Microbial communities in urban waterways have the potential to play an important role in cleansing Singapore's waterways and also act as raw water quality indicators. A study found that canals designed to channel rainwater host microbial communities that could remove and neutralise organic pollutants in raw water. These organic pollutants are currently at trace levels in raw water - well below the United States-Environmental Protection Agency (US-EPA) drinking water standards - which is removed during water treatment processes.
Earth
Typhoon Dolphin passed through the Northern Marianas today just to the north of Guam with sustained winds estimated at 95 knots (~109 mph) by the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC). The center passed through the Rota Channel less than about 25 miles from the northern tip of Guam, close enough for the southern half of the eye wall to rake the northern part of the island with powerful winds.
A wind gust of 106 mph was reported at Andersen Air Force Base located on the northeast corner of Guam. Maximum wave height is 35 feet.
We all know intuitively that normal liquids flow more quickly as the channel containing them tightens. Think of a river flowing through narrow rapids.
But what if a pipe were so amazingly tiny that only a few atoms of superfluid helium could squeeze through its opening at once? According to a longstanding quantum-mechanics model, the superfluid helium would behave differently from a normal liquid: far from speeding up, it would actually slow down.
Investigators found that nearly half of the 50 chicken meat samples purchased from supermarkets, street markets, and butchers in Austria contained viruses that are capable of transferring antibiotic resistance genes from one bacterium to another--or from one species to another. "Our work suggests that such transfer could spread antibiotic resistance in environments such as food production units and hospitals and clinics," said corresponding author Friederike Hilbert, DVM.
A new report shows that varying groundwater levels in valleys throughout California, balanced by water imported via the State Water Project and the federal Central Valley Project, are more important than people realize.
More than half of popular probiotics contain traces of gluten, according to an analysis performed by investigators at the Celiac Disease Center at Columbia University Medical Center (CUMC). Tests on 22 top-selling probiotics revealed that 12 of them (or 55%) had detectable gluten.
A new work based on 3-D supercomputer simulations of earthquake data has found hidden rock structures deep under East Asia. Researchers from China, Canada, and the U.S. worked together to publish their results in March 2015 in the American Geophysical Union Journal of Geophysical Research, Solid Earth.
The scientists used seismic data from 227 East Asia earthquakes during 2007-2011, which they used to image depths to about 900 kilometers, or about 560 miles below ground.
New research by NOAA Fisheries has revealed the opah, or moonfish, as the first fully warm-blooded fish that circulates heated blood throughout its body much like mammals and birds, giving it a competitive advantage in the cold ocean depths.
The silvery fish, roughly the size of a large automobile tire, is known from oceans around the world and dwells hundreds of feet beneath the surface in chilly, dimly lit waters. It swims by rapidly flapping its large, red pectoral fins like wings through the water.
Phosphorus is one of the most common substances on Earth. An essential nutrient for every living organism--humans require approximately 700 milligrams per day--we are rarely concerned about consuming enough of it because it is present in most of the foods we eat. Despite its ubiquity and living organisms' utter dependence on it, we know surprisingly little about how it moves, or cycles, through the ocean environment.
Two generations ago there was a lot of doom and gloom about food but the obesity epidemic worldwide shows we have solved that problem, if not the distribution one. Bridging to a carbon-free future may not need to be done in a panic either, according to a paper in Biogeosciences. The model affirms other models stating that as carbon emissions continue to climb, so too has the Earth's capacity to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
About half of the emissions of CO2 each year remain in the atmosphere; the other half is taken up by the ecosystems on land and the oceans.
Scientists have made an important step towards understanding how volcanic eruptions happen, after identifying a previously unrecognised potential trigger.
An international team of researchers from the University of Liverpool, Monash University and the University of Newcastle (Australia) think their findings could lead to new ways of interpreting signs of volcanic unrest measured by satellites and surface observations.
The United States remains mired in an economic downturn, with over 90 million unemployed and many of the employed making less than they made before 2009. The knock-on effects of the economic downturn have been explored in economy and psychology. Now researchers are examining the effects of unemployment on an even darker subject - cancer mortality.
One would think that dealing with unemployment was challenge enough. But according to the latest research published in ecancermedicalscience, rises in unemployment are associated with significant increases in prostate cancer mortality.
Researchers have published results in Environmental Research Letters confirming strong warming in the upper troposphere, known colloquially as the tropospheric hotspot. The hot has been long expected as part of global warming theory and appears in many global climate models.
The inability to detect this hotspot previously has been used by those who doubt man-made global warming to suggest climate change is not occurring as a result of increasing carbon dioxide emissions.
People living or working near active natural gas wells may be exposed to certain pollutants at higher levels than the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe for lifetime exposure, according to scientists from Oregon State University and the University of Cincinnati.
Lemur girls behave more like the guys, thanks to a little testosterone, according to a new study.
Males rule in most of the animal world. But when it comes to conventional gender roles, lemurs -- distant primate cousins of ours -- buck the trend.