The prolonged heat wave that has bathed the UK in sunshine over the past month has given the country an unexpected taste of summer that has seemed to be missing in recent years.
However, a new study published today, 24 July, in IOP Publishing's Environmental Research Letters, has provided warnings that will chime with those accustomed to more typical British weather.
In many plants, flowers occur in inflorescences, clusters that develop through almost mathematical branching patterns. These patterns strongly impact the size and number of seeds and the success of pollination, which is why they are often conserved by natural selection over long evolutionary periods. But Elizabeth Kellogg from the University of Missouri, together with colleagues from Brazil, the UK, and Australia, here shows that around 40 million years ago there was an abrupt evolutionary transition in the branching pattern of inflorescences of cool-season grasses (subfamily Pooideae).
A simple, low-cost and eco-friendly method of creating nitrogen-doped graphene nanoplatelets (NGnPs), which could be used in dye-sensitized solar cells and fuel cells, is published in Scientific Reports today. The work, carried out at Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) in South Korea, could be a step towards replacing conventional platinum (Pt)-based catalysts for energy conversion.
Protons, as positively charged hydrogen ions, move very rapidly in water from one water molecule to the next, which is why the conductivity of water is relatively high. The principle of proton conduction in water has been known for 200 years and is named the Grotthuss mechanism after its discoverer, Theodor Grotthuss. It is based on the assumption that it is not that a single specific proton moving from one molecule to another; instead, there is cleavage of bonds.
In 2006 the island of Java, Indonesia was struck by a devastating earthquake followed by the onset of a mud eruption to the east, flooding villages over several square kilometers and that continues to erupt today. Until now, researchers believed the earthquake was too far from the mud volcano to trigger the eruption. Geophysicists at the University of Bonn, Germany and ETH Zurich, Switzerland use computer-based simulations to show that such triggering is possible over long distances. The results have been published in "Nature Geoscience."
Rising temperatures, influenced by natural events such as El Niño, have a corresponding increase in the release of carbon dioxide from tropical forest ecosystems, according to a new study out today.
Scientists from the Universities of Stirling, Oxford, Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society warn that current hunting trends in Central African forests could result in complete ecological collapse.
The authors maintain that the current rate of unsustainable hunting of forest elephants, gorillas and other seed-dispersing species threatens the ability of forest ecosystems to regenerate, and that landscape-wide hunting management plans are needed to avoid an environmental catastrophe.
Australian scientists have identified causes of a rapid warming in the upper subtropical oceans of the Southern Hemisphere.
They partly attribute the observed warming, and preceding cooling trends to ocean circulation changes induced by global greenhouse gas emissions and aerosols predominantly generated in the Northern Hemisphere from human activity.
The research, by scientists from CSIRO and the University of NSW, was published today in Scientific Reports.
Washington, DC—A team of researchers has for the first time mapped the above ground carbon density of an entire country in high fidelity. They integrated field data with satellite imagery and high-resolution airborne Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data to map the vegetation and to quantify carbon stocks throughout the Republic of Panama. The results are the first maps that report carbon stocks locally in areas as small as a hectare (2.5 acres) and yet cover millions of hectares in a short time.
Researchers at The University of Texas at Austin have discovered a new chemical reaction that has the potential to lower the cost and streamline the manufacture of compounds ranging from agricultural chemicals to pharmaceutical drugs.
The reaction resolves a long-standing challenge in organic chemistry in creating phenolic compounds from aromatic hydrocarbons quickly and cheaply.
ANN ARBOR—In events that could exacerbate sea level rise over the coming decades, stretches of ice on the coasts of Antarctica and Greenland are at risk of rapidly cracking apart and falling into the ocean, according to new iceberg calving simulations from the University of Michigan.
CORVALLIS, Ore. – A new study has found that heat waves are increasing in the western portions of the Pacific Northwest, but not the kind most people envision, with scorching hot days of temperatures reaching triple digits.
These heat waves occur at night.
The East Antarctic Ice Sheet repeatedly melted back several hundred miles inland during several warming periods 3 million to 5 million years ago in the Pliocene Epoch, according to a new study in the journal Nature Geoscience.
While most of the West Antarctica and Greenland ice sheets are thought to have melted during this time, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet was considered more stable due to its larger size and higher elevation. The study shows that the East Antarctic ice sheet is also vulnerable to substantial melting under warmer climates than today.
Global efforts to adapt staple foods like rice, wheat and potato to climate change have been given a major boost today as new research shows the whereabouts of their wild cousins –which could hold beneficial qualities to help improve crops and make them more productive and resilient.
Deforestation in parts of Africa could be reversed with changes to land use, a study suggests.
A more strategic approach to managing trees across the continent could have a positive impact on the changing climate, researchers say.
A pioneering study of African savannas by the University of Edinburgh has revealed deforestation in south-central Africa, driven by rising populations in the aftermath of war, and increasing demand for trees for agriculture and fuel.