URBANA – Wet conditions have Illinois pumpkin growers on the alert for signs of Phytophthora blight in their fields. This disease nearly destroyed the pumpkin industry in 1999, causing up to 100 percent crop losses in parts of the state. While it's not a new disease to this industry, it is the most devastating and it's already showing up in Illinois.
UK scientists have created the first convincing robotic fish that shoals will accept as one of their own. The innovation opens up new possibilities for studying fish behaviour and group dynamics, which provides useful information to support freshwater and marine environmental management, to predict fish migration routes and assess the likely impact of human intervention on fish populations.
Rome, Italy: Women of different ages differ in their reasons for wishing to undergo egg freezing, show two studies presented to the 26th annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology today (Monday). A large number of female university students would be prepared to undertake egg freezing in an attempt to combine career success and motherhood, said Dr.
Rome, Italy: Being overweight leads to a greater risk of miscarriage for patients undergoing assisted reproductive technology (ART), the 26th annual conference of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology heard today (Monday). Dr. Vivian Rittenberg, a Clinical Fellow in the Assisted Conception Unit, Guy's and St. Thomas' Hospital NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK, said that her research provided additional evidence to show that increased body mass index (BMI) was independently associated with a higher miscarriage rate after IVF or ICSI treatment.
PHILADELPHIA, PA (June 28, 2010)—A revered botanist at the Academy of Natural Sciences who first profiled and then named the delta bulrush says the plant has natural properties that could help reduce the impact of the Gulf oil spill on the Mississippi delta.
Dr. Alfred Ernest Schuyler, the Academy's curator emeritus of botany and a prominent botanist in the international science community, is urging all sides involved in the crisis to give this slender sedge family member a hard look as they weigh their spill-fighting strategies.
They make you itch and they are hard to find but scientists have got the body louse well and truly in their sights.
MADISON, WI, June 28th, 2010 – A one-time tillage has no adverse effects on yield or soil properties on no-till land, according to field research conducted at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Although tillage is another expense for farmers and generally increases the risk of soil erosion, a one-time tillage may be performed to correct some problem, such as a perennial weed problem.
The idea to sequester carbon is gaining support as a way to avoid global warming. For example, the European Union plans to invest billions of Euros within the next ten years to develop carbon capture and storage whereby CO2 will be extracted at power plants and other combustion sites and stored underground. But how effective is this procedure and what are the long-term consequences of leakage for the oceans and climate? A Niels Bohr Institute researcher has now cast light upon these issues. This research has just been published in the scientific journal, Nature Geoscience.
There are now two major hurricanes in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and they appear to be chasing each other in imagery from the GOES-13 satellite. Hurricane Celia is a Category Five hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, and Hurricane Darby to Celia's east has just become a Category Three hurricane (a major hurricane).
OAK RIDGE, Tenn., June 25, 2010 -- Scientists at the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory are planning a large-scale, long-term ecosystem experiment to test the effects of global warming on the icy layers of arctic permafrost.
While ORNL researchers have conducted extensive studies on the impact of climate change in temperate regions like East Tennessee, less is known about the impact global warming could have on arctic regions.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Physical Society, a leading organization of physicists, presses congressional leaders to increase research investments for future energy technologies that will strengthen energy security and reduce the likelihood of disastrous effects associated with fossil fuel exploration as evidenced by the BP oil spill.
High-charge-state ions in a molecule cause strong Coulomb forces, repulsive forces that try to blow its atoms apart. But the research team's crucial finding was that a way to produce only lower charge states in nitrogen molecules is with shorter pulse lengths, even though their peak power is higher.
Without aggressive action to reduce soot emissions, the time table for carbon dioxide emission reductions may need to be significantly accelerated in order to achieve international climate policy goals such as those set forth in last December's Copenhagen Accord, according to "Assessing the climatic benefits of black carbon mitigation," a study published online June 21 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The larvae of Diabrotica virgifera virgifera beetles wreak havoc on maize. Feasting on the plants' roots, they are estimated to cause $1 billion of damage every year in the US. Ted Turlings from the University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland, explains that the pest, known as western corn rootworm, only arrived in Serbia in the 1990s, but since then it has marched through at least 11 European countries.
