Those who take long showers use a great deal of water and energy. Yet people who enjoy taking long showers do not usually realize to what extent they are damaging the environment. However, if a clever measuring system shows current consumption, this immediately leads to increased efficiency. The consumption information available on the display is…

A brown cloud of air pollution now frequently shrouds much of northern India. It’s a growing regional health and environmental problem, and scientists are working to understand its many causes, which range from the burning of agricultural waste to auto emissions.

Ed Rivero-Valentin grew up in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, less than 15 minutes away from the jungle home of a 1,000-foot-wide radio telescope. When he was four or five, his parents brought him to the observatory for the first time. He saw the telescope’s mesh dish, resting inside a huge sinkhole in the soft rock formations that…

Geographer Tim DeVries and colleagues determine why the ocean has absorbed more carbon over the past decade. 

Building the wall that Donald Trump has ordered on January 25th, as one of his first actions as US president, will put on risk more than 50 animal species that share the ecosystem along the border between the United States and Mexico, scientists from various countries have warned. Since 2006, 1,100 kilometers of barriers covering more…

We’ve all known for a long time that eating fast food is bad for you. It’s greasy, fatty, high in sodium and the calorie count is obscene. Now comes news that even the packaging that food comes in might be dangerous to your health.A new study found dangerous chemical compounds in almost half of the 400 fast food containers it…

A researcher in the College of Arts and Sciences is providing fresh insights into the “Great Oxidation Event” (GOE), in which oxygen first appeared in the Earth’s atmosphere more than 2.3 billion years ago. 

The search for life beyond Earth starts in habitable zones, the regions around stars where conditions could potentially allow liquid water – which is essential for life as we know it – to pool on a planet’s surface. New NASA research suggests some of these zones might not actually be able to support life due…

York University biologist and bee expert, Professor Amro Zayed, continues to produce and publish original research of global importance. This time, he has contributed a news and views article in Nature (November 2016) that puts into context the work of an Australian researcher who discovered how natural selection allows an invader bee population to overcome the…

Latino children who live in areas with higher levels of air pollution have a heightened risk of developing Type 2 diabetes, according to a new USC-led study.Scientists tracked children’s health and respective levels of residential air pollution for about 3.5 years before associating chronic unhealthy air exposure to a breakdown in beta cells, special pancreatic…