The parasitic flowering plant Striga, or "witchweed," attacks the roots of host plants, draining needed water and nutrients and leaving them unable to grow and produce any grains. Witchweed is endemic throughout sub-Saharan Africa, causing crop losses that surpass hundreds of millions of dollars annually and exacerbating food shortages in the region.
Among the crops heavily parasitized by witchweed is black-eyed pea, known in Africa as "cowpea" or "niebe" in Francophone countries.
Ice, when heated, is supposed to melt.
That's why a collection of glaciers in the Southeast Himalayas stymies those who know what they did 9,000 years ago. While most other Central Asian glaciers retreated under hotter summer temperatures, this group of glaciers advanced from one to six kilometers.
A new study by BYU geologist Summer Rupper pieces together the chain of events surrounding the unexpected glacial growth.
Tropical Storm Ignacio may not be alone in the Eastern Pacific Ocean for long. Two areas of showers and thunderstorms that forecasters and the GOES-11 satellite are watching for development, have sprung up.
NASA's infrared satellite imagery indicates that Tropical Storm Ignacio still had some punch left in him, but that won't be the case for long.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has issued three new certified reference materials for soil. Intended for use as controls in testing laboratories, the new Standard Reference Materials (SRMs)—gathered from the San Joaquin Valley in California and from sites near Butte and Helena in Montana—will aid in determining soil quality, detecting soil contamination, and monitoring cleanup efforts from accidental spills or atmospheric deposition.
An international research effort on the Greenland ice sheet with the University of Colorado at Boulder as the lead U.S. institution set a record for single-season deep ice-core drilling this summer, recovering more than a mile of ice core that is expected to help scientists better assess the risks of abrupt climate change in the future.
An area of low pressure east of the Bahamas has now powered up into Tropical Storm Danny, his strengthening thunderstorms are captured in infrared imagery. Danny came together this morning, August 26, and was classified as a tropical storm at 11 a.m. EDT.
The National Hurricane Center said this morning that "interests in the Bahamas and the southeastern United States should monitor the progress of Danny."
The remnants from Typhoon Vamco are sweeping over Alaska's Aleutian Island chain today and tomorrow, and high wind warnings have been posted by the National Weather Service.
South of Hawaii, Hilda is holding on to tropical storm force winds, and continues to head south of the Islands. NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission satellite noticed some moderate rainfall in Hilda's center earlier today, but the storm is staying far enough away from Hawaii to not cause trouble for travelers and vacationers.
More than 30 years of monsoon data from India showed that ground moisture where the storms make landfall is a major indicator of what the storm will do from there. If the ground is wet, the storm is likely to sustain, while dry conditions should calm the storm.
New research announced at the International Water in a Changing Climate Science Conference in Melbourne 24-28 August, implicates pollution from Asia, Europe and North America as a contributor to recent Australian rainfall changes. Australian scientists using a climate model that includes a treatment of tiny particles – or aerosols – report that the build up of these particles in the northern hemisphere affects their simulation of recent climate change in the southern hemisphere, including rainfall in Australia.
New Haven, Conn.—Known for their wide variety of vibrant plumage, birds have evolved various chemical and physical mechanisms to produce these beautiful colors over millions of years. A team of paleontologists and ornithologists led by Yale University has now discovered evidence of vivid iridescent colors in feather fossils more than 40 million years old.
The finding, published online August 26 in Biology Letters, signifies the first evidence of a preserved color-producing nanostructure in a fossilized feather.
Warmer ocean temperatures could mean dramatic shifts in the structure of underwater food webs and the abundance of marine life, according to a new study by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Until now, little has been known about how changes in temperatures might affect the total productivity and growth of all marine consumers (such as animals, fungi and bacteria) relative to their prey (including algae and plants).
From mid July to early August 2006, a heat wave swept through the southwestern United States. Temperature records were broken at many locations and unusually high humidity levels for this typically arid region led to the deaths of more than 600 people, 25,000 cattle and 70,000 poultry in California alone.
(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– New research by scientists at UC Santa Barbara indicates a possible Antarctic location for ice that seemed to be missing at a key point in climate history 34 million years ago. The research, which has important implications for climate change, is described in a paper published today in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.
Tropical lizards detect the effects of global warming in a climate where the smallest change makes a big difference, according to herpetologist Laurie Vitt, curator of reptiles and George Lynn Cross Research Professor at the University of Oklahoma's Sam Noble Museum of Natural History. Climate change caused by global warming threatens the very existence of these and other tropical species, the ecosystem and its by-products, Vitt maintains.