil fish teeth recovered by the Ocean Drilling Program; and alkaline groundwater at the dawn of land plant radiation.
Contact: Christa Stratton
cstratton@geosociety.org
303-357-1093
Geological Society of America
Public Release: 8-Jan-2009
Climate Dynamics
Sea level rise of 1 meter within 100 years
New research indicates that the ocean could rise in the next 100 years to a meter higher than the current sea level -- which is three times higher than predictions from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC. The groundbreaking new results from an international collaboration between researchers from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, England and Finland are published in the scientific journal Climate Dynamics.
Contact: Gertie Skaarup
skaarup@nbi.dk
453-532-5320
University of Copenhagen
Public Release: 8-Jan-2009
International Journal of Climatology
Floods to become commonplace by 2080
Storms across the UK set to increase in intensity by up to 30 percent in the next 75 years, new research shows.
Contact: Dr. Hayley Fowler
h.j.fowler@ncl.ac.uk
44-191-222-7113
Newcastle University
Public Release: 8-Jan-2009
213th AAS Meeting
Astronomers discover new radio signal using large balloon
A team of NASA-funded scientists, including two from UC Santa Barbara, have discovered cosmic radio noise that they find completely unexpected and exciting.
Contact: Gail Gallessich
805-893-7220
University of California - Santa Barbara
Public Release: 8-Jan-2009
American Naturalist
Sequence matters in droughts and floods
When extremes of drought and flood come in rapid succession, the extent of damage to vegetation may depend in part on the sequence of those events, according to a new study published in the American Naturalist.
Contact: Kevin Stacey
kstacey@uchicago.edu
773-834-0386
University of Chicago Press Journals
Public Release: 8-Jan-2009
Science
Half of world's population could face climate-induced food crisis by 2100
New research shows that rapidly warming climate is likely to seriously alter crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century and, without adaptation, will leave half the world's population facing serious food shortages.
National Science Foundation, Tamaki Foundation
Contact: Vince Stricherz
vinces@u.washington.edu
206-543-2580
University of Washington
Public Release: 7-Jan-2009
International Journal of Power Electronics
Tilting at wind farms
A way to make wind power smoother and more efficient that exploits the inertia of a wind turbine rotor could help solve the problem of wind speed variation, according to research published in the International Journal of Power Electronics.
Contact: Adel Nasiri
nasiri@uwm.edu
Inderscience Publishers
Public Release: 7-Jan-2009
Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
Polarized light pollution leads animals astray
Human-made light sources can alter natural light cycles, causing animals that rely on light cues to make mistakes when moving through their environment. In the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a collaboration of ecologists, biologists and biophysicists has now shown that in addition to direct light, cues from polarized light can trigger animal behaviors leading to injury and often death.
Contact: Christine Buckley
christine@esa.org
202-833-8773
Ecological Society of America
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