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Team gathers unprecedented data on atmosphere's organic chemistry
For a few weeks over the summer in 2011, teams of scientists from around the world converged on a small patch of ponderosa pine forest in Colorado to carry out one of the most detailed, extended survey of atmospheric chemistry ever attempted in one place, in many cases using new measurement devices created especially for…
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NASA Finds Jose Strengthening into a Hurricane
The Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM core satellite has been providing rainfall rates and cloud heights in tropical cyclones, and recently found towering thunderstorms that indicated strengthening in Tropical Storm Jose. Those "hot towers" were an indication the storm was strengthening and it later became a hurricane.
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Researchers develop cheaper, faster test for E. coli in drinking water
Researchers at the University of Waterloo have invented a fast, affordable way for developing communities to test their drinking water for potentially deadly E. coli.Unlike current tests that cost about $70 and can take up to three days to get back from the lab, the Waterloo invention uses paper strips similar to those in litmus…
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Unprecedented levels of nitrogen could pose risks to Earth's environment
Human production of fixed nitrogen, used mostly to fertilize crops, now accounts for about half of the total fixed nitrogen added to the Earth both on land and in the oceans.
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Eighteenth century nautical charts reveal coral loss
Centuries-old nautical charts, mapped by long-deceased sailors to avoid shipwrecks, have been used by modern scientists to study loss of coral reefs.
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First measurements of iodine in the Arctic reveal questions about air pollution
New measurements of molecular iodine in the Arctic show that even a tiny amount of the element can deplete ozone in the lower atmosphere.
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Wildfire and Invasive Species Drives Increasing Size and Cost of Public Land Restoration Efforts
An examination of long-term data for lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management finds that land treatments in the southwestern United States are increasingly large, expensive and related to fire and invasive species control.The study, recently published in Restoration Ecology, reveals an extensive legacy of land management decisions and provides new insight on strategies…
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Lake Trout adjust their behaviour in the face of a changing climate
Canadian scientists have discovered that certain lake predators are altering their behaviour due to climate change, revealing what the future may hold for these fish and their food.For years scientists told tales of fish such as Lake Trout adapting their feeding behaviour as temperatures change, but no empirical evidence existed. Now, a recently completed 11-year…
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Unnatural Surveillance: How Online Data Is Putting Species at Risk
In the arid far-western region of South Africa is a vast flatland covered with white quartzite gravel known as the Knersvlakte – Afrikaans for “Gnashing Plain” – because it sounds like grinding teeth when you walk across it. It’s a good place to watch unpeopled horizons vanish into ripples of heat haze, but to appreciate…
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NASA Looks at Hurricane Irma's Heat Engine
On September 5, 2017 at 1 p.m. EDT (1700 UTC) the radar on the Global Precipitation Measuring Mission (GPM) satellite captured a 3-D view of the heat engine inside of category-5 Hurricane Irma. Under the central ring of clouds that circles the eye, water that had evaporated from the ocean surface condenses, releases heat, and powers the…