Vienna, Austria: The prevalence of smoking in Christchurch, New Zealand, increased following the 2010 earthquake, according to a new study.
The results of the study will be presented today (4 September 2012) at the European Respiratory Society's Annual Congress in Vienna.
The 7.1-magnitude Christchurch earthquake, and subsequent aftershocks, have caused a huge amount of damage and dramatically changed the social, working and living conditions for residents in the city.
Vienna, Austria: Exposure to volcanic ash can increase respiratory symptoms such as an extreme cough, or phlegm, according to a new study.
The research, which will be presented today (4 September 2012) at the European Respiratory Society's Annual Congress in Vienna, investigated the effects of living close to the Icelandic Volcano, Eyjafjallajökull.
Eyjafjallajökull erupted in April 2010 and created a huge ash cloud which spread across Europe, causing widespread disruption to air travel on the continent.
Alexandria, VA – "Warm" and "Antarctica" are not commonly used in the same sentence; however, for scientists, "warm" is a relative term. A team of researchers has discovered that, contrary to previous thinking, the Antarctic continent has experienced periods of warmth since the onset of its most recent glaciation.
The governance of Canada's massive Mackenzie River Basin holds enormous national but also global importance due to the watershed's impact on the Arctic Ocean, international migratory birds and climate stability, say experts convening a special forum on the topic.
Ocean scientists have long known that juvenile coral reef fishes use coastal seagrass and mangrove habitats as nurseries, later moving as adults onto coral reefs. But the fishes' movements, and the connections between different tropical habitats, are much more complex than previously realized, according to a study published September 3 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The findings have important implications for management and protection of coral reefs and other marine environments.
The Amazon basin is an important sink of carbon dioxide, but it is also a substantial source of atmospheric methane, which has 23X the short term impact of CO2 on global warming.
Tropical wetlands, including those in the Amazon, are one of the largest sources of biogenic methane and globally represent roughly 13 percent of annual emissions of the greenhouse gas. Other sources of methane include fossil fuel or biomass burning. Through two intensiveatmospheric methane sampling campaigns, Beck et al. determine the sources of Amazonian methane.
Since 1985, a state agency has constructed and continues to maintain hundreds of square kilometers of wetlands built to regulate the amount of nutrients reaching the Everglades in southern Florida. But this is proving to be ineffective in controlling concentrations of phosphorous, a key nutrient, in the surface waters of the wetland, a new study by Zapata-Rios et al. shows.
Historically, the Everglades have been a nutrient-poor environment, a characteristic that determines the delicate ecological balance and distinct flora and fauna in this region.
Reef-building coral communities in the Great Barrier Reef-the world's largest coral reef-may now be calcifying at only about half the rate that they did during the 1970s, although live coral cover may not have changed over the past 40 years, a new study finds.
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Three of the largest and deadliest earthquakes in recent history occurred where earthquake hazard maps didn't predict massive quakes. A University of Missouri scientist and his colleagues recently studied the reasons for the maps' failure to forecast these quakes. They also explored ways to improve the maps. Developing better hazard maps and alerting people to their limitations could potentially save lives and money in areas such as the New Madrid, Missouri fault zone.
The Sun is capable of disrupting electrical systems on Earth in a variety of ways, from solar flares and coronal mass ejections to proton storms. Typically, it is only objects far above the Earth's surface, or systems at high altitudes at polar latitudes,that are considered at risk except during the most powerful storms.
DURHAM, N.C. -- By measuring the unique properties of light on the scale of a single atom, researchers from Duke University and Imperial College, London, believe that they have characterized the limits of metal's ability in devices that enhance light.
This field is known as plasmonics because scientists are trying to take advantage of plasmons, electrons that have been "excited" by light in a phenomenon that produces electromagnetic field enhancement. The enhancement achieved by metals at the nanoscale is significantly higher than that achievable with any other material.
CHESTNUT HILL, MA (Aug. 31, 2012) Viewed as a potential target in the global effort to reduce climate change, atmospheric black carbon particles absorb significantly less sunlight than scientists predicted, raising new questions about the impact of black carbon on atmospheric warming, an international team of researchers, including climate chemists from Boston College, report today in the latest edition of the journal Science.
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Up to 4 percent of the methane on Earth comes from the ocean's oxygen-rich waters, but scientists have been unable to identify the source of this potent greenhouse gas. Now researchers report that they have found the culprit: a bit of "weird chemistry" practiced by the most abundant microbes on the planet.
The findings appear in the journal Science.
Fungi found in plants may not be the answer to mitigating climate change by storing additional carbon in soils as some previously thought, according to an international team of plant biologists.
Leipzig. More than 250 international scientists will be meeting in the first week of September in Leipzig to share their experiences on the latest methods and applications using stable isotopes. Stable isotopes are a tool that can be used in a wide range of areas in natural sciences and medicine as, with their help, it is possible to establish the origin of substances, and dynamic processes can be made visible.