CHAMPAIGN, Ill. – The Obama administration's decision to maintain a ban on oil drilling in the eastern Gulf of Mexico and off the Atlantic and Pacific coasts is a mistake, according to a University of Illinois expert who wrote a six-volume book series on marine pollution.
UPTON, NY - One big challenge in converting plants to biofuels is that the very same molecules that keep plants standing up make it hard to break them down. Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory are unraveling details of how plant cells' structural supports - their cell walls - are made, with the hope of finding ways to change their composition for more efficient biofuel production.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — December 9, 2010 — A new collaborative paper by economist Richard Easterlin — namesake of the "Easterlin Paradox" and founder of the field of happiness studies — offers the broadest range of evidence to date demonstrating that a higher rate of economic growth does not result in a greater increase of happiness.
Across a worldwide sample of 37 countries, rich and poor, ex-Communist and capitalist, Easterlin and his co-authors shows strikingly consistent results: over the long term, a sense of well-being within a country does not go up with income.
TEMPE, Ariz. – In 1986, Marc Reisner published "Cadillac Desert: The American West and its disappearing water," a foundational work about the long-term environmental costs of U.S. western state's water projects and land development. It sounded an alarm about the direction of the American West and how it was using its most precious resource. Now it all appears to becoming true.
A new UC Davis study contradicts earlier reports that salmon farms were responsible for the 2002 population crash of wild pink salmon in the Broughton Archipelago of western Canada.
The Broughton crash has become a rallying event for people concerned about the potential environmental effects of open-net salmon farming, which has become a $10 billion industry worldwide, producing nearly 1.5 million tons of fish annually.
DURHAM, N.C. – A key focus of the health care debate has involved immigrants and their impact on the U.S. health care system.
A new study shows that Mexican Americans most integrated into the culture -- including those born in the United States -- are more likely to require resources to manage their health conditions than more recent immigrants to the U.S., according to researchers at Duke University, Rice University and the University of Colorado Denver.
PITTSBURGH—How much is that new computer server contributing to your company's carbon footprint? What about the laptop you bought your child for Christmas? As it turns out, answering those questions may be more difficult than you might think.
The results of a recent study by Carnegie Mellon's Christopher Weber found that the calculation of carbon footprints for products is often riddled with large uncertainties, particularly related to the use of electronic goods.
It's too early to say whether tidal turbines could harm fish in this way, Javaherchi said. The existing model uses the blade geometry from a wind turbine.
"The competition between the companies is very tight and they are hesitant to share the designs," Javaherchi said.
Primary school children who don't like eating fruit and vegetables are 13 times more likely to develop functional constipation than children who do, according to a study in the December issue of the Journal of Clinical Nursing. Drinking less than 400ml of fluid a day also significantly increases the risk.
Dr Moon Fai Chan, assistant professor at the National University of Singapore, teamed up with Yuk Ling Chan, from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, to study the diet and toileting habits of 383 children aged from eight to ten from a school in Hong Kong.
Harnessing the power of ocean tides has long been imagined, but countries are only now putting it into practice. A demonstration project planned for Puget Sound will be the first tidal energy project on the west coast of the United States, and the first array of large-scale turbines to feed power from ocean tides into an electrical grid.
Blocking fragments of the sugar molecule hyaluronan that triggers inflammation could be the key to robust healing and less scarring in deep wounds, Canadian researchers reported at the American Society for Cell Biology's 50th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia.
In laboratory rats, the small peptide, named 15-1, which blocks fragments of the ubiquitous sugar molecule, hyaluronan, promoted wound healing, minimized scarring and forged stronger new tissue.
Bees can see colours but they perceive the world differently to us, including variations in hue that we cannot ourselves distinguish.
