Month: January 2014

  • Newly Discovered Modifier Protein Could Stimulate Plant Growth Under Environmental Stress

    Whether or not you have a green thumb, if a plant is not completely happy with the right about of water, sunlight, or even the right make-up of soil, plants will slow their growth or even stop growing altogether in order to save energy. But according to new research led by scientists at Durham University,…

  • Economic benefits of reducing nitrogen pollution

    Falling levels of nitrogen in the atmosphere across Europe may be much more economically beneficial than previously believed, according to a recent study. Indeed, scientists think the UK alone benefits by around £65 million a year. Levels of atmospheric nitrogen have fallen by around a quarter in Europe since 1990, mostly because of tighter rules…

  • New Research Uses Popular Literature to Study Climate Change

    Walden Pond isn’t just the site of Henry David Thoreau’s two-year stint in which he documented a more simple, natural life, it is now the subject of a climate change study that shows how leaf-out times of trees and shrubs have changed since the 1850s. As a result of Thoreau’s observations, researchers at Boston University…

  • Popularity of plug-in vehicles on the rise

    Good news for those living at the intersection of manufacturing and environmentalism. Here in the U.S., sales of plug-in electric and hybrid vehicles almost doubled between 2012 and 2013 with an 84 percent jump to 96,600 of the vehicles sold. That’s 49,000 plug-in hybrids (like the Volt) and 47,600 pure battery powered plug-in vehicles sold.

  • West Virginia Chemical Spill Still Disrupting Local Infrastructure

    Think of it as another practice run for local and federal crisis management. The chemical spill into the Elk River that breached the containment walls of one of Charleston, W.Va’s largest industries last week has closed schools, stopped commercial flights and converted the state capitol’s downtown core to a “ghost town.” It’s also painted an…

  • Pine Island Glacier is shrinking

    Pine Island Glacier, the largest single contributor to sea-level rise in Antarctica, has started shrinking, say scientists. The work, published in Nature Climate Change, shows the glacier’s retreat may have begun an irreversible process that could see the amount of water it is adding to the ocean increase five-fold. ‘At the Pine Island Glacier we…

  • How plants respond to climate change

    Swiss plants, butterflies and birds have moved 8 to 42 meters uphill between 2003 and 2010, as scientists from the University of Basel write in the online journal PLoS One. Climate warming is changing the distribution of plants and animals worldwide. Recently it was shown that in the past two decades, European bird and butterfly…

  • State Officials Warn Climate Impact Predictions may be Worsening

    The situation looks grim for Rhode Island and the rest of the East Coast when it come to climate change. In fact, the outlook is getting worse, according to state officials. Grover Fugate, head of the Rhode Island Coastal Resources Management Council (CRMC) and the face of the state’s climate research and planning, recently said…

  • Tree Island restoration

    Worldwide, large swaths of land lay barren in the wake of agricultural expansion, and as global forest cover continues to decline, carbon and water cycles, biodiversity, and human health are impacted. But efforts to restore abandoned pastures and agricultural plots back into functioning forest ecosystems are often hindered by high costs and time requirements. Fortunately,…

  • West African Lion Faces Extinction

    To many, the mighty lion is the face of African wildlife and one of the most recognized predators across the world. But despite sitting on top of the food chain, the lion is a vulnerable species and a new report concludes that the African lion is facing extinction across the entire West African region. The…