Month: January 2017

  • Fruit flies yield clues on cancerous tumor hotspots

    Florida State University researchers have found that the epithelial tissues that line the surfaces of organs throughout the body intrinsically have hot spots for cancerous tumors.

  • DNA analysis of seawater detects 80% of fish species in just one day

    A Japanese research group has used a new technology that identifies multiple fish species populating local areas by analyzing DNA samples from seawater, and proved that this method is accurate and more effective than visual observation.This research was carried out as part of the Japan Science and Technology Strategic Basic Research Programs by a group…

  • Getting the Measure of Sustainable Economic Growth

    The new Index of Sustainable Economic Growth shows there is a shift to strike a healthier balance between support for the economy, and care for essential social and environmental systems. But can it ever replace GDP as a measure of progress? 

  • Study: How Climate Change Threatens Mountaintops (and Clean Water)

    Mountains are far more than rocks. They also confer various natural benefits—for example, about half of the world’s drinking water filters through their high-elevation forests, plants, and soils.Now, a new, first-of-its kind study, in the journal Nature, shows how these mountain ecosystems around the globe may be threatened by climate change.Rising temperatures over the next decades…

  • Climate models may underestimate future warming on tropical mountains

    In few places are the effects of climate change more pronounced than on tropical peaks like Mount Kilimanjaro and Mount Kenya, where centuries-old glaciers have all but melted completely away. Now, new research suggests that future warming on these peaks could be even greater than climate models currently predict.Researchers led by a Brown University geologist…

  • NASA Studies Cosmic Radiation to Protect High-Altitude Travelers

    NASA scientists studying high-altitude radiation recently published new results on the effects of cosmic radiation in our atmosphere. Their research will help improve real-time radiation monitoring for aviation industry crew and passengers working in potentially higher radiation environments. Imagine you’re sitting on an airplane. Cruising through the stratosphere at 36,000 feet, you’re well above the clouds…

  • NASA Sees Development of Tropical Cyclone 3S along Western Australia's Coast

    A NASA satellite provided a look at heavy rainfall occurring in a tropical low pressure system as it was consolidating and strengthening into what became Tropical Storm 3S in Southwest Indian Ocean.On January 26 the Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) warned that System 90P, a low pressure area moving westward over northwestern Australia would strengthen…

  • 100% renewable energy sources require overcapacity

    Germany decided to go nuclear-free by 2022. A CO2-emission-free electricity supply system based on intermittent sources, such as wind and solar – or photovoltaic (PV) – power could replace nuclear power. However, these sources depend on the weather conditions.In a new study published in EPJ Plus, Fritz Wagner from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Germany…

  • Globe-trotting pollutants raise some cancer risks four times higher than predicted

    A new way of looking at how pollutants ride through the atmosphere has quadrupled the estimate of global lung cancer risk from a pollutant caused by combustion, to a level that is now double the allowable limit recommended by the World Health Organization.The findings, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of…

  • Toxic Mercury in Aquatic Life Could Spike with Greater Land Runoff

    A highly toxic form of mercury could jump by 300 to 600 percent in zooplankton – tiny animals at the base of the marine food chain – if land runoff increases by 15 to 30 percent, according to a new study.And such an increase is possible due to climate change, according to the pioneering study by Rutgers…