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Fast Carbon Relief
Limestone scrubbers transform powerplant emissions into ocean antacid
Comments (0)Greener Pastures
What goes on in the stomachs and under the hooves of cows might be the key to turning deserts back into grasslands, and even taming climate change.
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June 28, 2011
The Right Place
New Zealand right whales returning home
A century after being hunted to local extinction, southern right whales are returning to their ancestral calving grounds off New Zealand. A few whales from a relict population living near Antarctica are finding their way back home, according to a new study.
“These are probably just the first pioneers,” says Scott Baker, an author of […] Read More »
June 27, 2011
Dendrolimnetobionten
Water-filled holes in trees house unique communities
Woody and wet, that’s how they like it. A study from a New Zealand forest shows that water-filled tree holes create a unique microhabitat occupied by a special suite of species – a community that one scientist dubbed the “dendrolimneto-bioneten.”
“Water-filled tree holes form when rainwater and stemflow collect in rot holes and natural hollows […] Read More »
June 26, 2011
Eco-Walkability
Mapping tool gauges neighborhood foot-friendliness
Researchers are harnessing an array of high-tech tools – from satellites to computer mapping software – to promote that lowest of tech transport options: Your feet. New software can help users compute an “eco-walkability” score that indicates how friendly an area is to foot travel.
“The concept of walkability conveys how conducive the built environment […] Read More »
June 24, 2011
Another Inconvenient Truth
Wildlife criminals get away with murder
A continuing global failure to crack down on a booming trade in body parts from endangered animals could soon cause some species – including rhinos and tigers — to “wink out” of existence, a conservation advocate warns. But a couple of recent developments, including a recent United Nations decision to make combating wildlife crime a […] Read More »
June 21, 2011
Predicting The Platypus
What does climate change hold for the duck-billed creature?
“It’s an obvious fraud!,” the poet Ronald Strahan once wrote of the platypus. “Someone has stuck the front end of a duck, with the skill of a weaver, to part of a beaver.” But the unique water-loving, egg-laying creature might not adapt so well to climate change, a new study from Australia warns.
The platypus […] Read More »
June 20, 2011
Dead Space
Coming corpse boom poses land use challenge – and opportunity
The Baby Boom is about to give way to the corpse boom, as planners begin to ponder where we’ll bury the roughly 76 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964. The impending die-off is expected to boost demand for burial space and pose a challenge to land use planners, a new study concludes – but […] Read More »
