Month: May 2012

  • Stream Temperatures Don’t Parallel Warming Climate Trend

    A new analysis of streams in the western United States with long-term monitoring programs has found that despite a general increase in air temperatures over the past several decades, streams are not necessarily warming at the same rate.

  • BMI

    The body mass index (BMI) is a heuristic proxy for human body fat based on an individual’s weight and height. BMI does not actually measure the percentage of body fat. It was devised between 1830 and 1850 by the Belgian polymath Adolphe Quetelet during the course of developing “social physics”. Body mass index is defined…

  • Greenland’s Ice Melting Overestimated

    A new study has some reassuring news about how fast Greenland’s glaciers are melting away. Greenland’s glaciers hold enough water to raise sea level by 20 feet, and they are melting as the planet warms, so there’s a lot at stake. A few years ago, the Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland really caught people’s attention. In…

  • Are there toxic chemicals in your gardening equipment and supplies?

    Spring time is here and a lot of people are indulging in gardening. But did you know that there are a lot of chemicals that may be harmful to your health in your gardening supplies? According to Ann Arbor-based Ecology Center, high amounts of lead, phthalates and the toxic chemical BPA were all found in…

  • Study: Natural Gas Development Linked to Wildlife Habitat Loss

    A study by the Wildlife Conservation Society documents that intense development of the two largest natural gas fields in the continental U.S. are driving away some wildlife from their traditional wintering grounds.

  • Maharishi University of Management’s Sustainable Living Center Net Energy Producer!

    Maharishi University of Management’s new Sustainable Living Center, which opened recently, has the distinction of being one of the few net-zero energy buildings in the country—it will produce as much if not more energy than it uses. Sustainable Living Center To Be “Net-Zero Energy Building” The building is designed to eventually be completely off the…

  • GMO Labeling to Go Before Voters in California

    It doesn’t take an agricultural expert to know that you can’t grow vegetables without water. So it wasn’t surprising that after hundreds of people marching under the banner “Occupy the Farm” took over a University of California (UC) agricultural testing station on April 22, UC officials responded by shutting off water to the site. The…

  • Arabic Records Allow Past Climate to Be Reconstructed

    Corals, trees and marine sediments, among others, are direct evidence of the climate of the past, but they are not the only indicators. A team led by Spanish scientists has interpreted records written in Iraq by Arabic historians for the first time and has made a chronology of climatic events from the year 816 to…

  • What You See is What You Eat

    How can you make someone eat healthier? College students wishing to eat healthier may want to invest in a clear fruit bowl says a recent article published in Environment and Behavior. The new study found that when fruits and vegetables are within arm’s reach, students are more likely to eat them. Furthermore, making fruit and…

  • Caribbean biodiversity and the Mongoose

    In a single paper in Zootaxa scientists have rewritten the current understanding of lizard biodiversity in the Caribbean. By going over museum specimens of skinks, scientists have discovered 24 new species and re-established nine species previously described species, long-thought invalid. The single paper has increased the number of skinks in the Caribbean by 650 percent,…