The Rocky Mountains certainly aren't known for their mild winters. But in contrast to the upper Midwest, which seems to exist in a perpetually frozen state from November through March, the plains just east of the Rockies do get an occasional reprieve from the bitter cold: the Chinook winds. When these strong, warm winds blow, they can raise temperatures as much as 50 degrees Fahrenheit and melt away the snow -- a welcome respite for residents sick of sweeping slick sidewalks and wearing puffy parkas.
Earth
It is six times more expensive for society - and for you individually - if you travel by car instead of cycling. This has been shown in a Lund University study of Copenhagen, a city of cyclists. It is the first time a price has been put on car use as compared to cycling.
Photosynthesis leaves behind a unique calling card in the form of a chemical signature that is spelled out with stable oxygen isotopes, UCLA geochemists reported April 24 in the journal Science. The findings suggest that similar isotopic signatures could exist for many biological processes, including some that are difficult to observe with current tools.
Washington wine grape vineyards experimenting with sustainable pest management systems are seeing an unexpected benefit: an increase in butterflies.
Over the years, loss in natural habitat has seen the decline in numbers of around 50 species of butterflies in eastern Washington. But in a recent Washington State University study published in the June issue of the Journal of Insect Conservation, researchers found that vineyards that create nearby natural habitats have three times the number of butterfly species and four times more butterflies than conventional vineyards.
New research has questioned the role played by ocean acidification, produced by the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs, in the extinction of ammonites and other planktonic calcifiers 66 million years ago.
Ammonites, which were free-swimming molluscs of the ancient oceans and are common fossils, went extinct at the time of the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact, as did more than 90 per cent of species of calcium carbonate-shelled plankton (coccolithophores and foraminifera).
New England's spring and summer red tides will be similar in extent to those of the past three years, according to the 2015 Gulf of Maine red tide seasonal forecast. The forecast is the eighth seasonal Gulf of Maine red tide forecast funded by NOAA and issued by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and North Carolina State University.
The forecast is part of a larger NOAA effort to deliver ecological forecasts that support human health and well-being, coastal economies, and coastal and marine stewardship.
Rydberg atoms, atoms whose outermost electrons are highly excited but not ionized, might be just the thing for processing quantum information. These outsized atoms can be sustained for a long time in a quantum superposition condition -- a good thing for creating qubits -- and they can interact strongly with other such atoms, making them useful for devising the kind of logic gates needed to process information. Scientists at JQI (*) and at other labs are pursuing this promising research area.
Research by the U.S. Forest Service at the Finger Lakes National Forest (FLNF) is exploring whether native trees can restore a degraded stream corridor and whether degraded stream corridors can help one of those native trees -- the American elm -- stage a comeback.
"Forest Service research is a vital part of keeping our rural and urban forests healthy, sustainable and more resilient to disturbances now and for future generations," said Michael T. Rains, Director of the Forest Service's Northern Research Station and the Forest Products Laboratory.
Duke University scientists have discovered a previously unknown dual mechanism that slows peat decay and may help reduce carbon dioxide emissions from peatlands during times of drought.
"This discovery could hold the key to helping us find a way to significantly reduce the risk that increased drought and global warming will change Earth's peatlands from carbon sinks into carbon sources, as many scientists have feared," said Curtis J. Richardson, director of the Duke University Wetland Center and professor of resource ecology at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.
On Sunday, May 10, 2015, Super Typhoon Noul (designated Dodong in the Philippines) made landfall in Santa Ana, a coastal town in Cagayan on the northeastern tip of the Philippine Islands. Close to 2,500 residents evacuated as the storm crossed over, and as of today no major damage or injuries have been reported.
This was no Mother's Day gift to South Carolina as Ana made landfall on Sunday. Just before 6 am, Ana made landfall north of Myrtle Beach, SC with sustained winds of 45 mph, lower than the 50 mph winds it was packing as a tropical storm over the Atlantic.
After making landfall, Ana transitioned to a tropical depression and is currently moving northward through North Carolina and will continue its trek northward. Heavy rain and storm surges are expected in the storm's wake.
Over nearly 15 years spent studying ticks, Indiana University's Keith Clay has found southern Indiana to be an oasis free from Lyme disease, the condition most associated with these arachnids that are the second most common parasitic disease vector on Earth.
He has also seen signs that this low-risk environment is changing, both in Indiana and in other regions of the U.S.
A researcher from the University of Pennsylvania has identified a species of dinosaur closely related to Velociraptor, the group of creatures made infamous by the movie "Jurassic Park." The newly named species likely possessed a keen sense of smell that would have made it a formidable predator.
Much attention has been given to dedicated, perennial bioenergy crops to meet the revised Renewable Fuel Standard mandating production of 36 billion gallons of biofuel by the year 2022. Even so, concern remains over the impending need to convert as much as 30 million acres of U.S. crop land, which would include food crops, to land for perennial energy crops in order to meet that demand.
Researchers have discovered a new gene that enables plants to regulate their growth in different temperatures.
Published in PLoS Genetics today, the finding could lead to new ways of optimising plant growth when it comes to climate change.
Associate Professor Sureshkumar Balasubramanian, from Monash University, along with colleagues in Spain, made the discovery after analysing natural populations of the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, commonly known as thale cress.