In a study of the effects of increasing climate temperatures on the toxicity of 3 contaminants in different fish species, researchers found that all pesticides and industrial contaminants studied--endosulfan, chlorpyrifos, and phenol--became toxic in the upper 5oC range of species' temperature tolerance.
Earth
Every year, typhoons over the western North Pacific – the equivalent to hurricanes in the North Atlantic – cause considerable damage in East and Southeast Asia.
Male moths locate females by navigating along the latter's pheromone (odor) plume, often flying hundreds of meters to do so. Two strategies are involved to accomplish this: males must find the outer envelope of the pheromone plume, and then head upwind.
Can understanding such insect behavior be useful for robotics research? Yes, according to two entomologists whose research using computer simulations shows that such insect behavior has implications for airborne robots (drones) that ply the sky searching for signature odors.
Like a dairy farmer tending to a herd of cows to produce milk, researchers are tending to colonies of the bacteria Escherichia coli (E. coli) to produce new forms of antibiotics -- including three that show promise in fighting drug-resistant bacteria.
The recent floods in Texas have caused some of the worst flooding since Hurricane Ike in 2008, causing the rainiest month in the state's history.
What lessons have been learned from Ike's devastation of the Galveston and Houston area, and how have they helped in the prediction of future such storms?
A team of engineers have created tiny acoustic vortices and used them to grip and spin microscopic particles suspended in water.
The research by academics from the University of Bristol's Department of Mechanical Engineering and Northwestern Polytechnical University in China, is published in Physical Review Letters. The researchers have shown that acoustic vortices act like tornados of sound, causing microparticles to rotate and drawing them to the vortex core. Like a tornado, what happens to the particles depends strongly on their size.
Prostate cancer is the second most common type of cancer in men and is predicted to result in an estimated 220,00 cases in the United States in 2015. In recent years, an emphasis has been placed on chemoprevention - the use of agents to prevent the development or progression of prostate cancer. A team of researchers led by Nagi B. Kumar, Ph.D., R.D., F.A.D.A. at Moffitt Cancer Center recently published results of a randomized trial that assessed the safety and effectiveness of the active components in green tea to prevent prostate cancer development in men who have premalignant lesions.
Men and women often enter relationships with different long-term goals. In the animal world, differences in approaches to reproductive success can lead to sexual conflict.
Male fruit flies, for example, transfer proteins during mating that can alter the timing of a female's egg laying and her tendency to later mate with other males. Some of these male-derived proteins also migrate from the female's reproductive tract to her brain.
The American eel has been a concern for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service since 2007, when it was first considered for, but failed to receive, Endangered Species Act protection. The numbers of these slender, slimy, ancient fish in freshwater areas have been decreasing rapidly due to dams, pollution, and overfishing, but scientists have been puzzled as to why the fish can't recolonize.
They are the original globe trekkers. From spiders bunking along with humanity’s spread into south-eastern Asia, to sea squirts hopping on military craft returning after the Korean War, invasive species have enveloped the globe.
About 2.5 billion people worldwide don't have access to sanitary toilets. Latrines are an option for many of those people, but these facilities' overwhelming odors can deter users, who then defecate outdoors instead. To improve this situation, fragrance scientists paired experts' noses and analytical instruments to determine the odor profiles of latrines with the aim of countering the offensive stench. Their report appears in the ACS journal Environmental Science & Technology.
Despite previous findings suggesting a link between soy intake and decreased asthma severity, a new study from Northwestern Medicine and the American Lung Association Asthma Clinical Research Network shows soy supplements do not improve lung function for patients with asthma.
The paper, published May 26 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), highlights the importance of focusing on overall health to manage disease, rather than individual strategies such as increasing soy consumption, according to the authors.
A global-scale study has estimated how forest emitted compounds affecting cloud seeds via formation of low-volatility vapours. According to the latest projections, terrestrial vegetation emits several million tons of extremely low-volatility organic compounds (ELVOCs) per year to the atmosphere.
When the conversation turns to the weather and the climate, most people's thoughts naturally drift upward toward the clouds, but Jessica Oster's sink down into the subterranean world of stalactites and stalagmites.
That is because the assistant professor of earth and environmental sciences at Vanderbilt University is a member of a small group of earth scientists who are pioneering in the use of mineral cave deposits, collectively known as speleothems, as proxies for the prehistoric climate.
Aitana Lertxundi has conducted her research work within the framework of the INma (Childhood and Environment) programme led by Jesús Ibarluzea of the Department of Health of the Government of the Basque Autonomous Community (region). The aim is to assess how exposure to environmental pollution during pregnancy affects health and also to examine the role of diet in physical and neurobehavioural development in infancy.